Senior Consultant to review and harmonize National Clinical Mentorship Guidelines to a scalable model, Kigali, Rwanda, 4 months ( Remote) – For Rwandan Nationals ONLY: (Deadline 8 September 2023)

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.

For every child, Health

To learn more about UNICEF work in Rwanda, please visit the country website https://unicef.sharepoint.com/sites/RWA/ or watch this video about UNICEF work in Rwanda: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f7B91m5Yzoc

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Background:

For over five years, UNICEF and other partners have been collaborating with the Ministry of Health (MOH) and the Rwanda Biomedical Center (RBC) in implementation different types of mentorship models to strengthen quality of care within reproductive, maternal, newborn, child, and adolescent health (RMNCAH). This contributed to addressing obstacles that undermined access to high-quality, safeRMNCAH services. This has helped in the reduction of maternal and infant mortality and morbidity, and improved utilization of informed, voluntary, safe services.

To deliver better quality of care, health care providers and their supervisors need relevant, up to date, evidence -based harmonized mentorship guidelines. In 2018, Implementing partners supported the Ministry of health to develop clinical mentorship guidelines (2018). By end of 2022, most of national treatment guidelines such as emergency obstetric and neonatal care (EmONC), antenatal care (ANC) with eight contacts, emergency triage (ETAT+), the neonatal, adolescent sexual and reproductive health (ASRH) and family planning, integrated I integrated management of newborn and childhood illness (IMNCI), preconception care, family centered care, gender-based violence (GBV) and hospital accreditation standards were revised and approved by MOH. The purpose of this consultancy is to support the Ministry of health through RBC to review, update and harmonize 2018 clinical mentorship guidelines and reporting forms to a scalable mentorship model that will sustainably drive improvements on quality of RMNCAH care across all health facilities (hospitals, health centres and health posts) in Rwanda.

Scope of Work:

The consultant will be expected to undertake the following tasks:

• Prepare inception report indicating different activities, key informants in different stakeholders to be interviewed, guiding questions, list of documents to be reviewed, and methodology, including a detailed implementation schedule with clear timeline (week/date) for each activity and deliverables. Review and revise based on feedback from UNICEF/RBC/steering committee.
• Participate and document in introductory meetings, including key informants’ interviews and/or focus groups, with MOH, RBC, health providers (in health posts, health centres and hospitals), private hospitals and clinics, UNICEF, health professional bodies, and other key partners in RMNCAH services to identify what is happening on the ground currently and in the past and opportunities for improvement
• Conduct desk review including latest RMNCAH national treatment/protocol/policies guidelines which will be supported through mentorship, the previous mentorship guidelines (2018), different models of mentorship from closed and ongoing projects, training manuals, tools (e.g., scenarios, simulations, practical sessions) and reporting forms and other relevant documents.
• Submit a summary report from the desk review, key informants’ interviews and focus group discussions, including proposed structure for the next step (guidelines, tools, reporting forms, and trainings). Submit to UNICEF and RBC for input.
• Develop new clinical mentorship guidelines, tools, and reporting forms.
• Develop a new updated mentorship training manual, PowerPoint presentations and participant competency validation logbook.
• Present the first draft of the clinical mentorship guidelines, tools, reporting forms and training manual to a steering committee comprising MOH/HRH Secretariat, RBC, Rwanda Medical Council, professional associations, and UNICEF and other partners designed by RBC/MCCH for review, inputs, and comments to draft-0 and develop draft 1. Guidelines should include an implementation structure/plan across different levels of the health system.
• Facilitate a 5-day workshop with a team of RMNCAH experts and health providers from different levels (HPs, HCs & Hospitals) to review, consolidate and validate draft-1 to draft-2 of mentorship guidelines, training manual and reporting forms.
• Compile inputs from the workshop and develop a revised draft-2 of clinical mentorship guidelines, training manual and reporting forms.
• Present draft-2 to 3 sub-TWGs (Safe motherhood, child health, newborn, and ASRH/FP) to a final version that will be presented to the RMNCAH TWG meeting for final review and validation to 1^st edition of harmonized mentorship guidelines, tools, training manual and reporting forms.

• Key Tasks:
  1. Preparation of inception report with questionnaires for data collection, a schedule of different activities with clear timelines.
  2. Conducting and documenting key informant interview, focus group discussions, desk reviews, presentations to the steering committee and TWGs and drafting mentorship guidelines, training manuals and reporting forms.
  3. Preparing workshop materials, presenting harmonized drafts of mentorship guidelines, training manual and reporting form to workshop participants, documenting inputs/comments and consolidate new updated/harmonized mentorship guidelines, training manual and reporting forms to final documents.
  4. Presentation to various sub-groups and RMNCAH TWG and consolidating documents with inputs and comments from TWGs to a final harmonized versions of mentorship guidelines, tools, training manuals and reporting form to be approved and scale-up in all health facilities (Final version 2).

Work Assignment Overview

Tasks/Milestone:

• Preparation of inception report including guidelines questions and lists of documents for review and a schedule of different activities with clear timelines.
• Conducting and documenting key informant interview, focus group discussions, desk review.  Preparation of Summary Report and review/revision.
• Developing zero draft of the mentorship guidelines/tools, reporting forms, and training manual., presentation to steering committee, review by steering committee, and development of draft 1.
• Presentation of version 1 to stakeholder workshop, facilitation of workshop, and revision of guidelines, tools, reporting forms, and training manual into version 2.
• Presenting version 2 to various sub-groups and RMNCAH TWG, and consolidating documents with inputs and comments from TWGs to finalize for approval and scale-up in all health facilities

Deliverables/Outputs:

Payment 1: 10%

1. Final inception report approved by UNICEF/RBC/steering committee.

Payment 2: 15%

2. Summary report from desk review and discussions with input addressed from RBC/UNICEF.

Payment 3: 25%

3. Version-1 of mentorship guidelines, training manuals and reporting forms.

Payment 4:20%

4. Workshop completed and version 2 of mentorship guidelines completed.

Payment: 30%

5. Final, approved version 3 of mentorship guidelines, tools, reporting forms, and training manuals

Duration and Duty Location

This  consultancy will be completed within 4 months. The consultancy is home based.

Selection Criteria

Applications shall be assessed based on their technical and financial proposals. Maximum scores for technical and financial applications will be 75% and 25%, respectively.

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

• An advanced university degree (Master’s or higher) in Medicine, public health, epidemiology
• Minimum of 8 years of relevant professional work experience at national and international level with strong analytical and writing skills.
• Must be specialized in health sciences (Medicine and maters paediatrics/ public health/ epidemiology) with proven experience in the provision of RMNCAH care in Rwanda.
• Familiar with the health care system in Rwanda, especially quality of care approaches and clinical mentorship.
• Fluency in English is required. Knowledge of another official UN language (Arabic, Chinese, French, Russian or Spanish) or a local language is an asset.

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 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: 

Individuals engaged under a consultancy 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. Consultants 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.