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

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For every child, hope.

 

Consultancy Title: Communities of Practice Consultant

Section/Division/Duty Station: Education Section and Adolescent Development and Participation, UNICEF NYHQ

Duration: October 30, 2024, to October 30, 2025

Home/ Office Based: NYHQ / Remote

 

About UNICEF

If you are a committed, creative professional and are passionate about making a lasting difference for children, the world's leading children's rights organization would like to hear from you. For 70 years, UNICEF has been working on the ground in 190 countries and territories to promote children's survival, protection and development. The world's largest provider of vaccines for developing countries, UNICEF supports child health and nutrition, good water and sanitation, quality basic education for all boys and girls, and the protection of children from violence, exploitation, and AIDS. UNICEF is funded entirely by the voluntary contributions of individuals, businesses, foundations and governments. UNICEF has over 12,000 staff in more than 145 countries.

BACKGROUND

Purpose of Activity/ Assignment:

The consultancy assignment is to support the management and implementation of two online platforms/communities of practice. The consultancy will be managed by UNICEF’s Adolescent Development and Participation (ADAP) team, in close collaboration with Health, Metal Health, Education and DAPM colleagues.

The first platform/community of practice will engage individuals and organizations involved in the planning, implementation, monitoring, evaluation, accountability, and learning of initiatives to improve, accelerate and scale interventions that promote mental health and wellbeing of adolescents and their caregivers. It is intended as a dynamic website to improve global learning, knowledge management, cross-country collaboration, and the dissemination of evidence-based strategies and open-source solutions to promote mental health and wellbeing of adolescents and their caregivers. The website will host key evidence-based resources and implementation documents from UNICEF and partners, as well as drive traffic to/from other important and complementary mental health and adolescent websites.

The second platform/community of practice is targeted at young people who are making changes in their lives and communities as trainers and young changemakers. This community of practice is intended to bring these young people together to exchange experiences, offer capacity building opportunities, create a space for support and connection and more, depending on the feedback of the young people engaged.

Scope of Work:

The Programme Group/Adolescent Development and Participation (ADAP) team in UNICEF NYHQ seeks to hire a Communities of Practice Consultant to support the management and implementation of two online platforms and communities of practice.

For both sites, the Consultant is expected to facilitate knowledge exchange and collective learning by creating a safe virtual community that promotes trust, a sense of belonging and a supportive environment; this includes monitoring progress of the community of practice by asking for members’ feedback and suggestions.

The Communities of Practice (CoP) Consultant will (Community 1):

• Work with UNICEF and partners to review CoP goals and develop norms and protocols/procedures for the CoP, including how CoP will function, quality control protocols for what is posting on website, safeguarding protocols, and other important elements.
• Support the development and implementation of a strategy to ensure that monitoring-evaluation-learning mechanisms are set up to learn from the CoP in an iterative manner, capture the experiences of those in the CoP, and inform how to improve (Linking to learning reports, journal articles, blogs, or other outputs that may be developed)
• Gather and organize resources and materials for initial and ongoing updating of community.
• Gather, and publish all assets including visual assets (photos, videos, publishing PowerBI visuals, and other assets as needed) for the website.
• Regularly update community, including through newsletters and other email reach-outs
• Develop and facilitate all social media related to advertising the Community of Practice
• Develop plan and support planning/coordination/execution of all webinars and other online capacity building opportunities.
• Develop and facilitate any in-person community events.
• Produce analytic reports.

The Communities of Practice Consultant will (Community 2); target young people:

• Work with UNICEF and partners to develop norms and protocols/procedures for the CoP, including how CoP will function, safeguarding protocols, and other important elements.

PM

• Work with UNICEF team to plan, organize and schedule various virtual events and meetings with young people.
• Prepare templates for different sessions, including draft agendas, presentations, and communications messaging for the sessions.
• Work with UNICEF team to develop communications guidance, including quality control protocols for what is posted on website, templates for gathering changemaker stories and content on cascade training.

 

Terms of Reference / Key Deliverables:

• Deliverable: Develop 8 protocols for the CoPs, including how CoPs will function, quality control protocols for what is posting on websites, safeguarding protocols, and protocol to ensure that Monitoring, Evaluation, Accountability, and Learning (MEAL) mechanisms are set up to learn from the CoP in an iterative manner (Iinked to learning reports, journal articles, blogs, or other outputs that may be developed).

Outcome: 8 CoP protocols (between the two sites)   

Deadline: By January 30, 2025

• Deliverable: Implement above protocols, together with UNICEF team, and ensure they are put into practice in the running of the two CoP.        

Outcome: 8 protocols implemented   

Deadline: By November 30, 2025

• Deliverable: Develop 5 templates, templates for gathering changemaker stories, success stories, lessons learned            .

Outcome: 5 template resources for materials which will live on site (between the two sites).         

Deadline: By December 30, 2024

• Deliverable: Prepare up to 8 templates for different CoP sessions, including draft agendas, presentations, and communications messaging for the sessions.

Outcome: 8 templates (between the two sites) for CoP sessions.      

Deadline: By December 30, 2024

• Deliverable: Gather and organize minimum of 20 resources and materials for the website update.        

Outcome: 20 materials developed     

Deadline: By December 30, 2024

• Deliverable: Update community, including monthly newsletters (10 total) and other email reach-outs, on a bi-monthly basis.

Outcome: Monthly newsletters (10) and minimum of 10 email reach outs. 

Deadline: By November 30, 2025

• Deliverable: Develop 20 social media pieces (cards, LinkedIn posts, tweets, etc.) related to advertising the CoP.           

Outcome: 20 social media pieces developed

Deadline: By November 30, 2025

• Deliverable: Develop 1 plan and support planning/coordination/execution of 24 webinars and 15 capacity building opportunities. 

Outcome: 1 Plan, 24 webinars, 15 capacity building opportunities  

Deadline: By November 30, 2025

• Deliverable: Work with UNICEF team to plan, organize and schedule various virtual events and meetings with young people as needed.        

Outcome: 24 meetings scheduled/planned    

Deadline: By November 30, 2025

 

Qualifications

Education:

 Advanced university degree (Bachelor) in the area of Health, Mental Health, Adolescent Development, Communications, Social Media, or related field.

 

Work experience:

Knowledge/Expertise/Skills required *:

•  Minimum of 5 years relevant professional experience in leading communities of practice online, facilitating peer-to-peer learning, knowledge management, virtual collaboration, and similar.
• Experience in facilitating peer-to-peer learning, knowledge exchange and sharing.
• Demonstrated understanding of facilitation and barriers to successful virtual collaboration and community-building; and demonstrated facility with best practices and current research in virtual community building.
• Experience working with and for adolescents; and/or on adolescent mental health, highly desirable.
• Excellent communication and writing skills required; demonstrated experience writing and sharing communication materials such as newsletters or social media updates highly desirable.
• Experience in website design and webinar delivery desirable.
• Fluency in English is required. Knowledge of another official UN language (Arabic, Chinese, French, Russian or Spanish) or a local language is a strong asset.

Requirements:

Completed profile in UNICEF's e-Recruitment system and

- Upload copy of academic credentials

- Financial proposal that will include/ reflect :

• • the costs per each deliverable and the total lump-sum for the whole assignment (in US$) to undertake the terms of reference.
  • travel costs and daily subsistence allowance, if internationally recruited or travel is required as per TOR.
  • Any other estimated costs: visa, health insurance, and living costs as applicable.
  • Indicate your availability

- Any emergent / unforeseen duty travel and related expenses will be covered by UNICEF.

- At the time the contract is awarded, the selected candidate must have in place current health insurance coverage.

- Payment of professional fees will be based on submission of agreed satisfactory deliverables. UNICEF reserves the right to withhold payment in case the deliverables submitted are not up to the required standard or in case of delays in submitting the deliverables on the part of the consultant.

U.S. Visa information:

With the exception of the US Citizens, G4 Visa and Green Card holders, should the selected candidate and his/her household members reside in the United States under a different visa, the consultant and his/her household members are required to change their visa status to G4, and the consultant’s household members (spouse) will require an Employment Authorization Card (EAD) to be able to work, even if he/she was authorized to work under the visa held prior to switching to G4.  

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

For every Child, you demonstrate…

UNICEF’s core values of Commitment, Diversity and Integrity and core competencies in Communication, Working with People and Drive for Results. View our competency framework at: Here

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:  

Individuals engaged under a consultancy 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. Consultants 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.