POSITION: State Consultant Child Protection Systems Strengthening
LOCATION: Mumbai
DURATION: 8 months
CLOSING DATE: 12th April 2026
Background & Purpose of Assignment:
Purpose of Activity/Assignment:
The purpose of this Technical Assistance (TA) is to strengthen child protection systems and enhance the capacity of stakeholders within the Department of Women and Child Development responsible for the effective implementation of Mission Vatsalya, the Juvenile Justice Act and the POCSO Act.
The TA will also develop pathways for engagement with allied systems to effectively prevent violence and end child marriage and provide technical support to the Tribal Development Department to ensure the safety and well-being of tribal children in Ashramshalas.
Scope of Work (Include Background/Rationale/Key Objectives of the Assignment):
The child protection system involves numerous stakeholders, and the child protection workforce encompasses diverse professionals and para-professionals who work with vulnerable children and their families. This includes personnel from Child Welfare Committees (CWCs), Juvenile Justice Boards (JJBs), Child Protection Units (DCPUs), child-care institutions (CCIs). Other key stakeholders include the judiciary, the police, NGOs.
A well-supported, adequately equipped, coordinated, and empowered workforce is crucial for ensuring the safety and protection of vulnerable children. Functionaries within allied systems such as education, child development, and health play a vital role in preventing vulnerabilities and risks faced by children. Through their services and programs, they contribute directly and indirectly to preventing exploitation and safeguarding children from marriage, labour, delinquency, and violence. Hence, strengthening these allied systems for a preventive role is critical.
This assignment seeks high-level technical assistance to advance and accelerate child protection workforce development and its professionalization, while simultaneously strengthening allied systems for effective child protection prevention.
The key objectives of the assignment are:
- Support DWCD to institutionalize capacity building of the child protection workforce for strengthening case management, community-based child protection systems and data systems.
- Support periodic reviews of the implementation of the POCSO Act and JJ Act with High Court Juvenile Justice and POCSO Committees and State Commission for Protection of Child Rights.
- Develop resources and strengthen capacities of Systems for ending child marriage and adolescent empowerment in select districts.
- Support the Tribal Development Department to institutionalize child protection, wellbeing and empowerment of tribal children in Ashramshalas.
Duty Station: Mumbai
Official travel:
The Consultant will need to travel to Pune, Aurangabad, Hingoli, Jalna, Beed, Parbhani, Dhule, Jalgaon, Nashik
Qualification:
Master’s degree in Social Sciences or Developmental fields is closely linked to UNICEF’s broad agenda.
Knowledge/Expertise/Skills required:
- A Minimum of 7 to 8 years of work experience and technical capacity in social service workforce strengthening and child protection programming.
- Experience of engaging effectively with state government; non-profit organizations; universities; professional associations and other key stakeholders.
- Good research skills with data collection and analysis.
- High level of writing and editing skills, analysis and reporting. Skill set of working in Ms Excel, MS PPT.
- Fluency and command over spoken and written English is mandatory. Ability to speak Marathi would be an essential qualification for this assignment.
Application Procedure
Qualified female/male candidates are requested to please indicate their ability and availability to undertake the terms of reference above.
(1) We request you to please inform us where you have seen this advertisement.
(2) Your application should be sent to mumbai.consultants@unicef.org by COB 12th April 2026 with subject line "Application for State Consultant Child Protection Systems Strengthening" and attach separate files consisting of:
a. Cover letter
b. CV (clearly mentioning relevant experience and any experience with UN/International/ Bilateral agencies)
c. The General Terms and Conditions of Contract (Consultants) GTC.pdf
e. Technical Proposal detailing previous work and relevance to the applied role
f. A financial proposal in PDF format indicating deliverable based fee as per template attached. Please mention your name in the file name while saving.
(3) The selection will be based on technical evaluation & financial proposal in the ratio of 75:25. The technical criterion for evaluation is as follows:
- Educational Qualifications (10)
- Technical proposal (25)
- Interview (30)
- Experience (10)
Total Score is 75.
Minimum overall qualifying score should be 56.
(4) The financial proposals of only those candidates, who are found technically responsive, will be opened.
(5) Any attempt to unduly influence UNICEF’s selection process will lead to automatic disqualification of the applicant.
(6) Joint applications of two or more individuals are not accepted.
(7) Please note, UNICEF does not charge any fee during any stage of the process.