NATIONAL RESEARCHER
TO MAP OUT CHILD PROTECTION PRACTICES AND RELATED WORKFORCE NEEDS
IN SOUTH EAST EUROPE
As part of a new Regional Project, the Child Protection Hub, aiming to provide child protection professionals with tools for working and developing, space for constant learning and communication and with an opportunity to become a part of a strong regional community of practice, Terre des hommes is looking for an organization or individuals to conduct a baseline study in Bulgaria in order to identify the existing child protection practices and the social workforce related needs to recommend strategies for improving effective social work and child protection interventions and strengthen the social workforce in eight countries in South East Europe (Albania, BiH, Bulgaria, Croatia, Kosovo, Moldova, Romania, Serbia).
Some of the questions the study would try to answer to inform the Child Protection Hub’s interventions would include:
Ø What are the real needs expressed by the workers[1] in child protection field?
Ø What kind of support is really requested from the range of different actors involved in the child protection field?
Ø Who request what and how best can these gaps be filled?
Ø What have been the successful and less successful experiences so far in answering this demand?
Ø Who had ownership/initiative of the responses so far?
Ø What is the effectiveness of the existing offer in terms of capacity building, knowledge sharing and advocacy?
Ø Is capacity building demand or supply driven?
Ø How best to convert the real needs of professionals into concrete support and solutions for them?
The study should be articulated around two main areas of interest:
1. Provide a basic overview of the context in which child protection practices are delivered in the region: ie the systems in place for the delivery of child protection services, related policies and frameworks, child protection education and resources management
2. But more importantly, conduct a study of the child protection workforce key skills, knowledge, and interests based on methodologies and tools developed by the international experts.
Some key aspects to be addressed by the baseline could include but are not restricted to:
Social workers / child protection workers panorama:
- Policy and regulatory frameworks: Job description, legal mandate, licensing process, continuous education systems and plans, quality standards, monitoring systems, etc.
- Child protection systems: organization of child protection and social services systems, funding for performing basic social work functions, etc.
- Who does what, where: who is responsible for what in the different countries, geographic repartition, types of jobs and duties.
- Perception and understanding of social work by the civil society in the different countries.
Child protection education and human resources management
- Qualification requirements, institutions responsible for training, organizations delivering trainings (and on what), initial education and continuous education plans, career-path and promotion, educational and accreditation standards etc.
- Organizational environment: existence of recruitment/ retention policies, working conditions, physical infrastructures (available and accessible for all)
Social workers / child protection workers skills, knowledge and interests:
- Map out of the child protection related social work practices (from formal and non-formal actors) and conduct an overall assessment of skills, knowledge and learning needs based on competency frameworks
- Based on this work a general competency framework may be developed to assess the current workforce and extended to offer a general methodology adaptable to different contexts
- Identification of expressed needs from the child protection related social work professionals including levels of motivation, support needs, access to knowledge and information, opportunities for policy influencing, clients’ experiences, etc.
- Identification of personal factors influencing child protection workers practices: professional commitment, education, personal characteristics, capacities.
- Overview of organizational factors influencing child protection practices: work conditions, supervision, opportunities, etc.
Conducted under the lead of an International researcher, the national researcher will be responsible for the following:
Expected tasks from the national researcher
- Undertake in-depth literature and desk review
- Develop and adapt research tools to local context
- Conduct interviews and focus group discussions, as per methodology developed by lead researchers
- Collect and analyse the data
- Develop the country study report
Expected timeframe of the research project
JAN / FEB / MAR / APR / MAY / JUNE / JULYLiterature and desk review
Development of the tools and methodologies
Coordination of the field studies
Review and finalization of the local studies
Regional analysis and recommendation report
Profile:
- Higher education in social work, public policies, or any related fields
- Demonstrated experience in leading and conducting international research projects
- Extensive experience in child protection field, social service workforce, public policies on social care
- Experience in South East Europe is a plus
- Ability to lead a multi-cultural team of researchers
- Excellent analytical and writing skills
- Mastering English and the local language is absolutely necessary
How to apply: Interested candidates should send their CVs, brief proposed methodology and price offer, and links to similar researches to : and by January 23rd, 2015
*** All Tdh partners should be guided by the UN CRC and respect Tdh Child Protection Policy
Please note that we are not able to respond to all applications and only shortlisted candidates will be contacted.
Background of the project:
The Regional Resource Centre for Child Protection (namely Child Protection Hub) aims at developing a strong regional community of practices and innovations in South East Europe, among stakeholders who are contributing directly to the development and delivery of child protection services (professionals, academics, decision makers, experts, users). The project strategically articulates 3 types of interventions (knowledge management, capacity building and advocacy) around a regional network of professionals and agencies, supported by an online platform. The focus of this platform is given to services and skills addressing situations of abuse of and violence against children. The Child Protection Hub will enable networking and professional cooperation among stakeholders in SEE countries. It will increase opportunities for upgrading knowledge and skills and generate a process of continuous practices improvement, (through training, peer-to-peer exchange, an online library or resources available in 5 languages). The Child Protection Hub will also offer a platform for advocacy for policy development and innovation. The target groups are (a) 1000 professionals, academics, policy makers from the region, as well as (b) a pool of 150 experts in child protection, that will act as enablers for the modernization of services and child related policies. It is expected that more than 500.000 children and families will be impacted positively by the project, as final beneficiaries. The project is led by Terre des hommes’ regional office in Budapest and benefits from strong partners from 8 countries of the region. Their role is to make sure that all challenges encountered in SEE countries are addressed effectively and are included in the Child Protection Hub analysis, policy recommendations, and advocacy initiatives (challenges such as the significant deprivation of families following the economic crisis, as well as migration of children’s parents and of professionals, discrimination of minorities, political unrest and uneven funding mechanisms for community services etc.
The project is funded by the EU, the Oak Foundation and the Austrian Development Cooperation.
[1] Child protection related workers should be understood as practitioners from different disciplines such as social work primarily, but also potentially psychosocial animators, care workers, psychologists, etc.