Submitted by quirino on

Definition of Youth Work:

Youth Work:  All forms of rights-based youth engagement approaches that build personal awareness and support the social, political and economic empowerment of young people, delivered through non-formal learning within a matrix of care. (Commonwealth, 2017).  For the purpose of this assignment, by youth work, we refer to the voluntary based SRH and SGBV interventions, ranging from advocacy to capacity building and service delivery, being implemented by youth leaders and champions within informal and voluntary frameworks.

Background:

Youth work is a practice of informal intervention in which youth workers build relationships with young people in community settings such as schools, youth clubs, community centers and on the streets to conduct interventions related to youth development including but not limited to informal education, awareness raising, health education and financial literacy. Youth work is organized mostly by a wide range of voluntary organizations, social enterprises, local government and religious organizations. Most youth-works are being implemented in working-class and low-income neighbourhoods and are free or very cheap to attend.  

Youth work’s professional status varies across and within countries. In some places, it is encompassed within the social work or teaching profession, and elsewhere it is entirely run by volunteers. In some developed countries, youth and community work is distinct from related professions, and has its own accredited qualifications up to undergraduate and postgraduate degree level, although many youth workers are unqualified and the majority are unpaid volunteers.

The youth sector, unlike other human service practices and despite decades of reports on institutions, policies and interventions addressing young people, is not regulated to fit the purpose of professionalism. Unlike teachers, nurses or psychologists, youth workers are not required to complete an accredited qualification before they can practice, and they do not have means of registering their work experience with a professional body that recognizes their credentials. There are no uniform standards of practice or ongoing professional development expectations, and no formal complaints mechanism to deal with breaches of conduct. In other words, youth work is largely non-credentialed and unregulated, and has not been professionalized. These facts have put those serving in the youth work as well as the youth being served in a difficult position of continuing the business in uncertain working conditions.

Due to its fluid definition and structure, some argue towards having ‘open youth work’. This approach emphasizes not only an open admissions policy but also an open-ended engagement with young people in peer-group settings. This begins from their starting points rather than from pre-defined outcomes or agendas and works with them for as long as they choose to participate. On the contrary, open youth work is particularly unsuited to ‘measurement’ because of its open-ended nature that is based on an informal structure. As a result, flexibility is the core of youth work. Rather than outcomes being defined in advance, they emerge in negotiation with young people. Mostly, the focus of youth work shifts and develops taking into account the specific individuals and groups attending, their needs and interests, and the changing social and political context in which they take place.

The challenge of defining and structuring youth work as a profession thus lies within its informal, open-ended and flexible means of implementation. The everyday activities of open youth work can even appear aimless and unstructured to an outsider. Subjective elements of the work such as trust-building and the long-term relationship-based engagement that are at the center will continue to be difficult to standardize and conduct a performance assessment of those involved in the youth work.  

The increasing demand of tying social interventions in a results-framework, bounded by outputs and outcomes, has further threatened the nature and the long-term survival of the grassroots open youth work practices. In other words, the fact that government departments, funding agencies and private actors become more outcome-focused is having a significant influence on youth work practice which is mainly run by young leaders. Thus the need for normalizing systems of measurement and monitoring that had previously been unusual in youth work are growing to be mandatory.

The interest of UNFPA on Youth Work and the engagement of young people from the perspective of SRHR and SGBV:

Youth work, through young leaders and youth volunteers, has significantly contributed to the community-led HIV prevention and care programs, advancing SRHR information and safe practices, and engaging community mobilization towards the reduction of harmful SRH and GBV practices in the region (Reed et al., 2014). Its relevance has boldly been emphasized during times of conflict, natural disasters, in refugee camps and recently towards the fight against COVID 19. (Bamba, 2020).  Nevertheless, Youth Work is increasingly being practiced by people based on unclear and problematic profiling. The young people involved in youth work are even more vulnerable to the conditions of not having certification and the skills acquired through kinds of employment experience which become increasingly important in maintaining a position in the adult labour market. Young leaders and others who are in the field of ‘youth work’, who do not have the “human capital” attributes deemed important by employers, face difficulties not only in entering employment but in sustaining any kind of fulfilling career. ‘Such polarization between the “haves” and the “have-nots” in terms of human capital is increasingly characterized as a social exclusion for a substantial minority from mainstream adult life’. As a result, young people in voluntary youth work often find themselves on the margins of the labor market, moving between various short-term unskilled jobs and unemployment. Due to the unrewarding status of the work, especially young women frequently exit early from the youth work.

Youth work and the involvement of young people in the field have an added value to serving all young people within a framework that sees them as assets. It also has a critical place in addressing the needs and rights of young people in difficult circumstances, in preventing extremist thought and action, in creating peaceful societies, and also responding to specific social needs of young people in contact with the law, or those engaged in substance abuse and other social problems. It is also important to note that being embodied by skills and qualifications, could serve young people in the youth work as some kind of insurance against social exclusion. 

UNFPA’s mission statement refers to fulfilling youth potentials and highly promotes the concept of youth leadership in matters that affect the lives of young people. Youth leaders mentored by UNFPA-led youth programs such as AfriYan and those supported by other partners in the region have significantly contributed to the advocacy, promotion and service delivery of SRHR at grassroots, and to interventions against SGBV including prevention, protection and rehabilitation of GBV survivors. Despite their immense engagement which required their time commitment and creativity, no or weak systems are available to quantify and qualify their contribution which will later contribute to their professional development or to advancing their career path. The number of years they committed for voluntary and unpaid services are not considered for their future recruitment nor for their educational applications. Thus many left the demanding youth engagement and leadership path with frustration and with no clue of how to proceed their career.

Reference:

Purpose of the Consultancy:

This assignment will focus on the framework of understanding the context of youth work in the region, its relevance in terms of empowering youth leaders and paving the way to their engagement in other streams of professions as means of career development. There are several different approaches and frameworks which guide the ‘youth work’ field in the region within the triple nexus development, peace and humanitarian context.

Specific Objectives:

  • Understand the context and progress of youth work in the region  including mapping and identification of good practices
  • Explore more opportunities for the development of creative, innovative and joint action in the field of youth work;
  • Examine the merits of youth work in advancing the active participation and meaningful engagement of youth in social and community works and decision-making processes.
  • Identify concrete capacity-building strategies and/or recommendations that will advance and upgrade the profile of youth leaders within youth work.

Scope of Work:

Supervisory Arrangements: The selected organization/consultant team is expected to work under the overall guidance of the Deputy Regional Director of UNFPA Regional Office in East and Southern Africa A.I; and the daily supervision by the Adolescent and Youth Program Specialist with the support from the Team Leader of the Youth Program. A meeting schedule will be set up to ensure smooth communication. The consultant is also expected to collaborate with other members of UNFPA ESARO Adolescent and Youth team, as well as other units of the regional office and possibly country offices.

 

The consultant is expected to conduct scoping study through a desk review of regional published and unpublished literature and case studies on: 

  1. The current situation/overview of youth work in East and Southern Africa including the framework and approaches of operation.
  2. Highlights of some barriers and opportunities regarding youth work taking the sample of few countries that could reflect different contexts (policies, strategies, acceptability of job opportunities, capacity building initiatives, etc.).
  3. Emerging evidence on what works to support and scale-up youth work that will benefit youth leaders to advance their personal development and fellow youth constituencies.
  4. Documenting the impact of successful programmes in and out of the regions focusing on youth work and its relevance for the outcomes of meaningful youth engagement.
  5. Map policies, programmes and partners supporting youth work in ESA region (Government, UN, CSO and private sector supported initiatives).
  6. Based on the secondary data analysis forward recommendations that needed to be considered to address  youth work as a profession.

Duration of Consultancy and Working Schedule

  • 60 working days :  10 August 2021 - 2 November 2021
  • The assignment shall commence on the day of contract signature and is expected to end in 60 days.

Important Information Regarding Consultancy:

  • The International consultancy will be undertaken in conformity with the Proposal and methodology submitted by the consultant in the inception report. This is a home-based assignment; deliverables will be provided electronically.
  • No travel is expected
  • All communications will be done virtually.
  • The consultant is expected to create, share with ESARO and maintain a google drive with all relevant resource documents and draft reports collected or prepared by them for this assignment.
  • UNFPA will provide inputs as per the time schedule/work plan to be submitted with the inception report.

Milestones and Deliverables:

  • Milestones, deliverables, feedback which are collected, analyzed and generated for this assignment are to be submitted to UNFPA ESARO in electronic copies.
  • A schedule/work plan for the delivery of the assignment.
  • Inception report including proposed, annotated table of content, and tools for literature review and analysis of evidence and resources.
  • Literature review on the situation, impact, policy and programmatic response, and gaps/challenges in progressing youth work in the ESA region. 
  • A written report and a Master PowerPoint presentation with consolidated findings from the literature review, current and emerging experiences, mapping and identifying gaps/challenges, opportunities and priorities including the case studies, specifically mentioned in number 4, under Scope of Work.

UNFPA will Provide:

  • Links to internal and external meetings
  • Contact lists.

Required Qualifications:

 

Education:

  • Masters’ Degree in public health, health economics, Professional Development and/or leadership, performance assessment, Development Studies, or social sciences studies. 

Experience:

  • 7 years of international experience from working with public health, leadership and professional development, career development, performance assessment, and social and economic policies with special emphasis to youth policies.
  • Extensive knowledge on current evidence on youth leadership, participation and engagement, gender equality, health promotion or in a related field both in development and humanitarian contexts.
  • Comprehensive experience in conducting a systematic literature review, analysis and report writing.
  • Proven experience in developing technical guidance documents in professional development, leadership, career development, youth engagement and participation.

Language:

  • Fluency in written and spoken English is a requirement.
  • Working knowledge of French and Portuguese is an asset.

Application Information:  The deadline for applications is 12 July 2021, 5pm South African time.

  • Please submit your application with a detailed Curriculum Vitae (CV) and motivational letter to:  jobs.esaro@unfpa.org.   Specify in the email subject “International Consultant- Professionalization of Youth Work”.
  • UNFPA does not charge a fee at any stage of its recruitment process (application, interview, processing, training) or other fee, or request information on applicants’ bank accounts.
  • UNFPA will only respond to those applicants in whom the Regional Office has further interest. In the event that UNFPA does not contact you by 6 August 2021, please consider your application unsuccessful.

 

Type of contract
Consultancy
Level
Consultant
Job Category
Adolescents & Youth
Region
East and Southern Africa
Duty Station
Home-Based
Job Type
International jobs
Workflow State
Draft
Closing Date