Consultant for Parenting Policy Benchmarking

The consultant will be responsible to conduct a national assessment of progress in policy implementation toward universal and targeted parenting support in Serbia for children in early years and adolescent age, using the policy benchmark assessment framework.

UNICEF is committed to diversity and inclusion and gender parity within its workforce, and encourages all qualified candidates, irrespective of nationality, religious and ethnic backgrounds, gender identity and sexual orientation, as well as persons living with disabilities, to apply to become a part of the organization. UNICEF’s office is accessible to a certain extent, and employees are entitled to reasonable accommodations that are needed for ensuring equitable working conditions.

Evidence-based parenting programmes and interventions are a scalable and cost-effective way to support parents and caregivers in child upbringing and development and prevent abuse, neglect and adversity in childhood. They contribute to good mental health and well-being for children and their caregivers and reduce risk-taking behaviours throughout the life course. Despite this strong, evidence-based investment case, a WHO survey has estimated that only around 25% of countries globally have established parenting programmes that reach all who need them. There is, therefore, a growing momentum behind the global Call to Action in support of a collective action framework that urges for increased investment in evidence-based parent support initiatives across the globe.

UNICEF Serbia aims to strengthen the system-level support to empower parents in facilitating optimal child and adolescent development, preventing child abuse and neglect, and promoting children's and youth mental health and well-being through comprehensive support for parents and caregivers. The purpose of this assignment is to develop a report on policies and practices for parenting support in Serbia, using the recently developed UNICEF assessment tool for benchmarking policy support for parenting, focusing on early years and adolescent age across relevant sectors of health, social welfare, and education.

Work Assignment Overview:

The consultant will be responsible to conduct a national assessment of progress in policy implementation toward universal and targeted parenting support in Serbia for children in early years and adolescent age, using the policy benchmark assessment framework. The consultant will apply the parenting policy benchmarking tool which provides a set of twelve standards, with an accompanying benchmark, that will permit the objective measurement of progress in policy implementation toward universal parenting support.

The consultant will be guided by the UNICEF Serbia and the Parenting for Lifelong Health (PLH) consultancy team, engaged by the UNICEF HQ, that will familiarize the consultant with the framework, methodology, national contextualization of the tool and provide technical assistance and quality control of the results. The assessment will be conducted in two phases using the same methodology (benchmarking tool) for two target groups:

1. small children (0 – 6 years old), spanning from April to June, with the objective to have the first report, complete with recommendations and defined priorities for the future, ready by the time of the Sub-regional Conference on Early Childhood Development and Parenting (June 2024);
2. adolescents (12 – 24 years old), spanning from June to September, with the aim to ensure that the data and evidence will be available for presentation at the Annual Mental Health Conference in October.

Duration of the whole assignment: 30 April – 30 Sep 2024 (part-time, remote, around 42 workdays)

Task description:

1. Participate in the familiarization with the national assessment tool – online session with the PLH (approx. 2 days),
2. Perform a comprehensive desk review of national policy and programming documents on parenting to understand the national context for parenting support (approx. 6 initial days, and 2 additional days specific for adolescents),
3. Perform the Benchmarking Assessment (approx. 12 days for small children and 8 days for adolescents),
4. Perform a participatory consultation on draft findings/validation with key stakeholders (approx. 6 days),
5. Prepare the final national report on Serbia's parenting policy: (approx. 6 days).

Timeframe:

(a) small children – summary by 18^th of June, final Report by the end of June 2024,

(b) adolescents – summary and final report by the end of September 2024.

Knowledge/Expertise/Skills required:

• University degree in a wide range of social and humanistic fields (law, social work, psychology, sociology, pedagogy, etc.).
• Minimum of eight years of relevant professional work in social policy-related field, with expertise in parenting, ECD and/or social welfare fields.
• Experience in providing policy advice to Governments, research and writing papers, policy briefs and reports.
• A minimum of 5 years of experience in working for children and/or families in need of protective services (violence against children, gender-based violence).
• Demonstrated outstanding oral and writing skills in Serbian and advanced knowledge of English.
• Demonstrated outstanding facilitation skills.

How to apply:

The application must include a financial proposal in RSD as a separate document, providing a separate all-inclusive fee for the two main deliverables:

• Deliverable 1: National report for small children,
• Deliverable 2: National report for adolescents.

Important notes:

• Please do not forget to specify your name in the financial proposal file while saving (to be uploaded online under the “Financial Proposal” tab).  
• Please do not indicate financials anywhere else in the online application form, please mark "n/a” or “00" under the fee-related questions in the online application form.
• Incomplete applications will not be taken into consideration.
• Only shortlisted candidates will be notified and advance to the next stage of the selection process.

For every child, you must demonstrate UNICEF's core values of Care, Respect, Integrity, Trust, Accountability and Sustainability.

UNICEF has a zero-tolerance policy on conduct that is incompatible with the aims and objectives of the United Nations and UNICEF, including sexual exploitation and abuse, sexual harassment, abuse of authority and discrimination. UNICEF also adheres to strict child safeguarding principles. All selected candidates will, therefore, undergo rigorous reference and background checks, and will be expected to adhere to these standards and principles.