POSITION: International Consultant for Development of Social and Behavioural Change

POSITION: International Consultant for development of Social and Behavioural Change Communication (SBCC) strategy on Adolescent Health

Location: New Delhi

Official Travel: Travel to select states

Duration: 1 month approximately

Closing Date:29January 2014

I.BACKGROUND:

Adolescents (10-19 years) constitute about one fourth of India's population and young people (10-24 years) about one third of the population. This represents a huge opportunity that can transform the social and economic fortunes of the country. The large and increasing relative share and absolute numbers of adolescent and youth population in India makes it necessary that the nation ensure they become a vibrant, constructive force that can contribute to sustainable and inclusive growth. The skills, knowledge, attitudes, and behaviours of today’s young people are essential to whether, and how well, the demographic dividend is successfully leveraged.

In order to enable adolescents to fulfill their potential, substantive investments must be made in: education, health, development and other areas. Investments in adolescents will have an immediate and direct impact on India’s health goals and achievement of MDGs - especially Goals 1, 2, 3, 4 5 [1] and at the same time contribute to enhancing economic productivity, effective social functioning, and overall population development. However, a considerable proportion of adolescents face challenges to their healthy development, due to a variety of factors, including structural poverty, social discrimination, negative social norms, inadequate education and early marriage and childbearing especially in the marginalised and underserved sections of the population. In order to respond effectively to needs of adolescent health and development, it is thus imperative to situate adolescence in a life span perspective within dynamic sociological, cultural and economic realities.

Taking cognisance of the need to respond to health and development requirements of adolescents in a holistic manner, the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare has developed a comprehensive strategy based on principles of participation, rights, inclusion, gender equity, and strategic partnerships. The strategy envisions, that all adolescents in India are able to realize their full potential by making informed and responsible decisions related to their health and well-being.

The strategy is a paradigm shift as it realigns existing approach to focus on community based health promotion & prevention, strengthening of clinic based preventive, diagnostic and curative services across levels of care - thus offering a continuum of care for adolescent health and developments needs through provision of information, commodities and services at the community level with mapped out referral linkages through the three tier public health system. Most importantly, it proposes a convergent model of service delivery which will actively engage adolescents and field service providers (teachers, ASHA, ANM, AWC and Volunteers) to secure and strengthen mechanisms for access and relevance. The strategy moves away from “one size fits all” approach to more customized programmes and service delivery specific to needs of adolescents and aims to institute effective, appropriate, acceptable and accessible service package addressing a range of adolescent health and development needs.

To implement this paradigm shift the strategy identifies seven critical components: coverage, content, communities, clinics (health facilities), counselling, communication and convergence that need to be leveraged across strategic priority (programme areas) which have emerged from a situation analysis of adolescent health and development in India. These are nutrition, sexual and reproductive health, mental health, gender based violence, non-communicable diseases and substance misuse. The strategy uses the continuum of care approach and proposes a set of interventions (health promotion, prevention, curative and referral) across levels of care. These interventions and approaches work toward building protective factors that can help young people develop “resiliency” to resist negative behaviours and operate at four major areas: individual, family, school, and community by providing a comprehensive package of information, commodities and services.

To deliver these interventions the health system will need to strengthen effective communication, capacity building and monitoring and evaluation systems. Also, several constituencies need to converge effectively and harness collective strength to respond to adolescent health and development needs. Different stakeholders working on issues related to adolescent health and development have a lot to gain by building on each other’s work both in terms of achieving programme objectives as well as improved indicators for adolescent health and development.

II. RATIONALE:

In order to realize adolescents’ full potential as individuals, leaders and agents of progress, health services and programmes should facilitate and support meaningful engagement of young people. It is important to ensure that adolescents play a lead role in organizing/steering communication processes related to their health. The strategy proposes that health professionals should also act as advocates on behalf of young people and as providers to young people and their caregivers of most relevant and up to date evidence based information; they should use methods and language deemed appropriate by the adolescents themselves.

Therefore effective communication is an integral part of this strategy and will be a catalyst in successful implementation. To enhance capacities among adolescents for improved health and well-being and to advance their health care seeking behaviour, there is need for a comprehensive Social and Behaviour Change Communication (SBCC) Strategy, which will be based on (i) evidence, (ii) the needs and aspirations of adolescents, (iii) social cultural determinants of adolescent health and wellbeing.

III. PURPOSE OF ASSIGNMENT:

MoHFW’s Adolescents Reproductive and Sexual Health (ARSH) Division seeks UNICEF’s technical assistance in developing a National SBCC Strategy for Adolescents’ Health in India in convergence with other sectors such as the Ministry of Women and Child Development (MWCD), Ministry of drinking Water and Sanitation (MDWS) and Ministry of Human Resources Development (MHRD).

The consultant will support the UNICEF team at various stages in the development and rollout of the SBCC strategy for adolescent health including the development of communication materials and tools.

IV. DELIVERABLES, TASKS TO BE ACCOMPLISHED AND TIMELINE

• Compiling research reports, peer review publications and secondary data around issues identified by MOHFW relevant to adolescent health

• Development of the design /agenda for the workshop

• Finalisation of workshop design/agenda and contents with UNICEF India team – In India
• Facilitation of National workshop with participants from states and central level – In India

• Consolidation of draft strategy framework and recommendations from the national workshop – In home country
• Writing the SBCC strategy for Adolescent Health – In home country

Performance Indicators:

• High quality workshop designed and facilitated
• Robust SBCC strategy on Adolescent Health developed
• Work completed as per schedule

Qualifications & Experience required:

1.An advanced degree in communication/ social sciences/ public health

2.A robust understanding of SBCC approaches, theories and methods.

3.Extensive international field experiences in SBCC strategy design, planning, implementation as well as M&E, with particular emphasis on adolescent health

4.Extensive international experience in working with the health sector in the field of SBCC

5.Excellent written communication skills and,

6.Excellent verbal communication and facilitation skills to be able to draw input from a wide range of stakeholders, including government partners, academic centres, NGOs and technical experts.

Application Procedures

(1)Qualified female/male candidates are requested to please indicate their ability and availability to undertake the terms of reference above.

(2)Your application should be sent to by COB 29January 2014 with subject line "International Consultant for Development of SBCC strategy on Adolescent Health" in separate files (not to exceed a total size of 4 MB per email) consisting of:

a)An application letter, CV and P11 form in PDF format(which can be downloaded from our website at

b)A financial proposalin PDF format indicating deliverable based fee as per template attached.

(3)The financial proposals of only those candidates, who are found technically responsive, will be opened.

(4)Only short-listed candidates will be called for test/interview (if applicable). Any attempt to unduly influence UNICEF’s selection process will lead to automatic disqualification of the applicant.

(5)Joint applications of two or more individuals are not accepted.

[1]Goal 1 Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger; Goal 2 Achieve universal primary education; 3Promote gender equality and empower women; Goal 4 Reduce child mortality and; Goal 5 Improve maternal health