Competency Raters

Observing and rating to test several Competency Assessment Tools for the EQUIP project

Background
War Child (WCH) is an independent and impartial international non-governmental organization investing in a peaceful future for children and young people affected by armed conflict. WCH strives to empower children and young people, while enabling adults to bring about positive and lasting change in the lives of conflict-affected children and young people. In support of the quality of programs, WCH is involved in a platform called EQUIP to develop and test assessment tool to test the competences of practitioners working with children and their caregivers. WCH is intending to conduct testing of the tool with facilitators implementing psychosocial interventions with children using the EASE intervention methodology.

Project background

The Research and Development department at WCH has developed a multi-year research agenda that combines work towards evidence-based, socio-ecological, integrated and multi-level care services with validated quality implementation standards. The research agenda therefore goes beyond simply demonstrating evidence for implemented interventions, but improving the understanding of how such interventions can be implemented with sufficient quality in real-world low-resource settings. 

As part of that research agenda, WCH is involved in the EQUIP platform to develop and test multiple assessment tools to test the competencies of facilitators working directly with children and their caregivers. Once ready, these tools can assist in recruitment, evaluation and identification of training needs, and as a framework for providing structured and systematic supervision for service providers. WCH is part of a larger research consortium also called EQUIP that will test multiple tools in 7 countries.

WCH will test the use of the competency assessment tools by observing EASE Facilitators conducting a standardized roleplay. EASE is an intervention developed by the World Health organisation, with input from War Child Holland.   

Description of the task:

To evaluate the competency tools, the raters will observe the performance of EASE facilitators while conducting live roleplays. In these roleplays actors will perform as children between the ages of 10-14 years old, and/or caregivers and the Competency Raters will observe the facilitators and their reactions to behaviors exhibited by the children and caregivers, scoring their performance using the different tools.

Main Tasks

The main task for the competency raters is to observe the EASE facilitators and use the four EQUIP Competency Assessment Tools

The competency Raters will also provide information to the research team on how they perceive the acceptability, usability, comprehensibility and completeness of the different tools.

Also all scores of the ratings will be saved as data for the research team.

Furthermore, the Competency Raters should have enough information and commitment to child safeguarding policy, sign the code of conduct, and all policies related to the respect of children rights, WCH will provide the necessary training and support regarding that.

In detail Competency Raters will:

• Attend and participate in a 4-day training to gain the skills and knowledge necessary to use the different Competency Assessment tools
• Attend and participate in 1 or 2 practice days, and use the rating tools after observing real-life sessions with children or caregivers
• Attend and participate in a 2-day recap training
• Use the four EQUIP competency Assessment tools to rate the competencies of the EASE facilitators, by observing live-roleplays between a theatre group and EASE facilitators.
• Share notes and report regarding  the observation and the tools when needed
• Participate in key informant interviews and focus group discussion when needed
• Attend and participate in reflection meetings when needed

Knowledge and Experience

• Fluent in Arabic.  Skills in English are a plus
• At least 3 year of previous experience in facilitating PSS groups in Lebanon
• At least 4 years’ experience working with children (teaching, tutoring, scouts, summer camps, or any other relevant activities)
• At minimum of a bachelor-level degree in psychology or social sciences is required. A social science master’s degree is desirable but not mandatory.
• University degree can be replaced by proven experience in facilitation.
• Flexibility to work remotely and attend online training if required (This requires the possession of a computer and having good internet connection).

Timeframe – Competency raters

• Training + practice scheduled in July-August 2020
  • 4 days of training
  • 1-2 days of practice rating days
  • 2 days of recap training
• Part time work from approximately September 2020 to December 2020
  • In total available for approximately 12-15 working days for the live-roleplay competency ratings
  • Available for 2 recap trainings days

Location

• The Equip project phase 3 will take place in Mount Lebanon