ThaiNGO

Consultant to undertake a Progress Assessment and Final Evaluation for Save the Children Thailand Anti Trafficking Projects

1. Background

The Government of Thailand’s response to protect survivors of trafficking:

Thailand is a country of origin, destination, and transit for forced labor and human trafficking. It is difficult to obtain the number of children who have experienced of trafficking, including labor and sexual exploitation within Thailand. The existing figures provided by the government authorities and other agencies working to combat trafficking do not systematically disaggregate the number of children being trafficked. According to the recent statistics from the Protection Centers of Victims of Trafficking, it is estimated that there are about 237 survivors have been rescued from human traffickers. 

Special protection measures for children who are trafficked is not well practiced. The government and non-governmental practitioners are often unsure what procedures to follow to support survivors of trafficking, particularly non-Thai persons or children under the age of 18 who are believed to have been trafficked. While the Thai government has made substantial progress towards tailoring survivor-based assistance programs for an individual’s needs, the government also recognizes the need to strengthen its efforts to ensure provision of quality psycho-social and protection services as well as compensation of survivors.  Under the area of protection of victims of trafficking, the U.S. Government’s 2020 Trafficking in Persons (TIP) Report and the EU Global Action against Trafficking in Persons and the Smuggling of Migrants - Asia and the Middle East continue to advise that the Thai government take steps to ensure that the government staff in the shelters and the NGOs provide comprehensive, trauma-informed care based on the survivors needs. This support should be provided through collaboration, in the form of a multi-disciplinary team, between the non-governmental organizations and the Government, to ensure systematic legal assistance, psychological support, and temporary employment while placed in custody of the government.

In response to various recommendations of the international community over the past couple of years, the Division of Anti-trafficking in Persons (DAT) has established Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs), which adopt a human-rights based and survivor-centered approach to improve services for the survivors of trafficking. These SOPs include a set of comprehensive implementation standards in five processes which are: 1) entering the shelter; 2) orientation; 3) protection and support; 4) reintegration; and 5) follow up. Each process explains steps that shelter should take and forms to be filled.   

Save the Children’s contribution to the holistic efforts to protect child victims of trafficking:

Save the Children (SC) in Thailand implements child protection projects to strengthen the care and protection of the most vulnerable children. Since 2015, SC Thailand’s focus has included a focus on the protection of survivors of trafficking through a strong and respectful relationship with: 1) Thai government; 2) key civil society organizations who provide legal support to trafficking survivors; and 3) the survivors themselves. This partnership has enabled the provision of quality protection and comprehensive legal services and implementation of necessary safeguarding procedures. We also work in partnership with the Association of Social Workers of Thailand and other specialists to provide training programs for actors responsible for the care and protection of trafficked children and adults to understand their rights and needs, ensure support provided is gender-sensitive and that responders have the necessary skills to protect trafficking survivors. Specific training modules on case management were designed and catered to the needs of social service providers and other professionals working in direct contact with children and adults. Altogether, Save the Children in Thailand has designed the following three projects to ensure: 1) that the services for trafficking survivors are well-coordinated; and, 2) to develop good practice standards for the protection and assistance of child and adult’s survivors of trafficking.

1. The EASE Phase II (Ensuring Appropriate Safeguarding for Emigrant and Trafficked Children Phase II) funded by Save the Children New Zealand (117,301 NZD - 2 years project)
2. PROMPT (Promoting Safe and Child-Friendly Legal Mechanisms and Pathways for Child Victims of Trafficking) funded by Save the Children Hong Kong (454,814 EUR - 3 years project)
3. SPACE (Support for the Standardized Protection and Care Embraced in Government Shelters in Thailand) funded by Humanity United (76,591 USD - 1 year and 7 months project)

These projects share a common goal to ensure that child victims of trafficking receive child friendly, age and gender sensitive services while residing in the government shelters and through the legal processes.

These three projects funding served to provide capacity building for staff in all eight Welfare Protection Centers for Victims of Trafficking in Persons and staff of the Division of Anti-trafficking in Persons (DAT). The capacity building program targets nationwide systematic implementation of DAT’s Case Management Standard Operating Procedures (SOP) by the government staff, including social workers, psychosocial workers, caretakers, legal officials, and translators for trafficking victims. In partnership with DAT and the Association of Social Workers of Thailand (ASW), SC carried out a series of trainings and coaching activities with the shelter staff to provide the best interest support to child survivors.

Apart from the capacity building program, these three projects implement various activities to reach their specific objectives. The EASE Phase II project aims to strengthen the safe environment in shelters through the development and implementation of a child safeguarding policy; PROMPT aims to ensure that child survivors are able to access a child friendly legal process through the development of a training of trainer curriculum. Lastly, SPACE aims to standardize the implementation of current and future SOPs and guidelines providing protection and support services to survivors of trafficking during their residency in welfare protection centers by developing training guidelines and strengthening supervision on case management for children and adults who experienced abuse and human trafficking.

2. Purpose and scope of this evaluation:

SC intends to conduct a final (external) evaluation of EASE Phase II and SPACE, as well as a mid-term assessment for the PROMPT project to generate substantive evidence-based knowledge by identifying and documenting good practices and lessons learned from intended impact and unintended consequences of the project interventions. The results from this evaluation will be highly useful in providing recommendations for the Thai Government, as well as future strategies for funders.  The results will define key learning and improvement for the remaining project period for PROMPT and lead the design of the next phase of future anti-trafficking programs. To ensure objectivity and credibility the evaluation is to be led by an external consultant who has made no prior commitment or contribution to these projects. The evaluation is expected to take place from November 2020 to January 2021.

The overall objectives of this consultancy include

This evaluation is intended to assess the extent of change that has taken place in the lives of targeted children across the three projects, quality of services provided, and related policy changes and implementation of standards.

Scope of the evaluation

The evaluation should include an assessment and discussion around relevancy, effectiveness, impacts sustainability and gender-sensitivity as cross cutting issues as per the following framework and learning questions:

Relevance

• To what extent have the project interventions including its objectives been responsive to the needs of survivors of trafficking and how are they aligned with local and national development policies and plans? 

• To what extent have SC integrated broader gender and other inclusion concerns and child safeguarding issues into the design and implementation of its interventions?

Effectiveness

• To what extent has the project been effectively achieving its goal and objectives?
• Did the projects achieve its intended outcomes? Were there any unintended outcomes? 
• Are there any differences in outcomes achieved by different groups?
• How big is the effectiveness or impact of the project compared to the objectives planned?
• How effectively and appropriately have we worked with government organizations, partners and target beneficiaries and involved them in relevant stages of the project?

Impact

• Do the projects contribute to reaching the project goals?
• What is the impact or effect of the projects in proportion to the overall situation of the target group or those effected? What significant changes have occurred in lives of children, women, men in the welfare protection centres?

Sustainability

• Are the positive effects or impacts sustainable?
• How is the sustainability or permanence of the intervention and its effects to be assessed?

Gender sensitivity

• How have the projects considered gender sensitivity both in the design and its implementation of activities?
• Have the projects incorporated different needs and accessibility of boys and girls?
• Have the project results been equally represented both boys and girls?
• What are the gender gaps that the projects managed to tackle and what remaining aspects need to be considered further?

The evaluation design should refer to the following objectives and results.

• EASE Phase II aims to achieve one goal and one result:
  • Goal: Child victims of trafficking live in a safe environment, away from abuse and exploitation, and are better prepared for their future
  • Result: Internal child protection mechanism and child safeguarding procedures are strengthened in nine government shelters for protection of trafficked victims
• PROMPT project aims to achieve one goal and three results:
  • Goal: Child victims of trafficking experience safe and child-friendly legal systems and processes to increase the likelihood of compelling testimonies of victims which would lead to more successful prosecution of perpetrators
  • Result 1: Girl and boy victims of trafficking receive child and gender-sensitive support from social and government officials, and have better understanding of their legal case process and show more willingness to provide testimonies in trafficking court cases
  • Result 2: Legal system and processes for child victim of trafficking show key elements of changes to be safe, child and gender-sensitive
  • Result 3: Government policy and procedures that respect rights and needs of child victims of trafficking are improved or developed and endorsed national policy; strategies and mechanisms on trafficking prevention, and the prosecution and protection of trafficking in persons
• SPACE project aims to achieve one goal and one specific objective:
  • Goal: Men, women, girls and boys, who are survivors of human trafficking, receive quality rights-based, and gender sensitive support services that meet national standards for rehabilitation and reintegration
  • Specific objective: To standardize the implementation of current and future SOPs and guidelines on providing protection and support services to survivors of trafficking during their residency in the government welfare and protection shelters  

Design and methodology:

An independent consultant will be recruited to lead this evaluation. The projects are being implemented in eight nationwide Welfare Protection Centre for Victims of Trafficking in Persons: four shelters for men in Chiang Rai, Pathumthani, Songkhla and four shelters for women in Nonthaburi, Surat Thani, Ranong, Phitsanulok, Nakorn Ratchasrima. This evaluation expects to collect information to adequately represent all project locations.

It is anticipated the methodology for this evaluation will comprise:

• Both qualitative and quantitative data collection and analysis for addressing each of the evaluation criteria. Data will be collected through both secondary and primary sources and will be presented as per sex/age/children with disabilities

• Methodology will be comprised of the following critical stages: Literature/ Desk review and preparation of evaluation framework; Secondary data collection; Primary data collection; Data analysis; Validation workshop and discussion of findings with key stakeholders; Formulating recommendations.

Literature/ Desk review

• Literature review of relevant documentation;
• Desk review of SC project level documentation, including Monitoring Evaluation Accountability and Learning (MEAL) reports;
• Preparation of evaluation framework/ inception report based on literature and desk reviews;
• Prepare the primary data collection tools or use recommended tools by SC;
• Design secondary data collection process.

Secondary data collection

• Collection of secondary data from various sources including project level beneficiary data, government data, UN data and other authenticated sources.

Primary data collection

• Survey project beneficiaries, including children and adult survivors of trafficking, partners and key stakeholders e.g. sampling group of shelter staff and traffic survivor from all eight welfare protection center for traffic victim in persons and DAT director.
• Interviews and Focus Group Discussions with relevant key informants, including community representatives in project locations (including children, people with disabilities), government officials, Save the Children staff, relevant technical and policy advisors, INGO representatives etc.;

Data Analysis

• Data will be analyzed using qualitative and quantitative data analysis methods. Quantitative data analysis will be limited to descriptive statistics analysis (descriptive summaries, frequencies, and cross-tabulation etc.).
• Quantitative data will be segregated as per sex/age/people with disability
• Data validation has to be done in checking data to ensure that the information gathered from different data sources is clean, accurate and in a standard format.

Discussion of findings with selected experts

• Findings will be discussed with selected experts from Save the Children, the Division of Anti trafficking in Persons and the Association of Social worker before formulating the recommendations.

The evaluation shall be undertaken based on the Save the Children International requirements and must be in line with Save the Children’s ethical guideline (Annex II), including conducting interviews with children and data protection. The report will be evaluated according to the evaluation quality scoring tool (Annex III).

3. Timeframe

The consultant will be required to dedicate an estimated 25 days’ time to this consultancy work during December 2020 – January 2021, subject to the requirements and agreements with Save the Children.

4. Schedule and deliverables

All materials collected in the undertaking of the consultancy process should be submitted to SCI’s MEAL team focal point prior to the termination of the contract.

5. Management of the consultancy:

The consultant(s) will report to the SC Child Protection Programme Coordinator, with technical support from Child Protection Advisor and MEAL Coordinator who will provide inputs throughout the evaluation process including on the proposed methodology and data collection tools, analysis and interpretation and recommendations. Furthermore, the Project Implementation team will support arrangements for field work as necessary. Support requirements for tasks such as translation and data entry will be discussed with the successful applicant.

The consultant/s will be responsible for

• Coordinating the evaluation
• Developing the evaluation framework, processes and tools
• Training the data collection team and interpreters/note takers
• Overseeing the data collection
• Data entry and analyzing data
• Compiling and submitting the evaluation report including documentation of findings, learnings and recommendations for programming

6. Consultancy Fee

The consultant(s) is requested to propose the budget. The financial competitiveness of the fee will be considered in the selection process. Costs involved in the research, such as materials, travel and applicable taxes, should be included in the proposed budget.

7. Qualifications

• Master’s degree or above in research, social work, social sciences or other related field
• At least 5 years proven expertise in designing and conducting evaluations qualitative and quantitative research methods
• Evaluation/research experience working directly with, and collecting data from children, culturally and linguistically diverse groups, and/or other vulnerable populations
• Evaluation/research experience in the field of child protection, child safeguarding and human trafficking
• Report writing and presentation skills
• Strong qualitative and qualitative data analysis skills using SPSS, STATA and/or Nvivo
• Expertise in issues related to child protection, child safeguarding and human trafficking is an asset
• Excellent writing and communication skills in English; Thai/English language proficiency
• Ability to work within strict deadlines

8. Submissions for the consultancy

The submission must address the terms of reference and include:

• The resume of the candidate
• A cover letter explaining the candidate’s interest and suitability
• Experience in conducing evaluation in multicultural, multilingual and sensitive context will be an asset
• Evaluation plan and budget proposal including research methodology and timeline (5 pages maximum)
• A detailed budget in USD and THB (including travel and other costs)

9. Close date for submissions:

Applicant should submit their interest by 6 December 2020. Submissions should be addressed to: THA_Procurement_BKK@savethechildren.org

Further enquiry: admin.thailand@savethechildren.org