Development of Training Curriculum on: Influencing and Changing Social and Gender Norms around Violence Against Children in Schools

Terms of Reference:

Development of Training Curriculum on:

Influencing and Changing Social and Gender Norms around Violence Against Children in Schools

Project background:

Terre des hommes (Tdh) is the leading Swiss organisation for children’s aid. Every year, our health, protection and emergency programmes are supporting more than four million children and members of their communities around the world. You can learn more about Terre des hommes and specifically, on our child protection work on our global website as well as Europe regional website.

Terre des hommes office in Hungary, together with other civil society partner organizations is launching a new, EU-funded two-year project entitled “REVIS: Responding to peer violence among children in schools and adjacent settings”. Starting in January 2021, the project will be implemented in four countries: Bulgaria, Croatia, Romania and Serbia, with project coordination work out of Hungary. The project aims to:

· prevent, combat and respond to peer violence among children in schools through transforming social and gender norms and behaviours;

· create space for children to challenge social and gender norms that lead to peer violence; and to become social influencers to develop solutions to the problem of peer violence.

The project will engage ten schools in each four country and train a total of 8 trainer of trainers (two per country) and 80 facilitators (20 per country) from the target schools. The trained facilitators will conduct participatory activities with children and young people (around 400 in each country) and other school teachers and professionals to prevent, combat and respond to peer-to-peer violence in and around schools and empower children to address the problem through their own solutions.

The project design is based on a regional qualitative and participatory research conducted in 2020 by Terre des hommes and its partners in Albania, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Kosovo, Moldova, Romania and Serbia. The research has explored what social and gender norms contribute to what types of violence against children in schools and in what ways. The draft national research reports and a draft regional summary will be available by early February 2021. The project will develop the specific program and training curriculum based on the findings and recommendations of this regional research.

Tasks of the selected experts:

Terre des hommes is looking for a group of experts who will develop a full training curriculum with the following elements:

1. Training of Trainers Manual

The manual will be used at the 4-day training of trainers that will take place in May 2021 for approximately 8 trainers from Bulgaria, Croatia, Romania and Serbia. (Due to the Covid-19 pandemic, this event will most likely be online, unless the situation significantly changes and allows for travelling and holding in-person events in a safe way).

The manual should provide practical guidance to teachers/trainer of trainers on how to hold child participatory sessions with children of 13-18 years of age and how to challenge harm-inducing social and gender norms. In developing this curriculum, the experts can rely on multiple, existing methodologies developed by Tdh. This includes Plan Z and YouCreate, to which Tdh will provide access to. The results of the regional qualitative research will also be available.

The manual should also enable trainers to cascade down the same training that they have received to the other 20 facilitators from the local schools in their country (i.e. should have parts that can be used in their own training).

The manual should cover three things:

* Engaging with children as actors of their rights and influencers (this will require work around children as engagers of challenging harmful norms)

* Social norms, and how to explore and challenge them

* Training skills on how to train (who adult facilitators ie school teachers, etc?) on the two elements above?

After the training of trainers – held by the expert), they should hold follow-up webinars to allow the teachers/trainers to ask questions that arise after the training (see also point 3). The experts should also follow up the work of the trainers through individual sessions.

2 E-learning course

The e-learning will target both the trainer of trainers and the facilitators in the four countries. It should be a scenario-based training, that contain knowledge on social norm change and how to engage children to address harmful social norms around violence. The e-learning course should also be available as a standalone course for future.

The course should be ready (including its technical development which Tdh takes on) by June 2021. This content will be translated into Bulgarian, Romanian, Croatian and Serbian languages by Tdh and made available in the same online learning form.

3 Webinars: a series of at least 3 webinars that allow trainers and facilitators to interact with the experts and ask questions that arise after the ToT or after viewing the e-learning course.

Learning outcomes through the curriculum:

For trainers:

· Understanding and identifying social- and gender norms

· Knowledge of what harm-inducing social and gender norms exist in their countries

· Understanding how social and gender norms can be influenced

· Knowledge of and skills in how to ensure participation of children throughout the project

· Ability to conduct training sessions for local teachers/facilitators

· Ability to monitor the sessions that teachers/facilitators will conduct in schools

For teachers/facilitators:

· Knowledge and awareness of what harm-inducing social and gender norms exist in their countries

· Understanding how social and gender norms can be influenced/challenged

· Knowledge of and skills in how to ensure rights-based, participation of children in challenging harmful social and gender norms and how to build childrenás skills in addressing harm-inducing social and gender norms

· How to ensure an open and responsive attitude towards children and their needs and opinion

· Knowledge of possible negative effects of this work or during this work (e.g. negative reaction of parents, fellow teachers, or children), sensitivities and ethical considerations

Contract period: The e-learning curriculum must be finalized by April 30th so that technical development can take place, while the ToT materials by May 2021, ready for roll-out to the trainers and facilitators. For this, Tdh expects to sign a contract starting March 2021 and ending at latest by September 2021.. Applicants are invited to confirm their concept and work plan for the assignment, indicating the number of days they will require for the assignment, based on which the final contract start and end dates can be mutually agreed.

Preferred Profile of the group of experts:

· Demonstrated experience working on the issue of social and gender norms and child abuse

· Deep understanding and knowledge of best practices around child participation

· At least 5 years of experience working as researchers or implementers of child participatory techniques and good practices, with a strong knowledge of best practices in ensuring child participation

· Deep understanding of the findings of the research Tdh will provide

· Demonstrated experience in training, in particular professionals working in education

· Demonstrated experience in developing training and learning curriculum both for online and face to face learning

· Past experience working in East and South East Europe is an advantage