TERM OF REFERECE(ToR) TO CONDUCT IMPACT ASSESSMENT IN SOS CVE PROGRAMMES/PROJECT

Background

SOS-Childrens Villages (SOS-CV) is a global non-profit-organization established in 1949. SOS CVI consists of 138-member associations all over the world, working in more than 2000 programme locations worldwide. The focus of the organization is to provide support to vulnerable children who have lost or are at risk of losing parental care and their families. In Alternative Care programmes (AC), SOS CV provides a family-like environment to a child or young person and offers quality care and support for their development. Through Family Strengthening Programmes (FSP), SOS CV helps parents and communities build capacities to care for their children and prevent family breakdown.

SOS Childrens Villages Ethiopia (SOS CVE) launched its programming in 1974, when the first of currently seven SOS CVE was established in Mekele under the Alternative Care Programme (ACP). Since then, SOS CVE Ethiopia has expanded its approach and programme to complement direct childcare provision with support provides through the Family Strengthening Programme (FSP), which uses a community-based approach. SOS CVE engages with a variety of community-managed organizations and local government authorities and supports them to provide an enabling environment for most vulnerable communities and families to access vital social services and protection whether in peaceful times or crises, with the goal of ensuring care and protection for all children and youth living in their community.

SOS Childrens Villages Programme locations:

SOS Childrens Villages Ethiopia has seven programme locations (Mekele, Harar, Hawassa, Bahir Dar, Addis Ababa, Jimma and Gode. The organization has plan to expand its intervention to Arbaminch, Dessie, Semera and Axum. SOS CVE has ample experiences in addressing the multifaceted needs of vulnerable children and young people. Over the past 50 years, SOS Childrens Villages in Ethiopia has brought about a greater impact on the lives of the children without parenteral care, young people who have left care, families, as well as the community at large. The consultant is expected to conduct impact assessment in Mekele, Hawassa, Harar and Addis Ababa programmme locations.

Rational for the impact assessment:

In 2024, SOS Childrens Villages Ethiopia has planned to commemorate its 50th year journey with a yearlong celebration focusing on its evolution, accomplishments and its vision of ensuring quality service to improve the lives of children without adequate parental care. The ability to define and measure impact is essential if organizations are to strengthen their capacity to systematically evaluate and compare project interventions. The organization supported vulnerable groups particularly children and young people for long time and there are a lot of visible changes in the lives of target children, young people and community members. Hence, SOS CVE planned to generate evidence regarding the changes brought on the lives of the program participants, capture and document over the last 50 years of its journey. In addition to the impact assessment, the organization will capture documentary evidences, facilitate, plan and organize various events. Assessing the impacts and documenting the organizations contributions (developmental and humanitarian interventions) of the SOS-CVE, will help the organization design quality and result oriented programs and projects in the coming years.

Objective of the impact Assessment:

The overall objective of the impact assessment is to generate evidence on the changes brought about on the lives of children, youth, caregivers, and community structures as a result of its 50 years intervention within the target communities. It also aimed at, capturing the impacts, document and disseminate remarkable achievements with the SOS childrens villages families, donors and partners.

Specific objectives

The impact assessment has the following specific objectives:

• Identify the major changes observed on the lives of program targeted children, young person, families, communities and stakeholders.
• Analyze and measure the changes on the lives of participants over time and explain how different SOS CVE interventions led to the observed changes.
• Capture and document impacts, good practices, lessons learned and success stories
• Assess SOS Childrens Villages Ethiopias relationship with government stakeholders, implementing partners and likeminded non-governmental organizations and assess the impact brought about within the community as a result of the SOS CVEs intervention
• Assess organizational strengths, limitations and recommend for improvements

Scope of the assignment

Former program participants of FS and alternative care programs shall be evaluated. The former participants from family strengthening have to have left between 1 and 5 years ago, and those from alternative care between 2 and 6 years ago. Where necessary, reference shall be made to other SOS facilities/programs, but focus is to be on the above-mentioned programs in the four selected locations.

Assessment Methodology:

The consultant is expected to come up with relevant and standard quantitative and qualitative methodologies that can generate the highest quality and most credible evidence. The commissioned consultant should use a mixed method approach (quantitative and qualitative methods). The commissioned consultant is expected to develop relevant tools to conduct the impact assessment across the sample four programme locations (Mekelle, Hawassa, Harar, Addis Ababa).The impact assessment methods (both quantitative and qualitative methods) should involve mainly the following stakeholders: - former and current programme participants, caregivers and children and young people- Key Implementing Partners (KIPs) and Community Structures (cooperatives, CCs (Community conversations), child protection committees/coalitions), former and current SOS staff - Local Government stakeholders and likeminded non-governmental organizations. The Consultant should also ensure that the survey and qualitative methods (such as focus group discussion (FGD), survey (questionnaire), key informant interview (KII) and group discussion) participants are representative of SOS CVE current and former programmes/ projects target groups and key stakeholders (village leaders, care givers, elders, employedmyouth representatives, CBOs, women leaders, employers, company owners, training centres, TVETs, or key staff within local government authorities).

The winner consult should address the proposed programme participants from each sampled programme location and develop relevant impact assessment questions in addition to questions explained in this terms of reference. The methodology is expected to be developed further during the inception phase and shared with the SOS CVE for review and approval. The applied methodology has to ensure context sensitivity and that the respondents in all their diversity get equal opportunity to participate in the assessment and that the settings are designed in a way that they allow for sufficiently safe spaces to equally encourage all participants regardless of gender, age, disability, origin or religious orientation to respond freely.

Major impact assessment questions:

a. What insights on the relevance, sustainability, efficiency and effectiveness (DAC criteria) in general can be described? What is the evidence of contribution of SOS Childrens Villages to the observed impact (making reference to result chain/programme results framework and testing plausibility)?

b. To what extent can former-child participants meet the targets for the non-financial dimensions for individual impact? What observations can be made in comparing former-child participants with national or community level averages (depending on availability of data within country),

c. To analyses different reasons for exit of former-child participants (both, FS and FLC). Based on existing statistics and interviews with staff please investigate reasons for exit (especially pre-mature or drop outs) and possible mitigation and/or follow-up measures.

d. To what extent does the programme contribute to a broader impact on the community beyond the individual impact? What is the evidence of contribution of SOS Childrens Villages?

e. Describe any unexpected (positive or negative) impact.

f. What differences between family-like care and FS services in terms of individual impact and impact on the broader community, financial and non-financial, can be observed? What conclusions can be drawn for FS and FLC services with regard to question 1.a (DAC criteria and plausibility of result chain)?

g. To what extent could findings be related to specific SDGs? Please describe verifiable examples?

h. How can the findings from the Social Impact Assessment be used to improve the programme design and how can lessons learnt be incorporated into daily work (provide recommendations).

Some key facts on suggested methodological approach:

The impact assessment sets out to test whether children and young adults who have participated in SOS Childrens Village programmes attain a positive outcomes in the below eight dimensions of wellbeing:

1. Care: parental care, parental obligations, and family relationships

2. Food security

3. Accommodation: stability, living conditions

4. Physical health: physical health

5. Education & skills: attendance, performance, attainment, employability

6. Livelihood: family resources, household income, employment status

7. Protection & social inclusion: legal identity, abuse & exploitation, discrimination

8 Social & emotional well-being: happiness, social behaviour, self-esteem).

Quantitative methodology

A. Impact on individual level: Individual interviews with former-child participants and their care-givers (where applicable), form the major part of the data collection process. Two different benchmarks are to be used: 1. Benchmark against the eight dimensions. 2. Benchmark against national/local averages mainly with regard to dimensions of livelihood and education. For this purpose, additional desk research and/or expert interviews on nationally or locally available statistics and data on the labour market and government services is required. It has to be checked for each individual programme location, what external benchmarks would be available, for which dimensions, and how they could be used for comparison.

Individual interviews on questionnaires need to be conducted with the following groups:

B Former-child participants of alternative care, who participated when being a child and now lives independently, as independent adults, or (b) have been successfully reintegrated into their families of origin and are still dependent children. In the case of (b), interviews are also conducted with the childs parental care-giver. This is to complete the assessment of children within the family perspective (e.g. on accommodation, food security, livelihood). Total number of children to be interviewed will be 20/location * 4 locations= 80

C. Former-child participants of FS service who participated when being a child and now either (a) still live with their families or alternative care-givers, as dependent children, or (b) live independently as independent adults. In the case of (a), interviews are also conducted with the childs parental care-giver. This is to complete the assessment of children within the family perspective (e.g. on accommodation, food security, livelihood). The total number children to be included in the study will be 20/location* 4locations=80 and the total caregivers 20/location* 4 locations = 80

Qualitative data collection methodology:

To further explore emerging topics and fill any gaps, key informant interviews and focus group discussions will be held with the stakeholder groups. While the assessment of the situation of former-child participants is largely based on the rating on how well the child/young person is when measured against the eight dimensions the findings are to be underpinned by qualitative information to explain the how and the why of results. Staff members should also be consulted.

A. Impact on community level: Semi-structured interviews with community stakeholders from local government, community leaders, CBOs, local experts, NGOs and SOS co-workers. This will also be supplemented by key informant interview and focus group discussions. This part would be especially open for qualitative methodology (e.g. most significant changes) and additional suggestions by the external consultant.

B. Case stories: In-depth interviews will be conducted with four former participants (one per location) from alternative care and four from family strengthening, who are doing particularly well, in order to highlight what has contributed to their success. Successful case stories from communities which have been positively impacted by SOS Childrens Villages (for example of community-based partner organizations) may also be collected, where relevant.

C. Relevance, sustainability, efficiency and effectiveness of the programme (DAC criteria): Additional methods defined by external researcher in order to support/validate collected data and in order to check plausibility of programme results framework and on DAC evaluation criteria.

The given methodology is seen as subject to further improvement and development by the consultant.

Work plan and expected deliverables:

The assignment is expected to finalize the task within 35 days after contractual agreement is signed.

Deliverables:

The awarded external consultant is expected to deliver the result of the assignment within 35 days from the signing of the contract. Based on the work plan, SOS-CVE expects the following deliverables:

• An inception report on the impact assessment design, methodology, sampling frame sampling technique, sample size, assessment tools and work plan
• Draft impact assessment report
• Final assessment report - The findings of the impact assessment report including an executive summary and data collection tools in both electronic and hardcopy formats should be submitted to the relevant national office program staff
• Raw data, the database which has been cleaned (both qualitative and quantitative, including original field notes for in-depth interviews and focus group discussions, as well as recorded audio material), should be submitted together with the report. A simple inventory of material handed over will be part of the record. SOS CVE will have sole ownership of all final data and any findings shall only be shared or reproduced with the permission of SOS CV.

Qualification of the researcher / research team

• The researching/impact assessment team shall have at least a masters degree in a relevant field of study such Psychology, Sociology, Social Work, Law, development studies, Economics, Project Management (Development or Humanitarian), Monitoring & Evaluation and other related fields per the required assignment
• At least 5 year work experience & proven competency in monitoring and evaluation, including impact assessment or organizational/program evaluation (baseline, midterm and end term evaluations). The incumbent shall attach at least one sample impact assessment report that is produced by the candidate on similar topic.
• A good understanding of developmental and humanitarian impact works.
• A good understanding of child/youth rights/safeguarding & other issues affecting vulnerable children in the Ethiopian context
• A good facilitation and interpersonal skills
• Proven experience in participatory processes and data collection methods
• Strong skills in coordinating teamwork
• Strong analytical and conceptual skills on impact assessment
• Excellent written and spoken communication skills in English
• Ability to transfer complex concepts and ideas into practical and simple language
• Experience in organizing research processes with/for child focused development organizations
• Experience and credibility in providing impact assessment for external communication and organizational purpose
• Experience in managing assignments in respect of the participating communities culture, social norms, values and behavior; and maintain appropriate relationships with participants of this evaluation
• Legally registered firms with renewed license, VAT registration and TIN number