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Tender Details
- Country: Albania
- Summary: National Consultant to Undertake a Revision of the Current Legislation Relevant to Social Care Reform with a Focus on De-Institutionalization of Children from Residential Care
- ALT Ref No: 34483422
- Deadline: 15 Jul 2019
- Competition: ICB
- Financier: United Nations Secretariat
- Purchaser Ownership: -
- Tender Value: Refer Document
- Notice Type: Tender
- Document Ref. No.:
- Purchaser's Detail :
- Description :
- Tenders are invited for National Consultant to Undertake a Revision of the Current Legislation Relevant to Social Care Reform with a Focus on De-Institutionalization of Children from Residential Care. 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, justice The Convention on the Rights of the Child identifies the family as the optimal environment that provides children the necessary care, protection and support for their social, emotional, physical, and mental development. Albania inherited the former communist regime legacy where national child protection systems were centralized and fragmented, and there was the common belief that residential care institutions and the state could substitute family care for children. This mind-set has affected both the policies and practices and the attitudes of families, communities and professionals working with children. Even though numbers of children in public residential care institutions are slowly decreasing, children in Albania continue to be placed in public and private residential care due to poverty, disability, neglect and abuse. The family separation and residential care have a have long-lasting adverse impact on in their lives and are especially harmful for children under 3 placed in residential care. Furthermore, these residential institutions are often poorly resourced and children's right to a decent standard of living and development is often infringed. Incidents of severe abuse and neglect of children living in residential care institutions have been reported. Over the past decades there has been increasing recognition by the Government of Albania to integrate family strengthening into national policies, reduce poverty, decrease inequality and promote child-well-being. Two new laws were adopted in recent years, the Law on Social Services (2016) and Law on Child Rights and Protection (2017) that envision community-based multi-sectorial services adhering to standards of the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) and promoting the best interest of the child in all matters concerning them. In 2018, with UNICEF support, the Government also launched the Action Plan for the assessment of children in institutions and their families to plan and undertake reintegration of children with their biological or kinship families or placement in alternative family- and community-based care. Although critical progress has been achieved in improving the policy and legislative frameworks for reforming the child care and child protection systems in Albania, these have yet to be translated into the capacity of child protection and social welfare systems to prevent family separation and provide alternative family- and community-based care for children. Overall, services and practices are fragmented and uncoordinated, resulting in gaps and inconsistencies in offering adequate family support and alternative family- and community-based care options. The weak gatekeeping system is unable to identify children and families at risk of separation, and as a result measures tend to be reactive rather than preventive and too many children are separated from their families. At the local level, services are limited and not targeted at children and families in need of support and protection, especially in the remote and poor municipalities. Kinship and foster care options are not attractive, are not promoted or sufficiently supported financially, while there is an increase in the casa famiglia type models mainly established by NGOs and faith-based organizations and which operate in the absence of a state monitoring framework. On the other hand, professionals in health, child protection and social care services still favor and encourage the separation of children from their parents, rather than helping to create a supporting environment that could empower parents to care for their children at home. Family support and reintegration programmes coupled with a lack of dedicated parenting programmes are equally weak and have no national coverage. Stigma, discrimination and gender dynamics also impact decisions about institutional placement and influence the separation of young children from their parents. Children with disabilities are among the groups of children at highest risk of separation and are significantly over-represented in public institutions and special education schools despite the inclusive education strategy that has brought more of them into mainstream education. The medical model of disability still prevails in Albania and although the social model disability has been introduced, it has not fully taken root. Marginalized groups such as Roma children are also at a higher risk of placement in institutional care. The Ministry of Health and Social Protection (MHSP), with the continuous support from UNICEF and other key stakeholders, is in the process of advancing gradual and full De-Institutionalization of children from all public residential care facilities, though re-enforcement of family support and re-unification opportunities, as well as alternative care options for children, such as kinship, foster care and small family type group homes. Therefore, as a first active step in this direction, the Ministry has initiated a complete assessment of all public residential care institutions (nine in total) were children are placed and requested UNICEF and other key stakeholders, such as Save the Children to provide needed technical and financial assistance. The child and family assessment process, carried out from January 2019 to July 2019 in public residential care, is an achievement in itself and proved to have an immediate and potential positive impact on children, families and staff of the RCI. As a result: § All children's files will be completed and with detailed individual development plans. In many institutions files were missing, information incomplete, care plans missing. § All children were assessed by social workers and psychologist. Psychologist and social workers are not present in all institutions. § A number of young children were assessed by developmental pediatricians (in Vlora, Korce, Durres). § Children in the RCI for children 16-18 in Shkodra were assessed by psychiatrists, re-diagnosed and treatment adjusted. Before children were receiving treatment without proper assessment. § Mentoring and coaching was provided to the RCI staff, they became more aware of the children's needs and rights, other approaches and services that could be used to support children in need of alternative care, and they seem to be more comfortable with the idea of DI and transformation of RCI in a complex of other services. § RCI staff was sensitized on the importance of child contacts with the family and were encouraged and supported to make efforts in order for parents to have more meaningful contact with their children (not just once a year telephone conversation). § Some families, who were reached through the assessment, become more aware of the needs of children, the best interest of the child, that can be met outside of the RCI, in families, extended families or in foster care. § The assessment process also managed to prevent in a couple of new entries of children in institutional care, diverting children from residential care at the point of their entry, mobilizing support around the family to prevent separation, which provided that prevention of separation is possible if there are professionals available to undertake assessment and support the family to identify needs and internal and external resources for timely support in the time of need. UNICEF in Albania is seeking to engage an expert, who will revise existing legal framework relevant to De-Institutionalization (DI) and propose amendments to unblock the administrative hurdles, improve legal glitches and inconsistencies which are currently observed and form a barrier towards the achievement of this policy ambitions aiming to provide family care for all children of Albania. How can you make a difference? The purpose of this consultancy is to: undertake a revision of the current legislation relevant to and with an impact on De-Institutionalization of children from Residential Care and propose the related legislative ammendments The objectives of this consultancy are to: § Analyse the potential contradictions, inconsistencies or gaps among the key legislative pieces, such as the Law on Child Rights and Protection, the Law on Social Care Services and Family Code, the Law on Local Government and recommend steps/mechanisms for their effective implementation. § Analyse legal and administrative bottlenecks for DI and for the development of foster care services in a participatory and consultative approach, and draft the recommendations /ammendments to improve them. The main tasks of the assignment are as follows: 1. Analyse contradictions and/or inconsistencies between the key legislative pieces, with a focus to De-Institutionalisation of children from Residential Care. The key legislative documents to be reviewd include, but shall not be limited to: § the Law on Child Rights and Protection; § the Law on Social Care Services; § the Family Code; § the Law on Local Government; § DCM 518 on social care; § DCM 752 of September 2010 on the process of foster care implementation; § DCM 149 on assessment of potential foster carers and children in need of alternative care; § DCM 578 of October 2018 on case management. Following the review and analyses, the consultant will recommend steps/mechanisms for the effective i
- Documents :
Purchaser : UNITED NATIONS CHILDREN'S FUND
Skenderbej Str. UN House Building 3rd floor
Tirana
Tel: 4548400
Attn: Elvana Pernaska
Email :tirana@unicef.org / epernaska@unicef.org
URL :http://www.unicef.org/
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