Consultant Catholic Medical Mission Board Zambia

TERMS OF REFERENCE TO CONDUCT THE KUSAMALA MAIN ENDLINE EVALUATION

1.0 Introduction

Catholic Medical Mission Board (CMMB) Zambia in collaboration with Ministry of Community Development and Social Services (MCDSS) and Ministry of Health (MoH) is implementing the GHR-funded Kusamala project in partnership with Makululu Home Based Care (MHBC) in Kabwe. The project envisions a world where all children—especially those at risk of losing or without parental care—are living in a stable, positive, long-term family or family-like environment. Kusamala puts the interests, needs and well-being of the child and their family first and guarantees equal rights and opportunities to all children. The goal is to create conditions where children feel safe and valued and families are valued. The project is being implemented in Lusaka’s Chawama, Misisi and Kanyama compounds and Kabwe’s Makululu compound.

To achieve the overall goal, the intervention had activities lined up under three strategic pillars, namely Prevent, Respond and Governance.

STRATEGIC PILLAR 1:   PREVENT

The activities under this pillar were implemented to prevent or reduce the risk of child separation from families. There were two outcomes selected under this pillar.

Pillar Outcome 1.1: Increased Family and Community Ability to Keep Children in Families

Using the case management model, the project identified children with various challenges that had potential to increase the risk of family separation in the community. Community Based Volunteers called Child and Youth Care Workers (CYCW’s) were engaged to identify these children and provide case management services and linkages with various stakeholders for education, nutrition and health services, child protection cases, and recommendations to MCDSS for social cash transfers for household economic strengthening.

Through the CYCW’s, the project also conducted positive parenting sessions called Family Circles of Care. These parents and guardians would then be trained or linked to an initiative called Village Savings and Loans Associations (VSLA’s) to help them build a financial foundation that would help them support their children.

CMMB developed an innovation called Men Taking Action (MTA™) which the Kusamala Main projected adapted for use in programming. Using this initiative, sessions were conducted with the aim of having men’s positive involvement in fatherhood and caregiving to improve gender dynamics and contribute to gender equality, decrease violence, and improve the health and wellbeing of women, men, and children.

Pillar Outcome 1.2: Increased Health Facility Capacity to Prevent Family Separation and Provide Child-Care Support Services

The project supported existing community structures in case management. Through the health centre staff and Neighbourhood Health Committees (NHC’s), cases at risk of child separation were identified, managed, and referred for support to the health facility.

STRATEGIC PILLAR 2: RESPOND

The activities under this pillar were implemented to respond to children that had already been separated from their families.

Pillar Outcome 2.1: Increased Number of Children Reintegrated into Families and Communities

In conjunction with the Ministry of Community Development and Social Services children in Residential Child Care Facilities were identified, had their cases reviewed and were marked for reintegration to their families. Project staff worked with the Social Welfare Officers from the respective districts to reintegrate the children using the reintegration pathway. i.e., Identification of children, tracing of families, development of reintegration plan, Counselling of the family, Family Conferencing during the formal family reintegration and post-reintegration follow up and case closure. The project used the household approach during the reintegration and supported the reintegrated children with a package to help the child settle in and alleviate the financial burden on the family during this process.

STRATEGIC PILLAR 3: GOVERNANCE

The activities under this pillar were aimed at ensuring continuity and local sustainability of formal and informal government structures beyond project implementation.

Pillar Outcome 3.1: Strengthened Capacity of and Coordination by Formal and Informal Government Structures at District and Community Levels to Promote Family-Based Care

To strengthen coordination mechanisms at community level, CMMB coordinated with various community level structures to strengthen their relationship with line ministries working around child protection to provide that dual referral linkage to ensure that children were reintegrated to their families and that the families of those reintegrated were aware of what formal or informal government structures they could receive support from.

2.0 Rationale and Objective of the Evaluation

2.1 Rationale of the Endline Evaluation

The  – Endline Evaluation will determine the extent to which the GHR funded Kusamala Main project has been effective in developing individual, community, and systems-level strengths-based capacity to empower families to protect and nurture their children in supportive communities.

This Endline Evaluation will compare the findings from the Midline Evaluation in the three (3) target communities in Lusaka i.e., Chawama, Misisi & Kanyama and the one (1) target community in Kabwe i.e., Makululu to help measure the effectiveness of the three pillar areas i.e., Prevent, Respond and Governance to determine the effectiveness of the approach and inform planning for future intervention.

2.2 Objectives of the Evaluation The purpose of the consultancy is to provide an endline evaluation under the following objectives:

1. Using existing data, conduct quantitative analysis to assess the progress the project made towards achieving its four (4) objectives:

a. Increased Family and Community Ability to Keep Children in Families.

b. Increased Health Facility Capacity to Prevent Family Separation and Provide Child-Care Support Services.

c.  Increased Number of Children Reintegrated into Families and Communities

d. Strengthened Capacity of and Coordination by Formal and Informal Government Structures at District and Community Levels to Promote Family-Based Care

2. Conduct focus group discussion with 1 FCC group from one (1) of the three (3) sites i.e., Chawama, Misisi, Kanyama in Lusaka and one (1) in Makululu in Kabwe; a total of 2 Focus Group Discussions to understand the impact of the CMMB FCC program in keeping children in families, so that its efforts may be improved for future programming by

a. Assessing to what extent the positive parenting sessions have helped strengthen the ability of group members to keep children at risk of separation in families

b. Areas of note that they perceive will improve the quality of the Positive Parenting sessions.

3. Conduct focus group discussion with MTATMChampions in one (1) of the three (3) sites i.e., Chawama, Misisi and Kanyama in Lusaka and one (1) in Makululu in Kabwe; a total of two (2) Focus Group Discussions to assess:

a. How effective this intervention has been in preventing or reducing the risk of separation of children from families.

• Conduct interviews with 1 Provincial Social Welfare Officer and 2 District Social Welfare Officers each from both Lusaka and Kabwe to assess:

a.  Which other line ministries and the community government structures both formal and informal that they are working with if any to promote family-based care? How are they conducting co-ordination activities with these partners?

b. What challenges have they faced in co-ordination and what proposed solutions do they have?

c. How did CMMB support them in the reintegration process?

d. What elements in their co-ordination with CMMB on the Kusamala Main project do they perceive have been the most effective?

e. What strategies from their co-ordination with CMMB do they perceive have been useful and should be replicated in other district offices?

f.  What training if any, did they receive from CMMB to support them in promoting family-based care?

3.0 Timeline:

1. The Endline data collection is planned to take place beginning February 21st, ending March 21st, 2022.

5.0 Key Deliverables:

1. Inception Report:

• Evaluation Methodology
• Roles/responsibilities of each team member
• Protocols and instruments for data collection and analyses
• Statement of limitations of the methods and potential effects on results

2. Desk review and analysis of quantitative data

3. Field data collection of qualitative data

4. Qualitative data collection & analysis

5. Draft Evaluation Report

6. Final Evaluation Report

7. Submit dataset of quantitative data analysis

8. Must be able to meet the given timeline

Consultant’s Qualifications & Competencies:

Education:

• The Lead Consultant  must possess a Masters’ Degree in Social Sciences and/or public health
• Thorough understanding of international development and child protection programming

Experience

• Strong methodological skills in the development and implementation data collection tools, data management, and analysis.
• Previous experience undertaking complex program evaluations
• Ability to work independently and within tight, evolving timelines
• Mixed methods research
• Excellent written English and report writing skills
• Oral and written proficiency in the local language

Submission Requirements

• Outline of evaluation framework: Proposed Evaluation methods, summary description of data collection instruments and procedures, procedures of analyzing data, reporting schedules, ethical considerations, details on quality assurance and approach to completing deliverables within the timeframe
• CVs  clearly indicating  a combination Qualification and Experience
• Technical Proposal
• Detailed Financial Proposal
• Detailed workplan
• Commitment of availability for the entire assignment
• Evidence of evaluation experience and writing samples for each team member proposed.
• Referees (2)

Ethical Consideration

• The evaluation will respect human subjects’ considerations such as confidentiality of responses in interviews or discussions and need to obtain informed consent from participants in the interview.

Child Protection Policy

• The Consultant/s shall comply with the Child Protection Policy of CMMB. Any violation in complying with the policy will result in termination of agreement.