Institutionalization of BLP into MoE System, Policy and Strategic Plan At Norwegian Refugee Council

https://norwegianrefugeecouncil-my.sharepoint.com/:b:/g/personal/mohammed_alnajjar_nrc_no/EYKQIse-MMlCgj9jZw7gcWABfbgB08K9lHi88Dt3Hb9yUw?e=YGREBr

BACKGROUND

The Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) and Framework Agreement signed by the Ministry of Education (MoE) and the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC), provide the background to institutionalise[1] NRC’s flagship PSS/SEL programming, known as the Better Learning Programme (BLP), across its own education responses, and to establish a solid foundation for supporting the institutionalisation of non-specialised PSS/SEL into education systems and structures across the region.

The BLP is a PSS/SEL intervention focusing on improving pupils’ learning capacity by empowering the school community, integrating coping techniques into daily teaching and learning, and encouraging pupils’ natural recovery. The programme is based on five core principles including: (1) being able to calm down; (2) restoring a sense of safety; (3) power to change ones’ situation (self-empowerment); (4) connecting with others; and (5) providing hope for the future. These principles are informed and shaped by international guidance and research, with the aims of enhancing resilience processes and mitigating vulnerabilities children and youth. Additionally, BLP works to strengthen collaboration between teachers, counsellors, and parents on supporting students’ wellbeing and building resilience in the school community (UoA, 2018). BLP is the product of a successful, long-standing, research-practice collaboration between NRC and the University of Tromsø (UiT) in Norway.

The BLP consists of three phases of programme intervention including a general, classroom-based psychosocial support approach targeted at all children and young people (BLP1); a small group intervention to support resilience amongst a more specific target group of academic underachievers (BLP2); and a specialized, clinical approach to address nightmares, which many children experience as chronic symptom of traumatic stress (BLP3). The BLP also connects education personnel with parents, to help them understand their children through a community-based approach.

Over subsequent years, NRC Palestine has scaled up BLP1 and BLP3, particularly in the Gaza Strip and within the UNWRA system, and in 2017, BLP2 was developed and has since been piloted in Gaza in partnership with MoE. Within the current grant started in January 2019 and ending in December 2021, NRC has reached 80 MoE schools in the first year, and another 80 schools in the current year. By the end of 2020, NRC will have assisted more than two thirds of MoE schools across Gaza Strip, where the implementation of BLP modules at school level will have been ensured, supervised and rolled out. In addition, NRC will have worked at building the capacities of MoE, at both implementation and senior levels.

2. OBJECTIVE OF SERVICE

Within the above mentioned mainstreaming BLP plan, NRC is looking for a consultant to provide technical support to i) develop the implementation modalities to be reflected in the teachers/counselors job descriptions/ToRs, including existing monitoring and measurement tools, to integrate BLP into MoE system and strategic plan; ii) design and pilot the integration of BLP and core concepts (i.e. the Recovery Box) into national pre and in-service training modules and EiE response approaches; iii) review the existing MoE education programme (curriculum and practices), to identify the “entry points” for the BLP components and to design the mainstreaming of the BLP components and principals. This work will be carried out in close collaboration with the MoE, the Palestine NRC PSS/SEL Working Group (PSS/SEL WG) and NRC Middle East Regional Office (MERO)

[1] This term involves embedding a process, behaviour or approach within an organisation or institution. It is about organisational change involving not just the integration of a package but a long-term commitment to something much broader from a policy level, down to resource commitment