Reinforce Educators EmPower Children (REEC)

Presentation of Terre des hommes:

Terre des hommes (Tdh) is the leading Swiss child relief agency. The Foundation has been helping children in need for over 50 years; defending their rights regardless of their race, creed, or political affiliation. In over 30 countries, Tdh protects children against exploitation and violence, improves children’s and their mother’s health and provides emergency psychological and material support in humanitarian crises.

In Greece, Tdh has been working through partners since 2006 and has directly provided integrated child protection and youth services (case management, shelter, MHPSS, education and life-skills, etc.) since March 2016. The overall goal of Tdh’s continued interventions in Greece is to improve the protective environment for at risk children and youth and enhance their resilience.

For further information, please visit our website www.tdh.gr andwww.facebook.com/tdh.greece/

Context and Description of Project

The project started in January 2021 and will run until December 2022. REEC is a transnational project that forges a protection response to reinforce existing capacities of Early Childhood Development (ECD) and primary educators’ as well as child protection (CP) practitioners’ capacities to detect and provide responsive services to children experiencing or at risk of adverse childhood experiences (ACEs). Terre des hommes Hellas (Tdh) works together with the International Rescue Committee Hellas (IRC) and the Municipalities of Milan and Athens to protect children of pre-school and primary school age from any kind of abuse and promote their positive development in a protective environment fostered through synergies among schools, parents/ caregivers & child protection services in the community. REEC is co-financed by the “Rights, Equality and Citizenship Programme of the European Union”.

Objective and Scope of the Evaluation

The project’s M&E plan includes a final external evaluation as one of the deliverables to the donor European Commission. As per Tdh’s Minimum Requirements for M&E, every project that is multi-country and multi-year must undergo a final external evaluation. The final external evaluation will cover the entire REEC project. Geographically, it will cover Greece and Italy as direct countries of intervention and implementation of REEC activities. The evaluation will be conducted during the final 2 months of the project; it will focus on the project activities carried out and results achieved up to the time of data collection. The objectives of the evaluation are:

• Accountability and credibility: to the donor, to the project team and the corresponding organizations, and ultimately to the beneficiaries. It will also ensure transparency and openness about the performance and quality of the project.

• Organizational learning and knowledge: to conclude all important lessons learnt from the way the project was set up, implemented and managed; and how it has succeeded or, potentially, not succeeded to achieve all its intended (or unintended) results.

• Informing operational decisions: Resulting from the lessons learnt, the evaluation will help to reveal what the project team and the corresponding organizations can take further and/or may need to change in future programming.

Key responsibilities for the Evaluator (s):

To deliver the assignment as per the signed contract, Terms of Reference and the Technical and Financial Offer and relevant annexes, including Tdh policies where applicable (e.g. those related to Data Protection and Child Safeguarding). To submit all required deliverables as per the agreed deadlines.

• To be available for quick updates, whenever requested, on the progress of the assignment and ensure that the Project Coordinator is regularly informed in case of any questions and issues (particularly, delays and blockages) that may emerge during the assignment and may require mutual discussion/planning.
• To generally ensure the confidentiality of the process as well as the information and documents received from the Project Coordinator and the people involved at any stage in the evaluation.
• To immediately inform the Project Coordinator in case of any risk of not being able to comply with any of the above points.

Deliverables and Timeframe:

The evaluator will be required to submit the following deliverables (all in English and in electronic version):

• Inception Report – that includes the following: results of the initial review of documents, the proposed methodology and data collection tools, an evaluation and overall work plan for the assignment.
• Draft final report – with the preliminary results of the analysis for the project team’s review and feedback. The final report shall include an executive summary, narrative report, summary table with main conclusions and recommendations and lessons learned. The report shall also contain all usual annexes such as terms of reference of the evaluation, data collection tools, consent forms and protocols, tables, graphics, list of desk review references, transcripts, and the PPT presentation of the findings.
• Presentation of the draft report and preliminary findings – in a dedicated meeting, attended by the evaluator and the project team.
• Final report – with full and final analysis results and incorporation of the feedback received on the draft report.

The evaluator is also expected to be available for regular and brief check-in calls, as necessary, throughout the assignment to share updates on the progress. The foreseen timeframe and number of working days for the assignment are indicated in the table.

Deliverables

Timeframe

1. Review of available documents

9 days

1. Development of data collection methods and tools
2. Inception Report
3. Data collection phase

12 days

1. Data analysis and drafting of the final report

5 days

1. Presentation of the draft report and preliminary findings

1 day

1. Finalization of the evaluation report

3 days

Estimated duration for completion of work: The inception meeting to take place on 01/11/2022 and the external evaluation report to be delivered on 31/12/2022.

Selection Criteria:

Tdh will accept applications from both individuals, teams, academic entities, NGOs and companies as long as they are officially registered with a European tax number (i.e. are able to issue an invoice) and have evaluation, research, impact study or similar and/or consultancy as their object of activity, which can be proven by legal documentation.

Required experience and skills:

• At least 3 quality evaluations/impact studies prepared for 3 different projects. Previous experience in conducting evaluations of projects in child safeguarding and design of activities to strengthen the protective environment of children is a significant asset.

• Proven skills in using quantitative and quality data collection and analysis methods.

• Strong writing skills and ability to convey technical and complex information in a structured, logical, clear, and concise manner for different audiences.

• Full written and oral proficiency in English for data collection and production of quality reports. Knowledge of the local language in the implementing countries is an asset, but not strictly required.

• Strong computer proficiency to prepare quality written reports with clean data visualization and presentation of findings.

• Knowledge and/or experience on the topic of safeguarding children in school settings and child protection situation in Greece and Italy is an asset.

• Degree (or higher) in social sciences, economics, public policy, law, research and evaluation, management, or other related field(s) from an accredited university.

• Capacity to issue invoices with tax registration in Europe (UK and Switzerland included).

• Early availability to complete the work and competitiveness of the rate offered.

The evaluator(s) must not have been involved in the design, implementation or monitoring of the REEC project at any stage, nor have benefitted from the project activities in any way.