Consultancy: Programme Evaluation/Review/Outcome Harvesting

Application Due: November 25th, 2022; EOIs will be reviewed on a rolling basis.

Timeline

Start of inception phase: early December 2022

Interim findings: March 2023

Draft report: June 2023

Final report: August 2023

Budget: €300.000 – 400.000 EUR (any travel to be covered within budget)

As we are entering a new strategic period (2024-2028), the Bernard van Leer Foundation (BvLF) would like to review our Parents+ and Urban95 pillars of work, which have been key programmatic area for the Foundation since 2016. The review will include Parents+ and Urban95 programmes delivered across BvLF’s core countries, including Brazil, Israel, the Netherlands, India and Jordan. In addition, former core countries Peru and Turkey and a selection of countries beyond this core will be identified to look into. Although the Parents+ and Urban95 programmes are stand alone programmes on the majority of investments their delivery is intertwined making an evaluation of both by the same team more efficient.

The expected outcome is a concise systematic review report that captures the learnings and key insights from our investments across the years. The analysis will also serve to inform how to adapt and/or responsibly winddown aspects of our programming while capturing the learnings and key insights from our investments across the years. Findings from the review will also be utilized in our Annual Report.

About the Bernard van Leer Foundation

Founded in 1949, the Bernard van Leer Foundation works worldwide to ensure that babies, toddlers and the people who care for them have a good start in life. Our mission is to improve opportunities for all young children, especially the millions of young children growing up in circumstances of social, economic and environmental disadvantage around the world.

We believe the major challenge is the transition to scale of support for babies, toddlers and those caring for them. By working together with governments, civil society, philanthropy, academia, international organisations and business, we find the best programmes and policies to improve children’s lives. We partner with them by providing funding, expertise, networks and support to scale these up for maximum impact.

Geographically, our investments are made in focus countries, selected to reflect global diversity in economic, geographic and cultural terms, and a global programme through which we engage strategic replication partnerships that span multiple countries, in some cases extending beyond our core set of countries.

Parents+: Parents+ combines early years-focused coaching activities for parents and other caregivers with at least one other service designed to meet a child’s and/or her parents’ basic needs. In addition, we fund activities shaping policy and behaviour in support of the wellbeing of caregivers and their children.

Urban95: Urban95 is a global initiative that works with leaders, planners, designers, advocates and communities to support the healthy development of young children and the wellbeing of caregivers in cities. Our goal is to encourage cities to create spaces where children can grow, learn, create, imagine and play across all neighbourhoods, reaching as many families as possible.

Responsibilities

Overview

The Bernard van Leer Foundation is seeking a consultant/team to capture the outcomes, effectiveness and learnings of our Parents+ and Urban95 programmes from approximately 2016 to present. We are particularly interested in outcome harvesting approaches to this review given the complex nature of our programme implementation, however alternative methodologies of equal rigor that are utilization-focused will be considered. Since the start of the programmes in 2016 the Foundation has invested close to 70M EUR across Brazil, India, Israel, Jordan, the Netherlands, Peru, Turkey and within our global displacement portfolio and other global initiatives.

Goals

• Document select key components of Parents+ and Urban95 programmes: e.g. extent of inclusion of ‘vulnerable’ groups, inclusion of content on select topics, inclusion of costing analysis.
• Gain an overview of outputs across the portfolio: e.g. number of people reached, financial and other leverage achieved, costing information delivered, sectors we worked across, activities.
• Gain an overview of outcomes across the portfolio, both intended and unintended, on societal and individual levels – e.g. caregiver behaviour change, child development outcomes, policy changes, etc. Gauge contribution of the Foundation in achieving these outcomes.
• Assess sustainability of Parents+ and Urban95 investments based on our established conditions to scale, and other complementary measures.
• Capture what MEL approaches were employed and worked or didn’t with recommendations/lessons for future programming.
• Understand pathways of working: Through which sectors and partners did we end up working? Why, how, what was the impact of this?
• Identify key lessons on pros and cons of the what and how of Parents+ and Urban95 investments, including according to partners and service users/caregivers, to help inform our future work.
• Gain insight into partnerships: e.g. partners with highest potential of impact and scale.
• Support the Foundation in the use of the review to best inform future activities.

Tasks and deliverables

• Develop an assessment methodology/matrix that captures the different parameters for the review.
• Review and analysis of all relevant project documentation since 2016 provided by the Foundation.
• Interviews with Foundation staff responsible for overseeing the Parents+ and Urban95 investments.
• Engagement with diverse project partners and families involved in various programmes (as most relevant to the chosen methodology).
• Assessment of impact of Parents+ and Urban95 investments spanning 2017 to present on children, caregivers, service providers and/or society as a whole.
• Analysis of broader (including qualitative) learnings to be drawn from the Parents+ and Urban95 pillars of work.
• Provide recommendations on ensuring sustainability and ethical winddown of existing investments, including lesson learned to inform future programming.

Deliverables will include:

• Detailed assessment methodology/matrix, and timeline
• Powerpoint presentation and meeting to discuss interim findings (March 2023)
• Draft of final report findings, meeting to discuss (with presentation if relevant) (June 2023)
• A well-written final report of the Parents+ and Urban95 programmes review (August 2023).
• A 1-2 page executive summary for the programmes of key outcomes and process pathways (August 2023).
• Any supporting data visualisation
• Any additional material including interview transcripts, collected data, workshop reports etc.

Target audience

Primary audience: Our leadership team, staff and Board.

Qualifications

Education and work experience

Interested individuals and/or organisation should demonstrate their qualifications and proven experience in research, evaluation and writing.

Core skills

• Collaboration – Good interpersonal skills and ability to conduct interviews and establish and maintain effective working relations with Foundation colleagues and country-partners. We anticipate this to be an iterative process.
• Research – Ability to manage and synthesize large quantities of information and data and find key outcomes and processes in achieving these. Ability to conduct various research methodologies for thorough and candid conversation with project partners, service providers and families.
• Language – the core working language and the report will be in English, however, documents requiring review will be in Portuguese, Spanish, Arabic, Hebrew and English. Speaking Portuguese and Hebrew would be of significant advantage. A robust plan for translation/interpretation is expected in the absence of direct language skills.
• Organisation and result orientation – Ability to plan projects and activities, work to tight deadlines, and manage conflicting priorities to achieve a high-quality final product
• Visualisation knowledge – Ability to present sets of data or information for visual output is desirable.