Consultant

TERMS OF REFERENCE

consultancy to support the development (update/unifying) of the current referral network mechanisms involving User Centered Approach Steering Committee (UCA SC) organization members in addition to other Rehab service providers at West Bank level, Community Based Rehabilitation (CBR), other key service providers, with a focus on socio economic services, and the representatives of related ministries (Ministry of Health, and Ministry of Social Affairs, of education...) in the West Bank.


Under the projects: Multi-stakeholder Initiatives Towards more Effective Response to Persons with Disabilities Needs, and Demands in the State of Palestine and Fostering Multi-stakeholders Mobilisation for the Inclusion of Persons with Disabilities in their Community in Marginalized Areas of oPt.

1-CONTEXT

Given the many restrictions on its physical and economic means, the unstable political situation and a lack of centralized political authority, the Palestinian National Authority (PNA) has only very limited capacity to deliver social services or enforce existing legislation. This affects the estimated 308,000 persons with disabilities (PWDs) living in the State of Palestine disproportionately, limiting their scarce access to benefits and basic services.

Handicap International (HI) started its work in Palestine in 1996, and has been working continuously in the West Bank since that time and in the Gaza Strip since 2002. The proposed action builds on the experiences and lessons learned from the AC 3 project in the West Bank and on a number of access to services projects implemented in Gaza.

Since 2010, HI and its partners in West Bank have focused their action on improving the quality of services for PWDs by strengthening technical capacities of the rehabilitation workers, and by ensuring improved access to assistive devices. Handicap International also worked to improve access to accessible transportation options and information about existing rehabilitation services.

The proposed action builds on the AC3 project and also includes several new components: the support to existing CBR programs in the West Bank; the focus on local multi-stakeholder collaboration bringing together local authorities, DPOs, service providers and other community organizations; and the strengthening of linkages with mainstream service providers through referral networks and pilot initiatives to improve PWDs access to services.

Description of the current situation PWDs needs and rights are inadequately met by service providers and civil society throughout the State of Palestine. While civil society stakeholders have been developing service provision capacities, the lack of regulatory frameworks have undermined their quality and impact. Moreover, according to the service providers themselves, they are unable to cover the needs of PWDs for support and specific services, while mainstream services fail to include PWDs. In this sense, key rights of PWDs as outlined in the CRPD remain unfulfilled.

In the West Bank, issues of concerns for PwDs are related to quality, access and coordination of services.

Limited coverage of the full population of PWD by the existing services;
Lack of technical capacity of rehabilitation service professionals on User Centered Approach (UCA) in centre policies and practices;
Weak coordination mechanisms and referral systems between rehabilitation services providers and other mainstream actors;
Lack of inclusive local initiatives aiming to improve PWDs access to mainstream services;
Lack of support for disability service providers to implement strategic and sustainable plans for rehabilitation programs;
Limited involvement of PWD families in rehabilitation;
Social stigma and lack of proper information on disability and rehabilitation opportunities.


In West Bank specifically, the project aims to develop a more effective response and mechanisms for people with all types of impairments. Through this project, rehabilitation centers and DPOs will be supported to consolidate their implementation of the User Centered Approach (UCA), and referral mechanisms will be improved. In two specific target governorates, existing community-based rehabilitation (CBR) services will be supported technically to develop their approaches in line with the 2010 WHO CBR guidelines. At the municipal level, in 3 targeted municipalities, the project will support the creation of multi-stakeholder working groups and the development and implementation of inclusive initiatives.

Current referral mechanisms:

In the West Bank, there are no unified referral mechanisms in place. The best way to qualify the existing situation is fragmented and center based. In the absence of formalized mechanisms and despite the framework provided within the WHO CBR guidelines, each center refers specific cases in an ad hoc manner that remains to be determined with precision in order to improve practices and ensure the efficiency of the referrals.
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2-DESCRIPTION OF THE REQUIRED SERVICE PROVISION

Within the frame work of the current projects Multi-stakeholder Initiatives Towards more Effective Response to Persons with Disabilities Needs, and Demands in the State of Palestine and Fostering Multi-stakeholders Mobilisation for the Inclusion of Persons with Disabilities in their Community in Marginalized Areas of oPt Project and complementary to what have been developed during the past three years in the work of the UCA SC, the consultant will support the development of a comprehensive referral system involving members of the UCASC, community-based rehabilitation (CBR) services. National rehabilitation centers, socio economic service providers along with Ministry of Health, and Ministry of Social Affairs, and other Ministries representatives, such as Education shall also be involved in this process as much as possible

Specific objectives of the consultancy

Objective: within the scope of the project, to provide support to key stakeholders to analyse, and develop unified referral mechanisms, to ensure a comprehensive sustainable referral system, in order to promote people with disabilities inclusion with a focus on access to socio economic services and the link between specialized and support services (e.g rehabilitation) and mainstream services.

The consultancy will be two fold and will include activities with key stakeholders of the referral mechanisms (including service providers involved into the project and MSWG created under the project) on the one hand, and with the service providers involved into the project implementation only on the other hand.

1/ Activities with key stakeholders of theWest Bank referral mechanisms

The consultant will facilitate the review of the existing mechanism and support stakeholders in identifying possible actions to enhance and/or develop them. The process should be fully participatory and involve as far as possible all stakeholders playing a key role in access to services including users, authorities in charge of regulatory mechanisms and service providers.

Participants with the support of the consultant will have to undertake the following tasks:
-Review the current situation of the referral system: members, functioning (referral pathway, information, costs etc), regulatory mechanisms in place,
-Analyse/identify the strengths and weaknesses of the system in places, the existing gaps as well as the good practices
-Mapping of the services currently involved into the mechanisms and those that could be considered under both horizontal and vertical perspectives
-Support the stakeholders to identify possible actions to address the identified weaknesses and gaps using as far as possible the existing strengths and good practices
-Support the participants to design a plan of actions including actions, organizations in charge and/or involved, proposed timeframe and indicators for monitoring
2/ Support to the rehabilitation centers & CBR programs directly involved into the project implementation

For the rehabilitation centers with the aim to:

Develop /update their current referral policies, protocols and administrative guidelines for horizontal referral mechanisms
Propose recommendations on how to develop a vertical referral mechanism (with a particular focus on socio economic service providers) including strategies, tools and guidelines etc
Develop monitoring framework to follow upon referrals and identify lessons learnt

For the CBR programs involved in the project with the aim to:

Set up and formalize their current referral practices within the scope of the new CBR matrix


Expected Out comes:
-Situation analysis of the fragmented existing referral mechanism among key stakeholders (the UCA SC members organizations, CBR, and other social service providers) considering the role of the responsible authorities. The situation analysis will include information about how the current referral system is structured, how it is supposed to function, and how it functions in reality.
-Draft strategy and action plan based upon the situation analysis and recommendations by all referral stakeholders to improve the current referral mechanisms & fulfil the identified gaps. This document will include a description of the role of all involved stakeholders to ensure smooth and quality referrals.
-Revised referral guidelines & tools for improving referral practices among the services directly involved into project implementation and between these services and external service providers
-Monitoring and lessons learnt framework to measure the results of the referral mechanisms and the impact upon the beneficiaries

Methodology

The consultant will work closely first with the UCA SC, the targeted rehabilitation service providers and the CBR program supporting them to identify the strengths and weakness of the existing referral mechanisms.

On this basis, the consultant will facilitate participatory identification of measures deemed to enhance the functioning of the existing referral mechanisms and promote equitable access to services, in particular rehabilitation, and socio economic services, for people with disabilities.

It is understood that a comprehensive referral system should allow for continuum of care / continuity of services and services and consider:
-The links between mainstream, specialized and support services
-Vertical transformation between the same services according to the age.
-Horizontal transformation between the different social services according to the needs.

The role played by the following key stakeholders within this framework will receive specific attention
-Persons with disabilities and their representative organizations (DPO)
-Social services providers (focusing on, but not limited to, UCA SC members organizations, CBR programmes, national rehabilitation centres, and socio economic service providers)
-Authorities (Ministry of Health, and Ministry of Social Affairs, and other Ministries representatives, such as Education)

Quality insurance will also be addressed throughout a set of criteria including: availability, affordability, accessibility, accountability and quality.

Last but not least, the coherence of the existing mechanisms with the referral national policy adopted by the OpT will be cross checked with strong inputs from the Ministries involved.

The consultant will be requested to propose participatory approach building upon the different stakeholders inputs. HI team will play an active role into the process and must be carefully involved to ensure adequate support during implementation & monitoring phase of the defined plan of actions and of the revised guidelines & tools proposed at services level.




3-CONSULTANTS PROFILE

Higher education in field of social services or closely related field (MSc or Phd).
Knowledge and experience on social services (including but not limited to rehabilitation or health care) management/policy development.
Knowledge and experience in organization development.
Knowledge and experience on referral mechanisms.
Five years of relevant work experience.
Good social and communication skills, able to respect confidentiality.
The consultant is expected to have a sense of personal security, be aware of the security situation and take respective action, especially when approaching check point
Excellent English language skills (reading, writing and speaking).

4-SERVICE DURATION AND LOCATION
-Start date: as soon as possible
-Service location: West Bank

5-REPORT/DELIVERABLES

Number of Reports: two reports are expected during the mission:
-A first report related to the situation analysis key findings and the plan of actions proposed by the participants
-End of mission report. This report will include the revised guidelines and tools as well as the monitoring framework defined with the service providers and the CBR programs.

Each report will include:

-Executive summary.
-Methodology
-Findings and discussion
-Recommendations for follow up

Language: English

6-RESOURCE PERSON
Within the framework of the consultancy, the Consultant will be in collaboration with Handicap Internationals teams.


7-BUDGET

Once the short listing of applicants is done, Handicap International shall contact the shortlisted applicants to provide a full proper price quote with his/her financial expectations according to the services requested fitting with the below criteria:
-Price quote shall be in English and in ILS currency.
-Prices shall be inclusive of VAT.
-Delivery timeframe & payment terms shall be clear and mentioned in the quote fitting with the start/end dates requested by Handicap International.
-Price quote shall be signed and stamped.

Please send your CV with at least 2 references cover letter and a detailed technical offer no later than December 1st 2014
With the reference (Rehabilitation consultancy to support the development (update/unifying) of a current referral network mechanisms among User Centered Approach Steering Committee (UCA SC) organization members, Community Based Rehabilitation (CBR), other rehabilitation centers, Ministry of Health, and Ministry of Social Affairs in the West Bank). The Subject of the email should be consultancy

To: [email protected]

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