POSITION: International Consultant for development of Social and Behavioural Change
Communication (SBCC) strategy on Adolescent Health
Location: New Delhi
Official Travel: Travel to select states
Duration: 1 month approximately
Closing Date: 29 January 2014
I.
BACKGROUND:
Adolescents (10-19 years) constitute about one fourth of India's population and young people (10-24
years) about one third of the population. This represents a huge opportunity that can transform the
social and economic fortunes of the country. The large and increasing relative share and absolute
numbers of adolescent and youth population in India makes it necessary that the nation ensure they
become a vibrant, constructive force that can contribute to sustainable and inclusive growth. The
skills, knowledge, attitudes, and behaviours of today’s young people are essential to whether, and how
well, the demographic dividend is successfully leveraged.
In order to enable adolescents to fulfill their potential, substantive investments must be made in:
education, health, development and other areas. Investments in adolescents will have an immediate
and direct impact on India’s health goals and achievement of MDGs - especially Goals 1, 2, 3, 4 5 1
and at the same time contribute to enhancing economic productivity, effective social functioning, and
overall population development. However, a considerable proportion of adolescents face challenges to
their healthy development, due to a variety of factors, including structural poverty, social
discrimination, negative social norms, inadequate education and early marriage and childbearing
especially in the marginalised and underserved sections of the population. In order to respond
effectively to needs of adolescent health and development, it is thus imperative to situate adolescence
in a life span perspective within dynamic sociological, cultural and economic realities.
Taking cognisance of the need to respond to health and development requirements of adolescents in a
holistic manner, the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare has developed a comprehensive strategy
based on principles of participation, rights, inclusion, gender equity, and strategic partnerships. The
strategy envisions, that all adolescents in India are able to realize their full potential by making
informed and responsible decisions related to their health and well-being.
The strategy is a paradigm shift as it realigns existing approach to focus on community based health
promotion & prevention, strengthening of clinic based preventive, diagnostic and curative services
across levels of care - thus offering a continuum of care for adolescent health and developments needs
through provision of information, commodities and services at the community level with mapped out
referral linkages through the three tier public health system. Most importantly, it proposes a
convergent model of service delivery which will actively engage adolescents and field service
providers (teachers, ASHA, ANM, AWC and Volunteers) to secure and strengthen mechanisms for
access and relevance. The strategy moves away from “one size fits all” approach to more customized
programmes and service delivery specific to needs of adolescents and aims to institute effective,
appropriate, acceptable and accessible service package addressing a range of adolescent health and
development needs.
To implement this paradigm shift the strategy identifies seven critical components: coverage, content,
communities, clinics (health facilities), counselling, communication and convergence that need to be
1
Goal 1 Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger; Goal 2 Achieve universal primary education; 3Promote gender equality
and empower women; Goal 4 Reduce child mortality and; Goal 5 Improve maternal health
leveraged across strategic priority (programme areas) which have emerged from a situation analysis of
adolescent health and development in India. These are nutrition, sexual and reproductive health,
mental health, gender based violence, non-communicable diseases and substance misuse. The strategy
uses the continuum of care approach and proposes a set of interventions (health promotion,
prevention, curative and referral) across levels of care. These interventions and approaches work
toward building protective factors that can help young people develop “resiliency” to resist negative
behaviours and operate at four major areas: individual, family, school, and community by providing a
comprehensive package of information, commodities and services.
To deliver these interventions the health system will need to strengthen effective communication,
capacity building and monitoring and evaluation systems. Also, several constituencies need to
converge effectively and harness collective strength to respond to adolescent health and development
needs. Different stakeholders working on issues related to adolescent health and development have a
lot to gain by building on each other’s work both in terms of achieving programme objectives as well
as improved indicators for adolescent health and development.
II. RATIONALE:
In order to realize adolescents’ full potential as individuals, leaders and agents of progress, health
services and programmes should facilitate and support meaningful engagement of young people. It is
important to ensure that adolescents play a lead role in organizing/steering communication processes
related to their health. The strategy proposes that health professionals should also act as advocates on
behalf of young people and as providers to young people and their caregivers of most relevant and up
to date evidence based information; they should use methods and language deemed appropriate by the
adolescents themselves.
Therefore effective communication is an integral part of this strategy and will be a catalyst in
successful implementation. To enhance capacities among adolescents for improved health and wellbeing and to advance their health care seeking behaviour, there is need for a comprehensive Social
and Behaviour Change Communication (SBCC) Strategy, which will be based on (i) evidence, (ii) the
needs and aspirations of adolescents, (iii) social cultural determinants of adolescent health and
wellbeing.
III. PURPOSE OF ASSIGNMENT:
MoHFW’s Adolescents Reproductive and Sexual Health (ARSH) Division seeks UNICEF’s technical
assistance in developing a National SBCC Strategy for Adolescents’ Health in India in convergence
with other sectors such as the Ministry of Women and Child Development (MWCD), Ministry of
drinking Water and Sanitation (MDWS) and Ministry of Human Resources Development (MHRD).
The consultant will support the UNICEF team at various stages in the development and rollout of the
SBCC strategy for adolescent health including the development of communication materials and
tools.
IV. DELIVERABLES, TASKS TO BE ACCOMPLISHED AND TIMELINE
DELIVERABLES
Phase1:
Compilation and synthesis
of available literature and
data on key behaviours to
support the Barrier and
Situational Analysis report
on adolescent health
completed
ACTIVITIES
TIMELINES

7 days
Compiling research reports, peer review
publications and secondary data around issues
identified by MOHFW relevant to adolescent
health
Coordinating the design of
a national workshop for
developing the SBCC
strategy on adolescent
health
National workshop on
strategy development
conducted
Phase II
SBCC strategy on
adolescent health developed

Development of the design /agenda for the
workshop
3 days

Finalisation of workshop design/agenda and
contents with UNICEF India team – In India
Facilitation of National workshop with participants
from states and central level – In India
2 days
Consolidation of draft strategy framework and
recommendations from the national workshop – In
home country
Writing the SBCC strategy for Adolescent Health –
In home country
10 days



4 days
Performance Indicators:
 High quality workshop designed and facilitated
 Robust SBCC strategy on Adolescent Health developed
 Work completed as per schedule
Qualifications & Experience required:
1. An advanced degree in communication/ social sciences/ public health
2. A robust understanding of SBCC approaches, theories and methods.
3. Extensive international field experiences in SBCC strategy design, planning,
implementation as well as M&E, with particular emphasis on adolescent health
4. Extensive international experience in working with the health sector in the field of SBCC
5. Excellent written communication skills and,
6. Excellent verbal communication and facilitation skills to be able to draw input from a
wide range of stakeholders, including government partners, academic centres, NGOs and
technical experts.
Application Procedures
(1)
Qualified female/male candidates are requested to please indicate their ability and availability
to undertake the terms of reference above.
(2)
Your application should be sent to indconsultants@unicef.org by COB 29 January 2014
with subject line "International Consultant for Development of SBCC strategy on Adolescent
Health" in separate files (not to exceed a total size of 4 MB per email) consisting of:
(3)
a)
An application letter, CV and P11 form in PDF format (which can be downloaded
from our website at http://www.UNICEF.org/india/overview_1440.htm)
b)
A financial proposal in PDF format indicating deliverable based fee as per template
attached.
The financial proposals of only those candidates, who are found technically responsive, will
be opened.
(4)
Only short-listed candidates will be called for test/interview (if applicable). Any attempt to
unduly influence UNICEF’s selection process will lead to automatic disqualification of the
applicant.
(5)
Joint applications of two or more individuals are not accepted.