Evaluator \ Consultant

As this program cycle comes to an end, it is crucial to evaluate the program as a whole. The evaluation aims to determine the strengths and limitations of the project in terms of followed processes for achieving the identified project objectives, the coherence and relevance of the achieved objectives with the original project plan, and most importantly, the quality and relevance of the products.

This evaluation will be an end-of-project evaluation to be conducted during the final phase of the project implementation, to properly assess the overall impact of the action. Because research into best practices for children’s psychosocial support is constantly evolving and the Child-Friendly Spaces program is projected to continue in future cycles, this evaluation will also serve as an evaluation of FDCD’s CFS programming’s effectiveness and relevance in light of current best practices around CFS centres. The findings of the evaluation will be used in creating and refining project curriculum and project implementation modalities and activities for future cycles of this program.

In light of the Evaluation, FDCD intends also to exemplify values of accountability towards different stakeholders including donors, partners and beneficiaries.

This evaluation will be cumulative and cover all aspects of the CFS program. The key questions fall into several categories: relevance, effectiveness, impact, and sustainability:

[ Relevance

• Do the project objectives align with the needs of the beneficiaries and strategies (policies) of partners and donors?
• To what extent did the action address the need of the most vulnerable groups affected by conflicts and the lack of social cohesion?
• How well did the project align with both FDCD’s strategic orientations and aspirations?

[ Effectiveness

• To what extent did the project improve the capacities of local stakeholders to provide support for children in their community?
  • What was the role of the community leaders throughout their engagement in the project?
  • What level of involvement in and type of relationship to the project and other local actors including the project’s target groups did they have?
  • Was capacity building and training for volunteers adequate and relevant? To what extent was it applied in the program?
• How did the project impact child participants’ psychosocial wellbeing?
  • Did parents and volunteers notice behavioral changes in children?
  • Are there measurable changes in children’s psychosocial wellbeing? What areas of mental, social and emotional health were most improved? Which were least impacted?
• How did the action contribute to addressing issues affecting cohesion and positive interaction between different groups? 
  • Did the capacity building delivered to the different actors influence their attitude, behaviours, and practices with and towards the different others?
• How gender and HRBA intelligent and sensitive the project is?
• How innovative were the adopted approaches?
• How valid was the project’s intervention logic and assumptions?

[ Efficiency

•    Were the objectives  achieved in an economically viable manner? This criterion measures the adequacy of the deployed resources in relation to the achieved results and effects.

[ Impact

• How well did the project contribute to cultural and religious pluralism, tolerance and peaceful coexistence in Syria?
• Did the program produce or contribute to all intended outcomes in the short, medium and long term? For whom, in what ways and in what circumstances?
• What unintended outcomes (positive and negative) were produced? To what extent can changes be attributed to the project?

[ Sustainability

• What drivers for sustainability did the project produce?
• How did community ownership, engagement, participation, and capacity building contribute to the project’s sustainability?
• How likely will the positive effects of the project last?
• How scalable is this project?
• What is missing or could be improved in future project cycles, according to families, stakeholders, volunteers, and literature on Child-Friendly Spaces and psychosocial support for children?

The key goals of this evaluation will be to evaluate both the efficacy of the program and its implementation, as well as the logic of the program and the efficacy of Child-Friendly Spaces as a modality of psychosocial support and trauma response for children in Syria. In order to do so, the evaluation will rely primarily on feedback from child participants, their families, program volunteers, and other key stakeholders and a comprehensive literature review. primary methods will be:

1. Desk review: a review of recent situational analysis of sectors relating to children’s rights and situation in Syria, and Child-Friendly Spaces best practices in general, as well as the current overall situation in Syria, and a review of the project documents, and a review of the access of FDCD, its partners and beneficiaries to models and leverages of HRBA (PANEL), gender equality and social inclusion.

2. Focus groups with a representative sample of project stakeholders, including families of children who attend the centres, centre coordinators and volunteers, representatives of partner organizations, CSOs and CBOs, representatives of local authorities (municipal representatives/Mukhtars/teachers) engaged in the project

3. One-to-one interviews with key actors including FDCD coordinator and implementing staff and volunteers, local representatives, children who participated in the program, and families of participant children

4. Quantitative surveys of measure psychosocial/mental health of children participants to complement qualitative data from focus groups and interviews.

The expected deliverables throughout the process include:

1. An inception report, including at least:
   1. Validated, tested and translated data collection tools
   2. Data collection updated plan and timeline
   3. An elaboration of the RBA approached applied by the consultant
   4. Hard copies of the questionnaires (if hard copies) and/or raw cleaned data (if on tablets) in annexes
   5. Data analysis plan and timeline
   6. Budget breakdown
2. A narrative report answering the objectives of the consultations, and include the following:
   1. Datasets (should be delivered in an excel database structure)
   2. Qualitative data analysis spreadsheets
   3. List of interviewed respondents
   4. 2-page summary factsheet (in English and Arabic)
   5. The report must be structured in line with the RBA framework and the five PANEL principles.
   6. Learning aspects of the findings and recommendations for future implementation

All collected data is legally owned by FDCD, and the consultant is expected to hand over all data sets. The consultant shall maintain in confidence and protect all information provided to him/her by the consortium partners, employees, and beneficiaries. The consultant may only disclose the extent necessary to perform the baseline.