Consultant for the Situation Analysis and the design of Child Marriage practical toolkit

BACKGROUND DESCRIPTION OF THE PROJECT/BACKGROUND OF THE ASSIGNMENT:

Refugee children and families living in North Lebanon experience high levels of economic hardship, low rate of access to basic services and needs and other associated pressures with hard living conditions, which is leading to more child protection risks. VASYR states that as of 2019, 27% of girls aged 15 to 19 who were not enrolled in school reported forced and early marriage being the reason for it. While 77% of parents reported using positive parenting techniques, rates of the use of violent discipline methods were still high with 64% of households reporting that children from 1-18 had experienced any type of violent discipline in the last year. This percentage shows a considerable decrease in violent discipline from 2018 which had rates of 73%. The most common form of discipline reported, (58%) was the use of psychological aggression, followed by any physical aggression (49%); while a much lower proportion of parents used severe aggression (12%). Rates of violent discipline were lower for younger children (1-4 years old) in comparison to older children (5-14 years old), however these rates decreased for the oldest children (above 14 years).

Coping mechanisms such as child marriage is a rooted form of SGBV that predominantly affects displaced communities, as families perceive these marriages are a way to protect their girls and secure their future by providing them with a husband as well as reducing the family’s economic burden. According to a UNICEF 6% of Lebanese girls and women aged 20 to 24 years were married before the age of 18, compared to 12% of Palestinian Refugees from Lebanon, 25% of Palestinian Refugees from Syria, and 40.5% of Syrian refugees, ranking Syrian refugee girls as the most vulnerable to this grave protection concern.

These circumstances are placing children in situations of extreme vulnerability and increased physical, emotional and psychological harm and in need of psychosocial support and specialized case management services in those cases where the protection concerns are medium or high as per categorization in inter-agency national SOPs.

SC is implementing a program aiming to “Improved protective environment for vulnerable Syrian IDPs, refugee and host community children affected by grave child rights violations; harmful work and child marriage.” SC will therefore provide individualised, child-focused care through case management to children- boys and girls- at risk of child marriage SC and its local partner will implement PSS and resilience programs for children and youth. These programs are aiming at building the capacity of girls and boys to overcome the challenges they face and to adopt positive coping mechanisms while also feeling less isolated and more connected with peers and caring adults.

CHILD SAFEGUARDING:

Level 3 – the responsibilities of the post may require the post holder to have regular contact with or access to children or young people.

LOCATION:  This consultancy is based on the North office of SCI

CONSULTANCY OBJECTIVE:

This consultancy will have to mayor deliverables: 1) to develop a situational analysis of the existing child protection vulnerabilities- focusing on child marriage and child labour- as per the scope of the program, but identifying and documenting others as relevant. 2) to develop a practical and context-specific Child Marriage Toolkit for the Child Protection team to identify and address cases at risk of child marriage in a holistic, culturally-appropriate and results-oriented manner and to increase the capacity of the SC staff and local partner on safely addressing cases of child marriage. The Consultancy is divided in the following phases with the following expected deliverables:

METHODOLOGY/TASK AND ASSOCIATED DELIVERABLES:

Phase 1: Situational Analysis (secondary data)  

- Compilation and analysis of all relevant data on child marriage in the country (refer to the upcoming child marriage toolkit by UNICEF) and other relevant practical tools as well as in the Governorate ( North) and in the specific location (Wadi Khaled) when available

- The analysis will include the political context and the concrete regional situation where the program will be implemented. This involves analysing the laws and policies as they affect girls and (often differently) as well as other community practices and social and gender norms.

- The consultant will be expected to collect relevant information by exploring different sources (online, meetings with SC relevant staff and other service providers and implementing partners in the region.

- The consultant is expected to be working very closely with the following layers of programming in order to obtain and analyse the necessary information (CP/Gender Technical Adviser in Beirut, Child Protection Program Manager and Child Protection Program Officer in the North office, as well as the caseworkers and rest of the implementing team in the North office.

DELIVERABLE: Situational Analysis presenting main literature findings on the relevant topics for the targeted location (10 pages’ maximum)

Phase 2: Development of Practical Toolkit including modules, sessions content and M&E tools. a practical guidance and tool on how to target girls and boys of child marriage and what interventions (including case management and PSS sessions) can be addressed to them and to their caregivers. 

- The toolkit will be organised in 3 main chapters 1: Prevention, 2) Response, 3) M&E.

The chapter on PREVENTION will include:

- Practical and actionable outreach strategies

- Key messages on child marriage to share with different stakeholders (children/adolescents/    caregivers/community members/ including religious leaders)

- Description of linkages to other preventative measures like sectors and programs in the area (social protection, life-skills, education, legal assistance etc.)

The chapter on RESPOSE will include:

- Practical and actionable programmatic recommendations on how to increase the protective environment of adolescent girls

- Revise the case management SOPs (including tools) and make tangible and realistic adjustments to work with children at risk of child marriage. This will involve the development of a specific case management for child marriage cases framework that includes all the phases of case management (identification- mentioned above- initial assessment of the child/adolescent and the family, designing of the case plan, implementing the case plan with the child/adolescent and the family, revision and follow up on the case plan and when concerns are resolved closure of the plan.

- Revise and provide tangible and realistic recommendations to the current non-specialised focused PSS curriculum on how to make it appropriate to work with children at risk of child marriage (adaptation of session, content revision, communication skills etc.).

- Revise and provide advice on how to adjust the protocol for referral of cases (confidentially issues) and if necessary amendments need to be done to the current Inter-Agency Referral Pathways.

The chapter 3 on M&E will include:

- To develop the necessary M&E tools to measure the results of the intervention and to measure the impact of the intervention

- Collecting and analyzing this data will ensure that the planned program strategies can be adjusted to respond to any needs and gaps that exist, therefore allowing Save the Children to tackle child marriage by implementing child safe and protected program. 

- Develop a simple tool to collect “lessons learned” on child marriage programing to be used by the teams.

DELIVERABLE: A practical Child Marriage Toolkit including 3 modules (prevention/response and M&E tools) and sessions content.

Phase 3: Training of SC CP staff and local partners 

- To develop training plan, training materials reflecting the practical child marriage toolkit (with the three chapters) on child marriage.

- To deliver a participatory and comprehensive training covering all the aspects of the toolkit.

DELIVERABLE: A training package is designed and delivered on the new practical child marriage toolkit  

KEY AREAS OF ACCOUNTABILITY:

- Meeting program quality and standards.

- Provide child protection and gender technical expertise in the design of the above-mentioned deliverables and specifically with the practical child marriage toolkit outlining practical and actionable recommendations to influence programming.

- Ensure all information collected for desk review is up-to-date, well-sourced and well-referenced.

- Ensure all information collected in the data collection process is collected in an ethical and gender-sensitive manner.

- Coordinate with other national and international actors as necessary for desk review, development of tools and methodology and analysis and reporting. This could include-but it is not limited to- MoSA, UNICEF, UNHCR, ILO, various I/NGOs focusing on Child Protection, women’s rights and GBV.

- Coordinate internally with the following departments (and others if requested) PDQ, OPPs, MAC.

- The consultant will have the means to find and collect all the necessary information by her/himself.

- Produce high-quality reports to SC standards.

- Always represent SC to the highest ethical and moral standards.

- Compliance with SC Child Policies.

- Comply with Save the Children policies and practice with respect to child protection, code of conduct, health and safety, equal opportunity and other relevant policies and procedures.

PLEASE REFER TO THE ATTACHED TOR