An international consultant to conduct an independent evaluation of the home visiting services
Deadline for applications is 8 October 2018
- Available in:
- Български
- English
UNICEF Bulgaria country office is looking for an international consultant to conduct an independent evaluation of the demonstration home visiting services established with UNICEF support in two regions in Bulgaria.
Start date of consultancy: 12 October 2018.
End date consultancy: 30 March 2019.
Deadline for applications is: 8 October 2018.
The overall purpose of the assignment is to conduct an independent evaluation of the demonstration home visiting services established with UNICEF support in two regions in Bulgaria. The evaluation aims to assess the implementation, results achieved and the overall impact of the demonstration services; to identify lessons learned and provide recommendations to inform the process of a national scale up.
The specific objectives of the evaluation are to:
- Assess the relevance, efficiency, effectiveness and sustainability and, to the extent possible, the impact of the demonstration services on caregivers and children.
- To assess the demonstration services from an equity and child rights perspective both in terms of the capacities to reach out to and deliver support to the most vulnerable groups, and in terms of its role for reducing equity gaps in access to essential services and support for health and child development during the first 3 years of life.
- Identify and document lessons learnt, including in terms of service design, scope of support provided, resourcing, implementation, reach, involvement and retention of caregivers, cooperation with other relevant health providers and cross-sectoral cooperation for meeting the complex needs of children and families.
- Identify the enablers and challenges for upscaling the service nationally.
- Provide recommendations for the process of scaling up of the service nationally and for actions to ensure quality and sustainable implementation of home visiting services in the future (beyond the EU funded project).
The evaluation will follow internationally agreed evaluation criteria of relevance, efficiency, effectiveness, impact, and sustainability. Mixed method approach will be applied in the evaluation combining qualitative and quantitative components to ensure complementary strengths and non-overlapping weaknesses. The analysis is expected to build on information collected from variety of sources through different methods including review of secondary data and information, primary data collection from government representatives, representatives of local service providers, caregivers, community members, staff and managers of the demonstration home visiting services, and others.
The evaluation should be participatory involving service users, representatives of the target groups (who have not used the service) and members of the communities. Methods, data collection tools and analysis should build on a human rights and child rights approach and should be gender and culturally sensitive.
The Terms of Reference provides detailed description of the tasks, responsibilities and required competencies of the Consultant.
The evaluation will involve the following main activities:
- Desk review of reference material and mapping of relevant stakeholders.
- Development of inception report, including evaluation methodology, data collection tools, sampling approaches, etc.
- Orientation/training of the national consultants involved in the evaluation.
- Data collection in cooperation with national consultants.
- Provision of methodological support and supervision to the national consultants.
- Data analysis.
- Development of an evaluation report.
- Presentation of the key findings.
Candidates interested in the consultancy should submit a proposal with all-inclusive fees (including lump sum travel and subsistence costs), timeline, resume/CV and a brief (max. to 5 pages) concept note on the evaluation framework (suggested methodology, sampling approach, etc.).
Related documents:
Annex UNICEF Procedure for ethical standards
