National Consultant – expert on strengthening alternative care for children in need at national and local levels.

• Country: Ukraine
• Organization: UNICEF
• Deadline: 2023-11-12
• No of Vacancies: N/A

The Consultant’s scope of the work will include:

More specifically, the consultant will support the Child Protection Team, especially the pillar on Alternative Care/Better Care in the following main areas of work and tasks:

• Support in reviewing normative changes related to different aspects of family-based care, including placement of children evacuated abroad.
• Support in liaising with Government and Institutional counterparts including the Ombudsmen Office, Ministry of Social Policy, State Social Service and National Agency of Child Affair on family-based care, including but not limited to the issues of legal and policy amendments, changes in the budgeting system of supporting, establishing the new forms, placement of children and the monitoring of alternative family-based care.
• Facilitate in convening regular stakeholders’ meetings to ensure regular dialogues on alternative-family based care.
• Support in the implementation and monitoring of different types of alternative family care at local level to ensure UNICEF’s recommendations are accepted on the ground.
• Support in the development and implementation of relevant projects under the framework of the Better Care Initiative
• Contribute to developing briefs, reports and inputs to other strategic program materials for management use, information and/or consideration.
• Support other child protection section activities and coordination with Government counterparts at national and regional levels and NGOs.

Implementation of tasks will require a close collaboration and coordination with national core stakeholders, including Ombudsmen Office, Ministry of Social Policy of Ukraine, State Social Service, National Agency of Child Affair, regional and local decision makers on strengthening and monitoring of alternative family-based care, civil society organizations – UNICEF implementing partners.

The consultant will work closely with and under direct supervision of the UNICEF Child Protection Officer, NOB and overall guidance of Child Protection Specialist, P4 and Chief of Child Protection, P5.

Education: An advanced university degree (Master’s or higher) in one of the following fields: social sciences, international law, international development, economics\finance, human rights, psychology, sociology, or other related disciplines.

Professional experience:

• At least 5 years of professional experience in social sphere / child protection at national and/or subnational level.
• Knowledge of the Ukrainian system of child protection, system of social protection, system of alternative care for children (residential and family-based).
• Experience in strengthening social workers and the social services system, including by changing the funding mechanism.
• Experience in development of national wide strategies and plan of actions in area of child protection.
• Experience in building a dialog with national and local governments and CSOs.

Languages: 

• Ukrainian: Advanced [C1] ;
• English: is an advantage.

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