IOM Individual Consultant-assessment of Effectiveness, Sustainable Continuity and Cultural Acceptability of the Community Health Worker Jobs in South Africa
IOM Individual Consultant-assessment of Effectiveness, Sustainable Continuity and Cultural Acceptability of the Community Health Worker Jobs in South Africa
Context and ScopeThe International Organisation for Migration (IOM)’s Regional HIV-Sexual Reproductive Health and Rights (SRHR) Knows No Borders Programme (SKNB) being implemented in six countries, aims at “improving quality of life and HIV-SRH outcomes among vulnerable youth, migrants and sex workers in Southern Africa”.
The programme is currently preparing for a second phase of implementation (anticipated implementation period is 2021-2026).
Purpose of the Consultancy
The assessment seeks to generate evidence on programme activities, approaches and costs as well as the feasibility and effectiveness of Change Agents’ capacity building/training in improving SRH and HIV service delivery in migration affected communities.
The assessment is commissioned by IOM in collaboration with Save the Children and partners as a follow-up to the Final SRHR Programme Evaluation Report, which identified as a research priority the feasibility of successfully engaging community health workers.
The assessment will require scoping, reviewing, analysing and integrating existing plans, lessons and approaches, and areas of expertise among IOM and partners.
The assessment will apply a mixed methods approach of data collection including review of the present evidence and conducting a mini survey among the change agents, programme staff, health workers and beneficiaries.
The assessment objectives include
To review the existing evidence on change agents and their impact on service delivery (increased access and use of SRH-HIV services and changed SRH-HIV social norms and attitudes) and strengthening the community health system in the programme sites.
Determine to what extent the capacity building efforts – trainings, supervision, monitoring and mentorships provided meet local needs of the beneficiaries and could improve knowledge among CAs.
Estimate the relationship between individual CAs’ baseline knowledge and the extent to which new knowledge was acquired.
Measure the change in confidence following education, change agents’ satisfaction with the education provided, and estimate the relationship between pre-and post-intervention knowledge and confidence.
Determine the extent to which knowledge acquired has been applied to catalyse any behavioural changes at the beneficiary, community and facility levels.
Determine the CA motivation/incentive package and sustainability of the training programme including projection of the unit cost of running trainings within the context of COVID19 – before, during and post covid19 era.
In line with national policies on community health workers, identify gaps in knowledge and evidence of use of CAs to deliver basic health care information and services and any additional needs of CAs for better execution of their roles.
Specific Tasks to be performed by the Consultant
The Consultant, in consultation with IOM Regional programme team, is expected to
Desk review of secondary literature including, but not limited to, the programme lessons and best practices, change agent stories of change and best practices, programme mid-term review and final evaluation reports, policies and strategies regarding the Change Agents work.
Solicit the views of the programme staff, partners and other key stakeholders on the effectiveness, sustainability, impact and relevance of Change Agents’ capacity building model for strengthening community health systems for HIV and SRH
services for migrant populations.
Conduct a mini-virtual survey with a representative sample of change agents, programme staff, health workers and beneficiaries using appropriate tools for data collection.
Where appropriate, seek in-country ethical approval/permission and in collaboration with the country programme coordinators.
Conduct a validation workshop of the assessment findings among the programme staff and key stakeholders.
Compile the draft and final assessment reports aligned with the IOM writing formats and the draft manual of the IOM’s community health education programme model.
Expected Deliverables
The selected consultant will be expected to deliver on the specified scope of work as shown in section IV.
Before commencing on the assignment, the consultant will deliver a concept note outlining the detailed approach and methodology for this assessment. Specifically, the expected outputs of the assignment are:
Output 1: An inception report outlining the technical approach and methodology of the assessment, including a costed work plan and budget.
Output 2: Preliminary and Final drafts of the assessment Reports that incorporate inputs from programme stakeholders and aligned with IOM requirements.
Output 3: A draft manuscript (3000 to 6000 words) on the effectiveness of the Programme’s capacity building model for change agents, adapted to a relevant peer reviewed journal.
Payment Schedule
The consultant will be paid on instalment basis as detailed below:
40% submission and approval by IOM of the inception report including the workplan and draft tools for data collection.
40% upon submission and approval by IOM of the draft assessment report and validation workshop report.
20% upon submission and approval by IOM of final assessment report and draft manuscript.
Qualifications and Experience
An advanced university degree (PhD, Masters or equivalent) in public health, migration and Health studies, development studies, social sciences.
Minimum of 10 years of experience in capacity building, monitoring and implementation of regional or multi-country HIV and SRHR programmes especially for the young people, migrants and key populations, within migration/mobility contexts.
Demonstrated experience in development and evaluation of SRH and HIV training programmes for community health workers in Southern Africa.
Ability to integrate different experiences, methodologies and approaches in conducting community-based action research to inform development of health training programmes from a diverse range of stakeholders.
Prior experience in facilitating multi stakeholders’ workshops using online platforms.
Willingness and ability to travel to the field to the conduct assessment and gather data from the change agents and other stakeholders (depending on COVID19 situation).
Flexibility to adapt to work with programme teams within the context of COVID19 environment.
Excellent English speaking/technical writing skills required. Portuguese is an added advantage but not a requirement.
How to Apply
Interested individual consultants should submit their applications to pretoriacvs@iom.int (with a clear reference to the advert in the subject line) by 23 August, 2020.
This application should include a) a cover letter indicating the consultant’s daily professional fees (in EUROS), b) 4-pager technical proposal on his/her capacity and methodology of the assessment and c) the Curriculum Vitae and two samples of relevant evaluation reports.
All application files should not exceed 2MB.
Only shortlisted consultants will be contacted and notified.
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