A feasibility study for SOS SOS-Kinderdörfer weltweit (HGFD) for the project “Right to Family II – improving the availability and quality of foster care and community based services

Study Background

SOS-Kinderdörfer weltweit Hermann-Gmeiner Fonds Deutschland (HGFD) and the 5 locally registered SOS Children's Villages National Associations Albania, Armenia, Belarus, North Macedonia and Ukraine, since October 2021, are successfully implementing the global programme entitled “A right to Family – Deinstitutionalisation to reform child protection systems”, funded by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ). The project aims to improve children´s rights with a specific focus on supporting the reform of alternative childcare systems and the deinstitutionalisation process in the 5 project countries. The programme will end in April 2025 and significant results are achieved so far in advocating for improved legal framework in childcare system, in strengthening the social service workforce to support the better protection and care of children, in raising awareness at all levels to promote family-based care and in developing of a range of community-based services and family-based care services. However, there is still a high need and demand from the target group to support governmental efforts to strengthen the childcare system in line with the principles and standards of international documents and goals, primarily by improving access to high quality foster care and community based social services. In this regard, HGFD and the 5 programme countries plan to develop a new programme as a follow-up initiative to the current programme, that seeks to strengthen and further advance the achieved results, by focusing on foster care system development and development of community based social services.

The same 5 countries are going to implement the Right to Family II programme, following a system strengthening approach with interventions and measures on national, regional and local levels. The proposed programme objective, which will be presented to BMZ for funding, aims that children and young people without parental care or at risk of losing it have improved access to quality foster care and community-based services in 5 countries.

• At macro level, proposed programme aims to support national social regulatory framework to improve quality of foster care and community-based services.
• At meso level, it aims at raising awareness of both decision-makers and the public on the need for and advantages from strengthening the foster care and community-based social services and it will directly support the capacity of various national and local institutions, including frontline professionals to improve their competencies.
• At micro level, different community-based services (including improved professional support to fosterers) will directly be piloted, documented, analysed, and publicly promoted, to enable institutions and decision-makers to get practically acquainted to the effectiveness of innovative and contemporary community-based services.

The proposed programme will affect target groups at 3 levels:

Macro level: Legislative decision-makers and policy makers at national, regional, and local levels, who are responsible for developing, adopting and implementing strategies, laws, and regulations.

Meso level: Executive managers of relevant government agencies and departments and professionals involved in the implementation of adopted policies, laws and regulations within relevant state municipal programmes.

Micro level: Professionals at community level who deal with child protection, care and welfare and implement operational child protection measures. Children and young people without adequate parental care and their biological families. Prospective and existing foster parents.

Study objectives

The feasibility study shall provide HGFD with a basis for decision making on what type of interventions, services and activities are feasible within the planned project, in the best interest of the target group. The purpose of a feasibility study is to provide a sound basis for developing a project proposal, by identifying preconditions, opportunities and risks, including possible mitigation measures. This entails an assessment of the feasibility of the project and a systematic review of the extent to which the project approach can plausibly achieve the planned changes under the existing conditions. This enhances project effectiveness and helps avoid bad investment decisions from the start.

The study will provide HGFD with sufficient information to justify acceptance, modification or rejection of the proposed intervention for further formulation.

The regional feasibility study will include the following: 

• context and problem analysis at micro, meso and macro levels.
• analysis of the target group, including collection of relevant baselines data. A baseline for the project needs to be established.
• identification and analysis of important stakeholders, including their possible role in this programme.
• risk analysis and mitigating measures.
• analyses how far the ongoing BMZ project has implemented its activities and reached its goals and how the new project can build on that.
• assessment of the new project concept against OECD DAC criteria of relevance, coherence, effectiveness, efficiency, impact and sustainability.
• recommendations for adjustments to the project concept, including concrete recommendations for the impact matrix and the project measures.

All the details including submission deadline can be found in the main file here.