National consultant for Child Protection (Social Service Workforce Strengthening), UNICEF China, Beijing (220 days)

Job no: 576384
Position type: Consultant
Location: China
Division/Equivalent: Bangkok (EAPRO), Thailand
School/Unit: China
Department/Office: Beijing, China
Categories: Child Protection

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UNICEF works in some of the world’s toughest places, to reach the world’s most disadvantaged children. To save their lives. To defend their rights. To help them fulfill their potential. 

Across 190 countries and territories, we work for every child, everywhere, every day, to build a better world for everyone. 

And we never give up. 

For every child, every Right.

UNICEF has been working closely with the Ministry of Civil Affairs (MCA) to strengthen the child protection service system in China. Since 2010, MCA has advocated for inclusion of the role of the Child Director (para social worker, also known as Barefoot Social Worker) in a number of national policies, which clearly states that each village/community should appoint at least one child director to provide services to vulnerable children. So far, MCA has achieved the appointment of over 582,000 child directors for all urban and rural communities.
Although there is a large number of child directors appointed, the majority of Child Directors are part-time practitioners without any previous experience and professional training in child protection sector. Capacity building gaps include knowledge and practical skills on how to perform the job. including home visits, safety assessment, risk identification, and policy interpretation, especially when working with the most vulnerable children and their families. Ad-hoc trainings for Child Directors tend to focus on theory, laws and policies and use lecture type methodologies. There is limited understanding on how to develop practical and skills-based training; with the training often reverting to lectures of a topic rather than more innovative approaches.
UNICEF and MCA have agreed to launch a programme to further invest in strengthening the workforce, focusing on the professionalization of the Child Directors. By developing standardized competencies and competency-based training, the project aims to develop a national training curriculum to equip child directors to identify risks, provide psychosocial first aid and assistance if required, and refer to services and if needed, as well as provide follow-up.
Requested by MCA, UNICEF is supporting the designated technical institutes to strengthen the Child Director workforce, and therefore is seeking a consultant to provide expertise and technical support to the implementation of the capacity building project for Child Directors.
Scope of Work The overall objective of this consultancy is to provide technical guidance and assistance to the national and subnational implementing partners and technical institutes in the programmes of strengthening social workforce, with a specific focus on professionalization of Child Directors (Barefoot Social Workers).

How can you make a difference? 

The consultant will provide technical inputs and support to the following: 1) Development of a standardized set of competencies for Child Directors, required for delivering child protection services and design a mechanism for supervision and support as well as performance management, which will contribute to a policy brief on strengthening Child Director workforce. 2) Development and implementation of a practical in-service training curriculum for Child Directors to build the basic professional skills to work with vulnerable children and families. 3) Five regional training workshops for master trainers of the Child Director training implemented, aiming to ensure quality roll out of the Child Director in-service training curriculum nationally.
Child Safeguarding
 
For details, please refer to Download File TOR_CP consultant_BFSW project.pdf

To qualify as an advocate for every child you will have… 

  • A Master’s or higher in Social science, social development studies, humanity or other relevant discipline. 
  • A minimum of five years of relevant work experience in child protection programming, including strengthening social service workforce, competency based training, programme planning, monitoring and evaluation;
  • Self-motivated team worker with a clear drive for results;
  • Good interpersonal skills;
  • Strong analytical skills;
  • Strong writing skills in Chinese and English;
  • Ability to work under tight deadlines and independently;
  • Ability to work in international and multicultural environment, and to work with cultural sensitivity;
  • Proficiency in the use of Microsoft Office software;

For every child, you demonstrate UNICEF values of Care, Respect, Integrity Trust, Accountability, and Sustainability (CRITAS) 

To view our competency framework, please visit  here

 UNICEF is here to serve the world’s most disadvantaged children and our global workforce must reflect the diversity of those children. The UNICEF family is committed to include everyone, irrespective of their race/ethnicity, age, disability, gender identity, sexual orientation, religion, nationality, socio-economic background, or any other personal characteristic.

UNICEF offers reasonable accommodation for consultants/individual contractors with disabilities. This may include, for example, accessible software, travel assistance for missions or personal attendants. We encourage you to disclose your disability during your application in case you need reasonable accommodation during the selection process and afterwards in your assignment. 

UNICEF has a zero-tolerance policy on conduct that is incompatible with the aims and objectives of the United Nations and UNICEF, including sexual exploitation and abuse, sexual harassment, abuse of authority and discrimination. UNICEF also adheres to strict child safeguarding principles. All selected candidates will be expected to adhere to these standards and principles and will therefore undergo rigorous reference and background checks. Background checks will include the verification of academic credential(s) and employment history. Selected candidates may be required to provide additional information to conduct a background check. 

Remarks:  

Only shortlisted candidates will be contacted and advance to the next stage of the selection process. 

Please indicate both your individual daily rate and the lump-sum amount for this assignment in your application. 

Individuals engaged under a consultancy or individual contract will not be considered “staff members” under the Staff Regulations and Rules of the United Nations and UNICEF’s policies and procedures, and will not be entitled to benefits provided therein (such as leave entitlements and medical insurance coverage). Their conditions of service will be governed by their contract and the General Conditions of Contracts for the Services of Consultants and Individual Contractors. Consultants and individual contractors are responsible for determining their tax liabilities and for the payment of any taxes and/or duties, in accordance with local or other applicable laws. 

The selected candidate is solely responsible to ensure that the visa (applicable) and health insurance required to perform the duties of the contract are valid for the entire period of the contract. Selected candidates are subject to confirmation of fully-vaccinated status against SARS-CoV-2 (Covid-19) with a World Health Organization (WHO)-endorsed vaccine, which must be met prior to taking up the assignment. It does not apply to consultants who will work remotely and are not expected to work on or visit UNICEF premises, programme delivery locations or directly interact with communities UNICEF works with, nor to travel to perform functions for UNICEF for the duration of their consultancy contracts. 

UNICEF's values of Care, Respect, Integrity, Trust, Accountability, and Sustainability (CRITAS). 

 To view our competency framework, please visit  here

 UNICEF is here to serve the world’s most disadvantaged children and our global workforce must reflect the diversity of those children. The UNICEF family is committed to include everyone, irrespective of their race/ethnicity, age, disability, gender identity, sexual orientation, religion, nationality, socio-economic background, or any other personal characteristic.

UNICEF offers reasonable accommodation for consultants/individual contractors with disabilities. This may include, for example, accessible software, travel assistance for missions or personal attendants. We encourage you to disclose your disability during your application in case you need reasonable accommodation during the selection process and afterwards in your assignment. 

UNICEF has a zero-tolerance policy on conduct that is incompatible with the aims and objectives of the United Nations and UNICEF, including sexual exploitation and abuse, sexual harassment, abuse of authority and discrimination. UNICEF also adheres to strict child safeguarding principles. All selected candidates will be expected to adhere to these standards and principles and will therefore undergo rigorous reference and background checks. Background checks will include the verification of academic credential(s) and employment history. Selected candidates may be required to provide additional information to conduct a background check. 

Remarks:  

Only shortlisted candidates will be contacted and advance to the next stage of the selection process. 

Individuals engaged under a consultancy or individual contract will not be considered “staff members” under the Staff Regulations and Rules of the United Nations and UNICEF’s policies and procedures, and will not be entitled to benefits provided therein (such as leave entitlements and medical insurance coverage). Their conditions of service will be governed by their contract and the General Conditions of Contracts for the Services of Consultants and Individual Contractors. Consultants and individual contractors are responsible for determining their tax liabilities and for the payment of any taxes and/or duties, in accordance with local or other applicable laws. 

The selected candidate is solely responsible to ensure that the visa (applicable) and health insurance required to perform the duties of the contract are valid for the entire period of the contract. Selected candidates are subject to confirmation of fully-vaccinated status against SARS-CoV-2 (Covid-19) with a World Health Organization (WHO)-endorsed vaccine, which must be met prior to taking up the assignment. It does not apply to consultants who will work remotely and are not expected to work on or visit UNICEF premises, programme delivery locations or directly interact with communities UNICEF works with, nor to travel to perform functions for UNICEF for the duration of their consultancy contracts. 

Advertised: China Standard Time
Application close: China Standard Time

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