The purpose of this consultancy is to provide technical support to the Ministry of Gender, Family and Social Services to draft the strategy and action plan for de-institutionalisation and alternative care for children.
The following tasks should be undertaken
The major tasks for the proposed consultancy include:
1. A desk review of existing reports and legal provisions for alternate care.
a. assess the impact of institutionalization on children who lived in alternate care homes (both positive and negative) and what happened to these children in the post alternate care homes phase of life.
b. discuss a hypothetical scenario of who better relevant authorities could have cared for these same children (in retrospective).
2. Map existing community-based services and practices. .
3. Explore and identify the current drivers for institutionalized child care and discuss possible ways of reversing/neutralizing these drivers.
4. Explore the potentials of new types of community-based alternative care.
5. Conduct a series of consultations with key stakeholders including, among others, children, members of public, parents and extended families of the children currently living in alternate care homes, government officials, policy-makers, CSO and human rights organisations.
6. Draft relevant policy and operational documents as follows:
a. Alternative Care Policy and proposed options;
b. Operational guidance for alternative care system outlining care options (may include kinship care, foster care, etc) including costing of these options;
c. Costed strategy and action plan for de-institutionalization of children currently in state-homes and establishment of alternative care systems.