Short consultancy-Social Worker

Handicap International (HI) has been operating in Palestine since 1996 and has developed relationship with several disability stakeholders. According to the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics there are around 4,048,403 million Palestinian living in the oPt (2,513,283 million in West Bank and 1,535,120 million in Gaza strip), 40.8% of them (15-19) years of age, 29.4% of them (15-29) years of age and 59.2% of them (20-29) years of age. According to general estimations by WHO, between 7-10% of a given population would have some kind of disability; in the Palestinian Territories, this implies that the figure would be around 284,000 – 404,000 people.

According to the last records, the prevalence of disability in the oPt was about 7% (relaxed definition) with similar prevalence in each of the West Bank and Gaza Strip. While the prevalence of disability using the narrow definition was 2.7% distributed as 2.9% in the West Bank and 2.4% in Gaza Strip; while it was 2.9% for Males and 2.5% for females Taken together, this implies that the total number of PwDs in oPt is around 113,000-287,000.

 

Since the starting of its operations in oPt, HI has conducted regular assessments in order to identify needs/demands of PWDs. The findings of the last assessments highlighted the following:

·         Lack of information of PWDs on services available and how to access them.

·         Lack of quality of and appropriateness of assistive devices.

·         Low quality of rehabilitation services not addressing the users' demands.

·         Limited accessibility to rehabilitation services for PWDs.

·         Increased number of PWDs worsened by deterioration of the socio-economical situation in the oPt.

·         Limited Right Based approach with the services delivered to client

·         Lack of DPO capacities for advocating Authorities to design and implement sound policies that ensure access to services to Persons with Disabilities.

 

Through this assessment, as well, HI has also consulted an expert in social work field during December 2010. The specific objective was to assess the type and relevance of needed professional trainings for social workers as staff of rehabilitation centers in West Bank. The expert has organized for this purpose several focus group meetings with social workers plus few other reference persons in the profession including universities. The findings of this assessment were summarized as follows:

·         In the West Bank, social workers remain to be recognized and considered as a corner stone in the rehabilitation process between persons with disabilities, their families and the rehabilitation team itself.

·         Professional skills of social workers need substantial improvement.

·         Job description of social workers needs to be more clearly defined in terms of roles and responsibilities in the multidisciplinary rehabilitation team.

·         Social workers knowledge on the disability issues needs enrichment and upgrading

·         Technical training targeting Social Workers suffers low quality and existing follow up task with trainees.

In the framework of the ongoing project, Handicap International is targeting eleven rehabilitation centers and committees in the WB. The project components aims at developing the professional capacities of the rehabilitation teams within those centers upon defined and agreed training topics. In the same time, enhance self motivation to adopt and practice user-family- centered approach in service provision and follow up. During the implementation of the project, it was clearly found that the current professional capacities of social workers need to be evaluated and upgraded. It is worth mentioning, however, that Social work profession promotes problem solving in human relationships, social change, empowerment and libration of people, and enhancement of the society. Utilizing theories of human behavior and social systems, social works intervenes at the points where people interact with their environments. Principles of human rights and social justice are fundamental to social work.[2]

In coordination with HI technical team, the consultant will build the training material. The training material shall address sufficiently the social work basic management concepts and skills. In addition, clarifies applications of the management concepts and skills within the rehabilitation process.

 

the trainer will ensure by the end of the training, 20-25 social workers are able to describe the different key concepts and terms in the management and related to rehabilitation context. As well, understand the linkage and applications of management into the social worker’s interventions with persons with disabilities. In addition, social workers will better understand the different types of disabilities and the implications of each upon the individual, family and community at different levels (social, economic, psychological and cultural).  

The trainer is expected to utilize this task to evaluate the output of the theoretical training sessions and draft the follow-up task for the participants. The trainer will also evaluate the implementation of the new knowledge and skills acquired throughout the training, by means of giving feedback on and grading the follow-up task. In addition, the trainer will be able to report, analyze and recommend technical solutions for the problems encountered by participants when using the new knowledge and new training skills. Besides, the trainer will support trained social workers with basic knowledge on the transfer of newly acquired skills to other rehabilitation team members. The trainer will also support problem identification (if any) in carrying out the training skills related to the managerial behavior of the centers where the service is given.

·         Design and deliver theoretical training for the social workers participants within the framework of the overall project’s training curriculum designed by the social work  expert and Handicap International.

·         Draft a lesson plan for each topic of the training

·         Design evaluation forms for the  training sessions which will be used to assess the success of transfer of training components

·          Evaluate the training, including analyses and recommendations in participation with the trainees themselves.

·         Draft a plan and tools for the follow up visits to the centers for each participant.

·         Conduct one field visit per participant to demonstrate constructive feedback on the use of the newly acquired skills and sharing of their colleagues experiences. This will include also but not limited to:

-       Filling feedback forms/checklist for each participant.

-       Provide feedback and support to the participants to reflect on their activities and apply the knowledge from the training in the day to day practical work in the field. Identify and reinforce effective actions.

·         Report on the results and impact training and clinical supervision.

·         Lesson schedule  for 2 days theoretical  training

·         Teaching materials

·         Lessons implemented

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

·         Clear field follow up/clinical supervision task plan.

·         Check list form on the clinical supervision evaluation.

 

 

 

 

 

 

·         Elaborated final report on training and clinical supervision, with recommendations. 

                                                                                        4 days

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

20 days

 

 

 

 

 

 

5 days

To: [email protected]