ECD Enumerators - Bekaa - FOR NATIONAL CANDIDATES ONLY

CONTEXTUAL BACKGROUND

The International Rescue Committee (IRC) helps people whose lives and livelihoods are shattered by conflict and disaster to survive, recover, and gain control of their future. Founded in 1933 at the request of Albert Einstein, the IRC works with people forced to flee from war, conflict and disaster and the host communities that support them, as well as with those who remain within their homes and communities. At-work today in over 40 countries and 22 U.S. cities, we restore safety, dignity and hope to millions who are uprooted and struggling to endure. IRC reaches over a million children annually with education and child protection programs in 25 countries around the world.

The IRC has partnered with Sesame Workshop in order to provide early childhood development interventions to both children and parents, with the aim of transforming the language, reading, math, and social-emotional skills of children aged 0-8 affected by the Syrian war. Parents will receive parenting skills sessions, and children will receive activities in IRC safe spaces, as well as early childhood education (KG1, 2, 3) in pre-school healing classrooms (PHCs). Focusing on children in Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon and Syria over the next five years, the Ahlan Simsim project combines the depth of in-person services, reaching 1.5 million children, with the breadth of mass media, reaching 9.4 million children.

Job Overview/Summary:

The IRC ECD Lebanon research team is conducting a measurement pilot for an impact evaluation study of the pre-school healing classrooms (PHCs). The study itself, set to start in July/August 2020, will look into the impact of one academic year of the PHCs on child learning and development. It will also examine the factors that influence the success of the intervention. Prior to launching the study, the research team will conduct a pilot of the tools throughout March to July 2020. The tools will consist of interviews and assessment tools with children, caregivers, and teachers. The ECD program is hiring a number of enumerators to carry out the data collection for this pilot stage.

Major Responsibilities:

The Data Collectors / Enumerators will be engaged in training and data collection activities:

Responsibilities               

• Attend training that covers the objectives of the study, the instruments and the data collection procedures, as well as research ethics compliance.
• Carry out data collection, which will consist of scheduling visits, preparing material before each visit, and applying data collection tools with children, caregivers, and teachers.                     
• Provide daily field reports to supervisors during data collection.
• Supervisors (if assigned) are to assist in coordinating field activities and to deliver daily and weekly supervision forms.
• Receiving, recording, classifying and referring complaints for attention.

Other responsibilities will include:

• Ensure high quality data collection for research purposes.
• Follow ethical and informed consent procedures required for this study, including those for respondent privacy, data security and child safeguarding.
• Keep data well organized for all observation and monitoring activities.
• Capture the challenges and learning opportunities to feed in the improvement of the overall research process.
• Supporting in other data collection and evaluation tasks requested by the research manager.
• Adhere to IRC way standards in all work.

Key Working Relationships:

Position Reports to: ECD Senior Research Officer.   

Position directly supervises: None.

Indirect Reporting: ECD Senior RMEAL Manager.

Other Internal and/or external contacts

Internal: Field managers in Tripoli, Bekaa, and Akkar.

External:  None.

Job Requirements:

Education: Bachelor degree in the social sciences, psychology, education, or related field.

Work Experience: Experience conducting field research is a must (ideally in a humanitarian setting). Working with children is also required. Experience with parents/caregivers is strongly preferred.

Demonstrated Skills and Competencies:

• Excellent interaction skills with children.
• Excellent interpersonal and communication skills.
• Experience with survey data collection and/or observational measure administration [e.g. observations of classrooms or interactions] preferred but not necessary.
• Experience with digital data collection.
• Strong attention to detail.
• Strong self-initiative, ability to stay flexible under pressure.
• Ability to work collaboratively as part of a diverse team from different professional and cultural backgrounds.
• Previous experience working with refugees, families, young children preferred.

Language Skills:  Arabic, English preferred.

Payments will follow a daily rate. Tablets may be distributed to data collectors and are considered under the full responsibility of the data collector. In addition to that, any damage or loss of the device will result in the suspension of payment.

Working Environment: There will be fourteen enumerator positions, three based in Tripoli, four in Akkar, and seven in Bekaa. All enumerators will undergo a training workshop. During this workshop, 2 enumerators will be chosen to be supervisors; one will supervise Tripoli and Akkar and one will be supervising Bekaa. Data collectors will be paid based on a daily rate.