ToRs – TECHNICAL SUPPORT PROVIDER – SAFEGUARDING At Aga Khan Foundation

TERMS OF REFERENCE

1. Introduction

The Madrasa Early Childhood Programme Kenya (MECP-K) is one of the eight agencies implementing the Rise and Shine Programme in Kenya funded by Comic Relief to strengthen programming for Early Childhood Development (ECD). In addition to the funding awarded to each of the organizations, Comic Relief through the Technical Support (TS) fund for partners, awarded MECP-K a grant to manage the TS implementation. Therefore, the Madrasa Early Childhood Programme (MECP-K) is seeking to engage a service provider for technical support of the eight partner agencies operating in Kenya and implementing Early Childhood Development (ECD) initiatives under the Comic Relief Rise and Shine portfolio.

2. Purpose and objective

The technical support is expected to facilitate capacity strengthening for the eight partner agencies in Kenya and enable them to be more efficient and stronger organizations in programme delivery. This will involve supporting the partner agencies in improving responses to safeguarding (SG) for children. A special focus will be enhancing action mechanisms with relevant authorities on SG incidents, which could include collaborating with or influencing authorities where there are failures to respond to SG concerns. The technical support is also expected to promote contextually relevant, inclusive, and responsive SG for children left behind, including children with disabilities, orphans, and vulnerable children. Overall, the service provider is expected to provide equitable technical support of sufficient quality and depth to the eight Rise and Shine partner agencies in Kenya.

3. Scope of work

The service provider will be required to provide technical support over a period of several months to ensure transfer of skills and capacity for all the eight partner agencies. This process will entail establishing the safeguarding capacity needs of the eight partner agencies that will inform their capacity strengthening. Additionally, the technical support will entail developing a SG guiding document that will facilitate capacity development for promoting justice and guard the welfare of children and vulnerable adults within community development initiatives.

The focus areas for TS in year 1 has been prioritized by the 8 partner agencies and will include:

a. Verifying the standards of safeguarding policies and procedures among the eight agencies, and the gaps that the agencies can address around the early childhood development and education system.

b. Strengthening safeguarding action mechanisms with relevant authorities for effective responses when safeguarding concerns are reported.

c. Ensuring socially inclusive safeguarding in different community settings, including for children with disabilities and strengthening of community based safeguarding systems.

It is expected that the technical support cycle will enable the participating agencies to integrate learning into their current work, using their existing staff and resources, resulting in stronger, and more inclusive safeguarding systems. The basic model would be a technical support cycle that will aim to increase agency capacity to address SG issues, and the following are some of the key elements of the anticipated technical support cycle:

a. A relevant technical support provider contracted for a cycle of support

b. Development of documentation that will be useful for the partners, for instance, curriculum, manual, or guidelines.

c. Delivery of training for the partner agencies, with time to apply learning and follow-up training

d. Tailored support and mentoring for organisations e.g., through site visit assessments and recommendations.

4. Key deliverables

The main deliverables for this consultancy are as follows:

a. Conduct a needs assessment and compile a report: A detailed needs assessment exercise to be conducted for all eight partner agencies and a report compiled, shared, and filed.

b. Conduct training and tailored mentorship for partner agencies, with a focus on the key findings of the needs assessment above

c. Develop guidance documents to support sustainable capacity and future strengthening of the partner agencies.

d. Compile and submit progress reports after every six months period and an end of consultancy report: All reports should be submitted in electronic form and should be submitted in English.

5. Demonstrated experience of service provider

The TS provider will have demonstrated experience to carry out the following activities.

a. Overall partner safeguarding needs assessment: The needs assessment will adopt a professional approach that will ensure sufficient, relevant data is collected, analyzed, documented and disseminated to the Steering Committee, which includes representatives of the eight participating agencies. It is anticipated that the needs assessment will inform the capacity development plans and content as well as provide a foundation for monitoring activities, and a strong evaluation at the end of the TS period. Depending on the circumstances, face-to-face assessments may be carried out, considering the COVID-19 public health measures. **

b. Training and mentorship: The consultant will be expected to train (in at least 4 training sessions) and mentor the representatives from eight partner agencies to a level where the agencies can ensure their own safeguarding standards, and engage with relevant stakeholders, gatekeepers, and duty holders to establish stronger system responses and more inclusive safeguarding, in a practical way that can be integrated into the existing initiatives of the eight partner agencies.

c. Guidance: Develop and submit guidelines in the form of one or more reference documents for use by partners to embed the learning and facilitate continued agency strengthening as described above.

6. Application procedure

Interested service providers are invited to submit a technical proposal of not more than 6 pages that will include:

a. A description of previous work successfully undertaken including relevant technical support topics, and the activities carried out.

b. Proposed approach and components related to: needs assessment, development of guidance, and phases of training and tailored mentorship, and reporting

c. Breakdown of consultancy fees clearly stating number of days and hours of work expected.

d. Key personnel (staff and/or consultants) and a summary of their experience.

Please note, if your proposal is shortlisted, we will then ask for more information before making a final decision. The further information will include:

• Timeline of project milestones and outputs for deliverables
• CVs of all proposed team members
• A copy of 2 previous reports of similar work undertaken (e.g. needs assessment, training and mentoring, guide document)
• Names of two professional references who can be contacted from organisations that have contracted similar work
• A copy of legal registration (for registered firms)
• A consulting firm profile
• Answer to questions that may rise from the initial proposal.

7. Evaluation Criteria

Proposals will be evaluated based on the following set of criteria:

CRITERIA & MAXIMUM SCORE

Technical Component

• Demonstrated experience in conducting and coordinating similar projects – 25
• Education and Technical Experience of Team – 15
• Proposed Methodology and Approach – 30
• Gender Equality experience and proposed approach – 10

Total Technical Component – 80

Financial Component

• Realistic and appropriate costs for proposed work – 10
• All relevant costs included to carry out proposed work – 10

Total Financial Component – 20

Total – 100