Consultancy -Training on Child Development with focus on Mental Trauma – Kabul, Afghanistan

The Colombo Plan

Request for Proposal (RFP)

Training on Child Development with focus on Mental Trauma – Kabul, Afghanistan

The Colombo Plan is seeking to engage the services of a consultancy to conduct a 2-3 day training in Kabul, Afghanistan for 11 children support center staff. The targeted staff care for approximately 250 children of incarcerated mothers from the central and north western regions of Afghanistan.

This training is designed for children support center providers and will focus on child development concerning mental trauma in order to sensitize personnel to their beneficiaries’ experience and psychological ramifications. Over the years, the children support centers have served many children of different backgrounds. Sadly, many have experienced mild to severe trauma, which in turn affects their interaction with other children and/or staff as well as reasoning and learning abilities due to disrupted attachments, cognitive delays, and impaired emotional regulations.

Therefore, a training on child development with respect to mental trauma, will allow children support center staff to better handle their beneficiaries as well as optimize the beneficiaries’ future well-being and prepare them for reintegration in favor of a more successful outcome.

The Colombo Plan requests all interested consultants and firms to submit a proposal in accordance with this RFP and in consideration of the terms of reference.

Your proposal could form the basis for a contract between you or your firm and the Colombo Plan. Any information shared between your firm and the Colombo Plan will remain confidential.

Contents of Solicitation Documents

Proposals must offer services for the total requirement. Proposals offering only part of the requirement will NOT be reviewed or considered. The Offeror is expected to examine all corresponding instructions, terms and specifications contained in the Solicitation Documents. Failure to comply with these documents will negatively affect the evaluation of the Proposal.

Clarification of Solicitation Documents

Colombo Plan will respond in writing to any request for clarification that is received prior to the deadline for the submission of Proposals. Written copies of the organisation’s response will be sent to all Offerors.

Language of the proposal: The Proposal prepared by the Offeror and all correspondences and documents relating to the Proposal exchanged by the Offeror and Colombo Plan, i.e. all forms of communication shall be in English language.**

Evaluation Criteria

This application is open to trainers/facilitators who are specialized in completing trainings/workshops and have proven and demonstrated broad knowledge of and ability to utilize the principles, methods, and techniques of working with counsellors their capacity development. The selected contractor will be responsible for designing and executing all the activities described in this TOR in collaboration.

The selection process of the consultant/firm will be based on the set of criteria developed by an assigned Evaluation Committee to evaluate the proposals. The Evaluation Committee will evaluate the proposals by using the combined scoring method. Technical proposal will be evaluated on 60%; whereas financial proposal will be evaluated on 40%. The short listed bidding consultant/firm may be asked for a formal presentation prior to the final selection.

Compliance

During the compliance review, the consultant/firm will be assessed if he/she has submitted all the following requirements:

1. CV with at least three key referees.

2. Detailed Technical proposal.

3. Detailed financial proposal

4. Evidence of the previous experience in the same work.

The Proposal shall comprise the following components

1. Technical Proposal, completed in accordance with clause (I),

2. Financial Proposal, completed in accordance with clause (II)

(I) Technical Proposal Format

The Offeror shall structure the technical part of its Proposal according to the commonly acceptable format. The Technical Proposal will be evaluated against the criteria assisted by the following information:

(a) Proposed Approach and Work Plan

This section should demonstrate the Offeror’s responsiveness to the specification by identifying the specific components proposed, addressing the requirements, as specified, point by point; providing a detailed description of the essential performance characteristics proposed; and demonstrating how the proposed methodology meets or exceeds the specifications.

(b) Capacity and Experience of Organization/ Firm

This section should describe the organizational unit(s) that will be responsible for the contract, and the general management approach towards this project. This should fully explain the Offeror’s resources in terms of personnel and other resources necessary for achieving project results. This section should also provide orientation to the organisation / firm including the year and state/country of incorporation and a brief description of the Offeror’s present activities. The Offeror should describe its experience in similar projects. The latest Audited Financial Statement should be enclosed.

(c) Human Resources

CVs for key personnel should be attached.

(II) Financial Proposal

The Offeror shall include a breakdown of total expenditure in accordance with the scope of work – inclusive of a financing outline emphasizing application of funds.

Note: All prices shall be quoted in US dollars.**

Period of Validity of Proposals

Proposals shall remain valid for ninety (90) days after the date of Proposal submission prescribed by Colombo Plan, pursuant to the deadline clause. Colombo Plan may reject a Proposal’s validity for a shorter period on the grounds that it is non-responsive.**

Payment

Payments will be made directly by Colombo Plan to the selected organization/ firm after acceptance of the invoices submitted by the organization / firm, based on the following milestones:

o 1^st installment of 20% upon receipt and Colombo Plan’s approval of inception report;

o 2^nd installment of 50% upon completion of the all training sessions and handover participant’s attendance roster;

o 3^rd installment of 30% upon submission and Colombo Plan’s approval of final report.

The payments shall be made by the Colombo Plan Afghanistan Country Office in Kabul following the clearance of the final report and certification of satisfactory completion of service by Colombo Plan.

Award of Contract and Final Consideration

Colombo Plan shall award the contract to the person that obtains the highest combined score for the Technical and Financial evaluation.

The Terms of Reference (ToR) for the “Training on Child Development with focus on Mental Trauma” is attached herewith for your reference (Attachment I).

For additional information, please send an email to: [email protected]

We will provide additional information expeditiously, but any delay in providing such information will not be considered a reason for extending the submission date of your proposal.

Attachment I**

Terms of Reference (ToR)

Training on Child Development with focus on Mental Trauma – Kabul, Afghanistan

1. Background

The Colombo Plan, more formally known as the Colombo Plan Cooperative Economic and Social Development in Asia and Pacific, is an inter-governmental organization based in Colombo, Sri Lanka with projects all over the world.

The Colombo Plan has a membership network of 27 countries throughout the world, with Afghanistan being one of its member states receiving support from Colombo Plan since 2007. Since Colombo Plan’s inception of its Gender Affairs Programme (GAP) in 2014, GAP has been leading Colombo Plan’s flagship projects in Afghanistan focused on the protection and promotion of women and children’s rights.

In accordance with GAP’s mission in Afghanistan, GAP supports approximately 250 children of incarcerated mothers through the provision of comprehensive care, inclusive of psychosocial and medical services, and access to education. The psychosocial services consist of individual and group psychosocial counselling with the aim improve child-mother relationship, and ultimately lead to the successful reintegration of the children.

2. Justification

The staff at the children support centers are child caregivers who look after the basic needs of children, as well as support a beneficial learning environment and a safe “home away from home” for the young beneficiaries. Although, the staff undergo a vetting process to verify their qualifications, many do not have the expertise or knowledge to handle children suffering from trauma and associated overwhelming emotions and behavioral issues, which in turn can frustrate the staff and unintentionally lead to the re-victimization of the child(ren). Therefore, it is important for the aforementioned staff to be trained and better equipped with the ability to identify signs of trauma from the onset, handle and mitigate erratic and harmful emotions and behavioral frenzies, in addition to providing beneficial support necessary to improve the overall well-being of the child(ren) and child-mother relationship.

3. Purpose and objectives

GAP focuses on supporting children of incarcerated mothers while in the care of children support centers. Therefore, GAP aims to improve psychosocial services in the children support centers by training staff who work with children who have suffered adverse childhood events, and provide them will the skills to optimize their beneficiaries’ future well-being while preparing the beneficiaries for reintegration with their mother and/or larger family.

The children support center counsellors will be the direct recipients of the training, after which they will be responsible for training the other staff, i.e. child caregivers. Both the counsellors and the caregivers’ role gives them access to the children, allowing them to have greater influences in the children’s development. Therefore, their influence should be beneficial to the children, in view of further reinforcing the child’s well-being, child-mother relationship and successful outcome of the child’s reintegration. **

4. Scope of Work

· Inception report inclusive of work plan for developing the training, including strategy and proposed methodologies, as well as quality assurance plan;

· Design and conduct pre- and post-tests of all trainees to measure improvement in knowledge acquisition and capacity relating to mentioned topics;

· Conduct a pre-test and develop a methodology, training manual and training schedule, based on the results;

· Conduct a 2-3 day training for the counsellors working at the Colombo Plan-funded children centers;

· Successful facilitation of the training using recommended materials;

· Technical advice and support to participants during the training/workshop;

· Evaluation of the consultants’ work, by the participants;

· Prepare, conduct, record and analyze findings of training evaluations on each participant to assess all aspects of the training,

· Participant data from the training disaggregated by: partner organization, province, job title, sex, and pre and post-test result by participant;

· Develop a toolkit and/or manual for the children support centers focused on Child Protection and Individual and Family Support areas to understand the typical developmental pathways of children and the typical indicators of trauma at differing ages and stages. The toolkit/guideline is intended inform good practice and assist with the task of an overall assessment, and integrate knowledge from child development, child abuse and trauma and importantly to offer practical, age appropriate advice as to the needs of children and staff when trauma and/or associated episodes of post-traumatic stress occur;

· A comprehensive draft and final report which responds to the specific objectives and activities as detailed and includes the results from the pre and post tests and training evaluation and analysis and recommendations. Report to cover aspects of the training as well, inclusive of training manual and methodology of training, and quality assurance approach.

5. Deliverables

The following is a scheduled timeframe per expected deliverable of the consultancy:

Due Deliverables Timeframe

1. Inception report – Work plan for developing the training, including strategy and proposed methodologies, as well as quality assurance plan – 4 days
2. Conduct a pre-test and develop a methodology, training manual and training schedule, based on the results -5 days
3. Conduct a 2-3 day training for the counsellors working at the Colombo Plan-funded children Centers – post-test to be conducted after training- 3 days
4. A toolkit/manual focused on the training’s content, i.e. Child Development and Mental Trauma, to ensure sustainable outcomes over a longer period. (Reference Scope of Work for further details on toolkit/manual) –5 days
5. A comprehensive draft and final report which responds to the specific objectives and activities as detailed and includes the results from the pre and post tests and training evaluation and analysis and recommendations.- 4 days

Total Estimated Number of Days – 21 days

*Note, training will be conducted for 11 children support center staff in the local language(s), however, documents submitted to Colombo Plan will need to be provided in Dari and English.

6. Feedback and documentation

· Provide updates to the GAP Director and designated GAP project staff.

· Develop an action plan for GAP that addresses the recommendations in the final report.

· Present a final report taking into account feedback from the draft report.

7. Duration

The training is to be completed within 2-3 working days. Contract duration is planned for 21 days, providing sufficient time for the Contractor to complete due deliverables specified in this ToR. Tentative start date is the 30^th of November 2020.

8. Reporting and administrative support

· The consultancy firm will be contracted by Colombo Plan Country Office Afghanistan in consultation with the CPGAP Director.

· The consultant(s) will work under the overall guidance of the CPGAP Director in close consultation with the designated Programme Officer

· The consultant(s) will be expected to provide their own computers and work from their own office.

· All consultant deliverables will be sent to the CPGAP Director through the CPGAP designated Programme Officer

· The consultancy firm will provide stationary at the start of the training programme and certificates to participants upon conclusion of the training programme.

9. Required qualifications

The consultancy firm is expected to have the following competencies:

· Demonstrated experience in conducting similar training activities in a difficult environment in fragile/ conflict states. Experience in Afghanistan is preferred.

· Demonstrated experience in coaching individual participants on the subject of child psychology and/or child development.

· The consultancy firm is not to outsource implementation of activities to other companies, i.e. sub-contractor). Consultancy firm is expected to have such qualified staff in-house.

Consultancy Competencies, Experience and Skill Requirements:

· An advanced degree in Child Psychology, Child Development or other relevant field;

· Extensive experience (at least 5 years) in completing trainings for individuals who work with children who have suffered adverse childhood events, whether in informal or formal roles;

· Extensive knowledge of child protection in Afghanistan;

· Extensive experience on building capacities within child psychology and/or child development

· Excellent inter-personal communication skills including experience of facilitation of trainings/workshops and presentation;

· Able to operate in local language (Dari/Pashto)

· Proficiency in English is a plus