Terms of Reference for Final Project Evaluation 2018 at Childline Kenya

Project Title: Strengthening the capacity of National Child Helpline 116 Service as a key component of the Child protection System in Kenya.

Background and Context

Description of the project

This project, entitled “Strengthening the capacity of National Child Helpline 116 Service as a key component of the Child protection System”, is a 3-year project implemented by Childline Kenya and funded by UNICEF from February 2016 to February 2018 with a no-cost extension to April 2018.

Specifically for CLK, this PCA contributes to its Strategic Plan 2013-2017 (Strategic Direction-SD 1 and 3); i.e.

SD 1: Support Government to provide quality child protection services through the national helpline 116 platform

SD 3. Provide technical support to partners, families, and communities for effective child protection in Kenya.

For UNICEF, the work of Childline Kenya contributes to all the four outputs of Outcome 4 of the GoK/UNICEF Joint Programme 2014-2018.

The services of child line 116 have increased over the years since its inception in 2006, moving from 9,798 calls received in the year 2006/7 to 1,152,409 in 2014. In total the Helpline received 4,645,552 calls from 2006 - 2014. The Helpline responded to a total of 2,606,318 child protection cases, with 31,330 being abuse cases. These include child abductions, murder, sexual exploitation, physical abuse and neglect where Childline Kenya moved in to provide support through rescue, medical care, court representation, provision of survival kits etc.

However, the work of Childline has faced serious challenges starting from 2013 occasioned by Internet challenges, power outages and technical problems with the Customer Relationship Management system used by Childline. This has been made worse by a high staff turnover due to non-attractive terms of service for personnel. Currently (2015), about 3,000 calls are received per day with approximately 1,000 requiring direct intervention from Childline Kenya. Approximately, 2,000 calls per day are either abandoned because of the long waiting period, or are silent or are not related to Childline services and are therefore referred to other service providers. At any one time the number of callers waiting on the queue is not less than 15 and at peak hours this increases to 30 and beyond. Of the calls coming through to the helpline only a maximum of 40% are answered due to low capacity at the Call Centre. This partnership sought to address these challenges hence increase the number of persons accessing services of the Childline Kenya.

At the same time and in line with the child protection system approach, this programme supported three other components implemented at County and community levels. They include:

• Capacity strengthening of County Children Coordinators in six selected counties to manage cases that are from the child help line centre. These are cases for children who are found in their geographical jurisdiction. The work of CCC is to oversee and manage coordination of agencies giving services to the child and also support the building of a strong referral mechanism at county level. The process of developing the Case Management Guidelines is almost at its completion and UNICEF will work with CLK to support it implementation in the six counties
• Training on parenting skills in Siaya and Nairobi counties for parents accused of neglecting their children. CLK worked together with Court users committee and DCS to implement this component.
• Child online protection where CLK worked with Parent Teachers Association and boys and girls in 20 schools in one informal settlement of Nairobi and Nakuru Counties respectively. This is part of UNICEF initiate for child online protection known as “WePROTECT”.

Key partners involved in the project, including the implementing partners and other key stakeholders.

The project was implemented in partnership with the Department of Children Services. In addition, Childline Kenya, whose operations are hinged on partnerships, continued to work with both referral partners, development partners, community stakeholders and other Government institutions to implement the activities in this PCA.

Purpose of the evaluation

• Why the evaluation needs to be done?: This is a mandatory final project evaluation required by UNICEF as part of the project agreement. The purpose of the evaluation is to assess the effectiveness, relevance, efficiency, sustainability, and impact of the “Strengthening the capacity of National Child Helpline 116 Service as a key component of the Child protection System” project.
• How the evaluation results will be used: The results of this evaluation will be used to generate information on best practices in targeting and reducing violence against children and child neglect, and to provide insight and recommendations into improving future interventions targeting children through the Child Helpline Service.
• What decisions will be taken after the evaluation is completed?: Learning arising from the evaluation will be used to inform future programme development as appropriate. In addition, learning will be shared with key stakeholders in the child protection sector to continue to strengthen interventions to address child protection concerns.

Evaluation objectives and scope

Scope of evaluation

The evaluation will cover the entire project duration, from February 2016 to April 2018.

The evaluation will assess project outcomes at all levels. The evaluation will cover all areas of implementation, including activities delivered by the grant holder as well as partners.

The evaluation will assess the impact of the project on targeted beneficiaries both primary and secondary beneficiaries.

Objectives of evaluation

The overall objectives of the evaluation are:

• To evaluate the entire project in terms of effectiveness, relevance, efficiency, sustainability, and impact, with a strong focus on assessing the results at the outcome and project goals level
• To generate key lessons and identify promising practices for learning
• To identify areas for continued advocacy and intervention at the county and national level in child protection

Evaluation Questions

The key questions that need to be answered by this evaluation are divided into five categories of analysis including effectiveness, relevance, efficiency, sustainability, impact and knowledge generation.

The mandatory Evaluation Questions to be answered are as follows:

Effectiveness

• To what extent were the intended project goal, outcomes and outputs achieved and how?
• To what extent did the project reach the targeted beneficiaries at the project goal and outcome levels?
• How many beneficiaries have been reached?
• To what extent has this project generated positive (or negative) changes in the lives of targeted (and untargeted) beneficiaries in relation to specific forms of violence addressed by this project? Why?
• What are the key changes in the lives of those beneficiaries?
• What internal and external factors contributed to the achievement and/or failure of the intended project goal, outcomes and outputs? How?

Relevance

• To what extent was the project strategy and activities implemented relevant to national child policies and strategies in responding to the needs of children?
• To what extent do achieved results (project goal, outcomes and outputs) continue to be relevant to the needs of children?

Efficiency

How efficiently and timely has this project been implemented and managed in accordance with the Project Document? Specifically have resources been used well and strategies’ to implementation been appropriate?

Sustainability

How are the achieved results, especially the positive changes generated by the project in the lives of women and girls at the project goal level, going to be sustained after this project ends?

Impact

What are the unintended consequences (positive and negative) that resulted from the project?

Knowledge Generation

• What are the key lessons learned that can be shared with other practitioners on Ending Violence against children?
• Are there any promising practices? If yes, what are they and how can these promising practices can be replicated in other projects and/or in other countries that have similar interventions?
• What outstanding advocacy and implementation priorities still require action and commitment from district and national-level stakeholders?

Length of Assignment, Financial Allocation and Application

This assignment should be concluded by 15^th July 2018. The allocated budget is KES500,000/