Social and Behaviour Change Consultant for Europe and Central Asia Regional Office. Home Based. 80 Working Days Within 7 Months

**Job no**: 580355
**Contract type**: Consultant
**Duty Station**: Geneva
**Level**: Consultancy
**Location**: Switzerland
**Categories**: Social and Behavior Change

UNICEF works in some of the world’s toughest places, to reach the world’s most disadvantaged children. To save their lives. To defend their rights. To help them fulfill their potential.

Across 190 countries and territories, we work for every child, everywhere, every day, to build a better world for everyone.

And we never give up.

**For every child, a champion**

The overall objective of this consultancy is to provide SBC-related support to the Health section at UNICEF ECARO, particularly the nutrition and immunization teams, to identify **_psychological, social, and environmental_** factors influencing breastfeeding and vaccine promotion behaviours among health workers in maternity wards and breastfeeding counsellors.
**_Childhood vaccination remains a challenge across Europe and Central Asia (ECA), with over 200,000 children still not fully vaccinated_**_[1] ,_**_ _**and measles coverage being particularly below the target of 95%. At the same time, breastfeeding rates in the region are the lowest globally.
Health workers (e.g., nurses, gynaecologists) at maternity wards and breastfeeding counsellors play a critical role in supporting new mothers to breastfeed. They discuss, among other issues, the importance of early initiation of breastfeeding and exclusive breastfeeding until 6 months, techniques attach ment and positioning for breastfeeding, and they play in important role in supporting mothers and the family to manage challenges and breastfeeding problems.
Anecdotal evidence suggests that health workers at maternity wards and breastfeeding counsellors are sceptical to discuss about vaccination and, most often, are not at all involved in vaccine promotion. There is also significant evidence of how infant formula companies and representatives influence health providers in maternity wards to promote commercial formula feeding over breastfeeding.

**How can you make a difference?**

To better understand the drivers of breastfeeding and vaccine promotion behaviours among health providers in maternity wards and breastfeeding counsellors in the ECA region, UNICEF seeks the services of a consultant to conduct an assessment in three priority countries, that consists of the following phases:
**_ Inception phase:_**
- Carry out consultations with representatives from 3 COs and desk review (e.g., documented evidence, BI research reports, communication/demand promotion plans, etc.) to get insights on barriers and enablers to breastfeeding and vaccine promotion behaviour among health workers in maternity wards and breastfeeding counsellors.
- Prepare an inception report with desk review and consultation findings including knowledge gaps that should be further investigated, methods and approaches to carry out the assessment phase of the assignment. The inception report should define a very clear methodology based on existing evidence and frameworks (e.g., COM-B, BDM, etc.) proposed to identify barriers and drivers to breastfeeding and vaccine promotion behaviours.

**_ Assessment phase:_**
- Based on the findings from the inception phase, develop a research protocol, questionnaires, interview/FGD guides.
- Support the development of the sampling strategy for each country, considering the need for representativeness and compliance with the research objectives.
- Support countries with additional documents required for ethical clearance.
- Provide capacity building sessions and guidance to in-country NGOs/contractors carrying out the data collection and analysis on the ground. The in-country partner/contractor will be responsible to carry out data collection and analysis with the guidance from the consultant. The consultant will provide guidance to the coding strategy for qualitative research and statistical guidance for quantitative analysis and will provide guidance for data anlaysis and interpretation.
- Provide guidance to the piloting and finalization of the research tools prior to their implementation with a bigger sample size.
- Support in-country partners/contractor to develop brief country reports with the findings from the assessment.

**_ Final report write-up phase and presentation of findings and recommendations_**
- Develop a final report with a summary of the identified barriers and enablers encountered and recommendations for increasing breastfeeding and vaccine promotion in each of the relevant countries.
- Develop and deliver a power point presentation with the findings and recommendations for each of the relevant countries.
- Support the organization and delivery of a regional webinar presenting the main findings and recommendations from all the assessed countries.

Throughout the assignment, the consultant will have weekly meetings with UNICEF ECARO to provide updates on the work in progress. Periodical meetings with relevant COs ma