SHORT-TERM INDIVIDUAL NATIONAL CONSULTANCY for TRAINING and CONTENT DEVELOPMENT ON CHILDREN’S ACCESS TO JUSTICE AND DISCRIMINATION for LAWYERS WORKING WITH/FOR CHILDREN

If you are a committed, creative professional and are passionate about making a lasting difference for children, the world's leading children's rights organization would like to hear from you.

UNICEF works in some of the world’s toughest places, to reach the world’s most disadvantaged children. To save their lives. To defend their rights. To help them fulfill their potential. 

Across 190 countries and territories, we work for every child, everywhere, every day, to build a better world for everyone. 

And we never give up. 

You can watch our video to learn more about UNICEF Turkiye Country Office and a glance of our worklife.

Visit our website to learn more about what we do at UNICEF.

For every child, inclusivity

 Access to justice is the ability to seek and obtain a just, equitable and timely remedy for violations of rights. It includes the right to be recognized before the law and to a fair trial, including equal access to courts and equality before the law.  It is also a fundamental right for children, which requires the legal empowerment of every child. They should be enabled to access relevant information and effective remedies to claim their rights. With this perspective, UNICEF’s Reimagine Justice for Children agenda identifies legal empowerment as an underpinning principle and commits that UNICEF will increase investment in child-friendly legal assistance, legal aid, and legal rights awareness.

Therefore, all lawyers, mostly those working directly with children, should have a specific understanding of the fundamental rights and protective means concerning children who encountered the justice system.  In this vein, UNICEF ECA Regional Office developed “Guidelines on Child-Friendly Legal Aid” (GCFLA) in order to provide a practical tool to support both experienced and newly qualified legal practitioners in their daily work on the frontline of children’s rights. Thanks to the ongoing fruitful partnership,  

Moreover, in 2018, a needs analysis was conducted by the Union of Turkish Bar Associations (UTBA) and UNICEF which demonstrated systematic quality issues regarding legal assistance to children, including the lack of standard operating procedures and training programmes for lawyers. Despite the high percentage of child-related cases in the system, the quality of legal assistance provided to children under the legal aid system, as also pointed out by the Committee on the Rights of the Child in its concluding observations over Türkiye, remains to be improved. The lack of a structured training programme (professional qualification) and supervision are also among the main reasons for this issue.

With an aim to address those challenges and to strengthen the child-friendly legal aid in Türkiye, UNICEF and UTBA developed the EU-funded project entitled “Improving the Capacity of Lawyers and Bar Associations on Promotion, Protection and Monitoring of Children’s Rights” or shortly the “ÇABA Project”. Among many others, one of the aims of the Project is to increase the capacity of lawyers who are working with/for children through a full-fledged training programme to be adopted by UTBA.

The training programme to be developed for lawyers under ÇABA Project will consist of various modules on different areas of justice for children (such as criminal law, private law, communication with children, forensic medicine, skills on child-friendly legal aid, etc.). All modules will be developed by different ‘key consultants’ in each subject matter and will be supported by ‘subject matter lawyers’ who will assist the key experts in tailoring the therotical information to legal practice in the modules. There will also be a ‘Training Programming Consultant’ who will oversee the overall structure of the programme.

Upon finalization of all modules, a ToT will be conducted for at least 120 trainers, who will then provide pieces of training to 2000 lawyers across Türkiye.

With regards to the foregoing aims of the ÇABA Project, UTBA and UNICEF seek a competent consultant to develop online modules (including for trainers and participants) on Children’s Access to Justice and Discrimination for lawyers who are working with/for children.

How can you make a difference? 

The purpose of this assignment is as follows:

Development of Children’s Access to Justice and Discrimination modules of the ÇABA Training Programme for Lawyers working with/for children.

These modules will include the online Training Modules (tailored separately for the ToT and General Training).

IMPORTANT:

The content of all modules and the ToT interventions should be developed according to the standardized structure that will be developed by the “Training Programming Consultant” and adopted by UNICEF and UTBA. This structure requires the consultant to also develop (including but not limited to) pre-post test questions, learning objectives, exam/assessment questions, as well as to provide input for the audio-visual content, to finalize the training modules as per the feedback gathered and to adopt the narrative as per the developed structure.

The programme will also be heavily based on case examples, so the consultant is expected to enrich all the modules with case examples and the most up-to-date jurisprudence where possible.

Hence, the consultant is expected to work closely with the ‘Training Programming Consultant’, ‘subject matter lawyer’ and other key consultants who will develop subsidiary training programme modules as described in the background section.

ALL INPUTS SHOULD BE DEVELOPED IN LINE WITH INTERNATIONAL CHILD JUSTICE STANDARDS.

Deliverables and Tasks:

The Assignment will be composed of the following tasks:

1. Inception Phase and Development of Outline of the Modules

• Conduct regular meetings with UNICEF, UTBA, the Training Programming Consultant, the Online Learning Platform Consultant, the Subject Matter Lawyer, and other key consultants when and where available.
• Draft an inception report including: the outline of the online ToT and Lawyer Training Programme.

1. Development of Online Modules for the ToT and Training Programme for Lawyers

• Work in consultation with UNICEF, UTBA, Training Programming Consultant, Online Learning Platform Consultant on the agreed-upon methodology for the ToT and Training Programme for Lawyers Online Modules.
• Upon the agreed methodology, develop online modules on the following topics:

1. Children’s Access to Justice and
2. Discrimination Against Children.

• • Provide Inputs to other Modules Where Necessary

The consultant may be asked—where relevant—to provide brief input on her/his subject area for other training modules of the ÇABA Training Programme.

1. Finalization of the Programme and the Modules

• Based on the ToT and feedback by the Project partners and candidate trainers, the consultant will finalize the modules & the programme.

*Delivery dates are tentative. A detailed time plan is required together with the technical proposal.

Duty Station: 

This consultancy is largely home-based with online meetings, and frequent travels to Ankara, dates to be confirmed as per ÇABA Project’s timeline.

Supervisor: 

Child Protection Officer, UNICEF Türkiye Country Office

Estimated Duration and Cost of Consultancy

Duration: The contract shall commence on the date of signing and remain in effect until the successful submission of all deliverables. The consultancy is expected to require a total of 25 working days, which will be scheduled during the initial phase of the assignment. The consultancy period will span from 1 November 2024 to 30 April 2025.

Estimated Cost of Consultancy: Applications shall include a detailed financial proposal that elaborates on daily costs based on the completion of above-mentioned deliverables, including a total sum demanded. All costs, including travel, accommodation, administrative costs, etc. shall be covered by the contractor and should be included in the financial proposal as a separate heading and broken down into details of accommodation and travel costs in line with UN DSA rates.  The candidate is required to specify their daily rates and the total amount as per the number of anticipated working days for each deliverable in the financial proposal and provide the breakdown of the lump sum amount as well as incidentals of each deliverable in TRY.

Payment: UNICEF will issue a contract in TRY. The payment will be done in instalments upon submission of the deliverables as per the above list and will be executed in TRY.

Payment Schedule:  UNICEF will issue a contract in Turkish Lira (TRY). The payments will be made according to the payment schedule noted in the financial proposal template, upon UNICEF's approval of requested outputs as specified in the contract (please see financial proposal template).

Reservations: UNICEF reserves the right to terminate the contract without a prior notice and/or withhold all or a portion of payment if performance is unsatisfactory, if the rules and the regulations regarding confidentiality, ethics and procedures of UNICEF and the relevant partners are not followed, if work/outputs are incomplete, not delivered or for failure to meet deadlines.

All relevant intellectual property rights in the developed materials/products/documents and associated tools will, upon their development, vest in UTBA and UNICEF. UTBA and UNICEF will be free to adapt and modify them in the future. The selected service provider shall not use the data for their own research purposes and shall not license the data to be used by others, without the written consent of UTBA and UNICEF.

To qualify as an advocate for every child you will have… 

Qualifications:

• Having a professor degree in Law.
• A minimum of 10 years of experience in philosophy of law, access to justice, gender, children's rights, and human rights, women’s rights related activities, Projects, etc.,
• Experience as a consultant on EU/UN-funded projects is an asset, particularly with UN experience.  Familiarity with UNICEF programming and reporting processes is especially beneficial.
• Solid expertise in developing and delivering trainings.
• A minimum of 5 years of experience in working, managing, collaborating and networking with Bar Associations and UTBA.
• Awareness about human rights and rights of the child, different cultures, local traditions, religious beliefs and practices, personal interaction, genders, disability, age and ethnic origins will be an asset.
• A minimum of 5 years of experience in working with lawyers, social workers, psychologists and other relevant actors on children’s rights.
• Good command of Turkish and English.
• Being a registered lawyer will be considered as an asset.

Skills and personal traits:

• Sensitivity to ethics regarding human and child rights issues, different cultures, local customs, religious beliefs and practices, personal interaction and gender roles, disability, age, and ethnicity.
• Strong analytical, organizational, and interpersonal skills.
• Ability to work closely with national and international actors under tight deadlines and to facilitate the coordination of a process.
• Computer literacy.

Application and Selection Criteria

Please note that the assignment can only be held by an individual consultant. Applications should be submitted in English and should include: 

• Financial proposal using the Financial Proposal Template,  Financial-Offer-template (3).docx
• Most recent CV and
• Sample of relevant work developed by the consultant. 

The submission deadline is 30 October 2024 by 23:59 hrs Türkiye time. Financial proposals should be submitted in separate folders from the remaining documentation. After the technical evaluation, the financial proposals of qualified candidates will be evaluated. The technical evaluation will be completed based on the attached technical evaluation criteria.

The applications will be evaluated from the technical and financial point of view. Technical aspects will be evaluated using the criteria outlined in the below matrix:

The financial proposals will be opened only for the candidates that reach or exceed forty-nine (49) points out of maximum seventy (70) points. Thirty (30) points will be awarded to the candidate that presented the lowest fee for the services requested. The remaining financial offers will receive proportional points ([lowest bid/bid] x 30 points).

For every Child, you demonstrate… 

UNICEF's values of Care, Respect, Integrity, Trust, Accountability, and Sustainability (CRITAS). 

To view our competency framework, please visit  here. 

UNICEF is here to serve the world’s most disadvantaged children and our global workforce must reflect the diversity of those children. The UNICEF family is committed to include everyone, irrespective of their race/ethnicity, age, disability, gender identity, sexual orientation, religion, nationality, socio-economic background, or any other personal characteristic.

UNICEF offers reasonable accommodation for consultants/individual contractors with disabilities. This may include, for example, accessible software, travel assistance for missions or personal attendants. We encourage you to disclose your disability during your application in case you need reasonable accommodation during the selection process and afterwards in your assignment. 

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 be expected to adhere to these standards and principles and will therefore undergo rigorous reference and background checks. Background checks will include the verification of academic credential(s) and employment history. Selected candidates may be required to provide additional information to conduct a background check. 

Remarks:  

Only shortlisted candidates will be contacted and advance to the next stage of the selection process. 

Individuals engaged under a consultancy or individual contract will not be considered “staff members” under the Staff Regulations and Rules of the United Nations and UNICEF’s policies and procedures, and will not be entitled to benefits provided therein (such as leave entitlements and medical insurance coverage). Their conditions of service will be governed by their contract and the General Conditions of Contracts for the Services of Consultants and Individual Contractors. Consultants and individual contractors are responsible for determining their tax liabilities and for the payment of any taxes and/or duties, in accordance with local or other applicable laws. 

The selected candidate is solely responsible to ensure that the visa (applicable) and health insurance required to perform the duties of the contract are valid for the entire period of the contract. Selected candidates are subject to confirmation of fully-vaccinated status against SARS-CoV-2 (Covid-19) with a World Health Organization (WHO)-endorsed vaccine, which must be met prior to taking up the assignment. It does not apply to consultants who will work remotely and are not expected to work on or visit UNICEF premises, programme delivery locations or directly interact with communities UNICEF works with, nor to travel to perform functions for UNICEF for the duration of their consultancy contracts.