Home-based: Development and Testing of a Child Well-being Indicator Framework

1. About Terre des hommes: 

Terre des hommes-Lausanne Foundation (Tdh)is the leading Swiss-based international non- governmental organization working, since its creation in 1960, on the promotion and realization of children’s and youth’s rights. With its headquarters in Lausanne, Tdh operates in 27 countries across five main geographical areas in the world: Europe, West Africa, North Africa, the Middle East, and Asia, while it supports programs in other countries through local partnerships.

To make the difference we implement innovative programmes designed to have both short and long- term impacts focused on health, migration and access to justice combined with a strong expertise in child protection (CP) and water, hygiene and sanitation (WASH). See our annual report : Terre des hommes' 2024 Annual Report | Terre des hommes.

As one of the leading child protection agencies globally, Tdh works alongside partners, local communities, national and international actors aiming to strengthen children’s and young people’s participation, empowerment, and their surrounding protective environment to prevent and address violence.

Tdh’s thematic expertise in Child Protection includes case management (CM), mental health and psycho- social support (MHPSS), children, youth and community participation and empowerment, safeguarding and child rights and business (CRB). Tdh’s interventions are tailored to respond to a range of child and youth abuses and risks such as child labour, trafficking, child marriage and sexual abuse, children on the move and unaccompanied children and those associated with armed forces and armed group to mention some of them. In addition to supporting children, families, communities, professionals and local and national governments to prevent and respond to child protection issues, Tdh partners with other stakeholders such as private sector companies and sports federations to ensure the protection of children’s rights.

Tdh is a recognized expert in Mental Health and Psychosocial Support, with over 20 years of experience developing innovative methodologies in humanitarian and development contexts. Through its framework, “Towards Psychosocial Resilience and Well-being,”Tdh promotes well-being by strengthening resources, reducing risks, and addressing all dimensions of child development. The organization has also developed M&E tools to measure well-being in context and works closely with the IASC MHPSS Reference Group globally. In 2025, Tdh will launch its next strategic initiative, “Transforming Power Relations in MHPSS Localization,” which aims to shift decision-making and leadership closer to affected communities, strengthen local actors’ capacities, and ensure more contextually relevant and sustainable support for children and their communities.

Tdh has expanded its experience working on Child Protection in the Cocoa sector in Nigeria, where studies to measure and analyze changes in children’s wellbeing have been conducted using different methodologies – Life stories collection, Participatory Action Research, and mixed method interviews,

building on validated measurements (such as WHO-5 method). Tdh is building on years of experience working in children in MEAL and developing data collection methods and analysis that are appropriate for children of different age groups, in different cultural contexts. In its community-based programme in Ondo State in Nigeria, Tdh piloted MEAL interventions aiming to capture real-life changes in children’s and families’ well-being, ensuring these perspectives remain central to supply chain sustainability and impact measurement.

2. Context:

Tdh and Child Right Business: 

Tdh engages with the private sector to improve the lives of children, families, communities, and countries by working across the public and private sector divide to strengthen child protection and promote children’s rights in business operations and global supply chains. Tdh is committed to ensuring that companies not only avoid harming children in their supply chain but actively contribute to their rights and welfare. Tdh partners with businesses to align their operations with child rights principles. These partnerships aim to ensure that companies’ pursuit of business goals does not come at the expense of child welfare, but instead supports it through a holistic, multisectoral, innovative and sustainable approach which capitalizes and strengthens local child protection systems and is embedded in the communities where these businesses operate.

Recognizing companies as essential ecosystem actors, we are committed to empowering businesses to be positive drivers for societal well-being in the countries and communities in which their supply chains start. Tdh thereby supports companies in developing child protection strategies, policies, tools, building staff capacity, designing and implementing human rights due diligence systems and community development interventions on the ground to enhance the protective environment for children and promote children's rights.

Our goal is to promote and strengthen the implementation of UN Guiding Principles, but most particularly the Children’s Rights and Business Principles by all actors, including authorities, business actors (private companies and sports), CSO, and communities and children and young people themselves. Tdh collaborates with the private sector through various public and private partnerships. While Tdh’s CRB work is primarily focused on agricultural value chains, particularly in the coffee and cocoa sectors, its experience spans over a decade in the cotton, artisan gold mining, leather, and adult entertainment sectors. Tdh addresses the root causes and drivers of child labour and broader child rights violations by designing and implementing holistic and sustainable monitoring and remediation systems. These systems integrate whole-of-supply chain and area-based approaches through collaboration with the private sector, governments, civil society, communities, families, and children and young people.

Background of this Service Contract: 

As part of our collaboration with a leading cocoa company committed to responsible sourcing, Tdh will lead the development of a Child Well-Being Indicator Framework aimed at improving the company’s ability to measure the broader impacts of its sustainability programs on children’s welfare, development, and safety in cocoa-growing communities. This is part of its strategic evolution, expanding focus from child labour incidence alone to a broader, more holistic measurement of child well-being

The developed indicator framework will support this evolution, embedding robust and ethically sound child well-being indicators into the client’s monitoring and evaluation (M&E) system. By doing so, the company aims to strengthen their contribution to human rights and social impact, ensure the interventions support not only risk mitigation but also long-term community development and align with their Theory of Change and 2030 commitments to proactively address social risks in the supply chain.
Tdh will therefore engage a qualified service provider(s) hereafter referred to as service provider(s) or team of service provider(s) to support the implementation of this project through conducting reviews, indicator framework development, and field testing.

Guiding Principles and Approaches: 

The service provider(s) will be expected to apply and uphold Terre des hommes’ core principles and approaches throughout the assignment. These principles are central to ensuring that the resulting framework is ethical, practical, and child- centered.

Principles: 

• Child-Centered: The well-being indicator system mustbe child-friendly,age- and gender appropriate, reflecting children’s lived realities and perspectives.
• Rightsbased: Rooted in international child rights standards, ensuring full alignment withchildren’s fundamental rights.
• Ethical: Processes must safeguard children’s dignity, privacy, and safety at all times, followingestablished child safeguarding and ethical research guidelines.
• Reliability and Data Quality: Indicators must meet standards of robustness, validity, coherence, completeness, and timeliness.
• Accountability: The framework should clearly identify attribution and contribution to outcomes, ensuring transparency in results and decisions.

Approaches: 

• Field-anchored and Context-specific: The framework should be tailored to local realities, sector needs, and available resources, ensuring feasibility and avoiding unnecessary technical complexity.
• Mixed Methods: The framework should balance quantitative and qualitative approaches to capture both measurable outcomes and lived experiences.
• Participatory: Children, families, and communities must be actively consulted in defining and validating indicators and tools.
• Holistic: Child well-being should be understood broadly covering welfare, development, safety, education, and psychosocial domains.
• Community-based: Engagement with and empowerment of local child protection and community structures must be prioritized, aligning private sector efforts with existing government systems.
• Sustainability-oriented: The framework should build local capacities and strengthen systemic responses to ensure long-term continuity and positive impact.

3. Objective of the Assignment: 

The service contractor aims to support Terre des hommes (Tdh) in reviewing, developing, and field-testing a Child Well Being Indicator System that is comprehensive, context-appropriate, and adaptable to cocoa-growing communities.

Working closely with Tdh’s technical team, the service provider(s) will contribute to strengthening the existing child well-being measurement framework to ensure it is methodologically robust, ethically sound, participatory, and aligned with local realities.

The assignment will involve:

• Participating in a pre-development assessment phase: definition of purpose, information need and analysis plan with Tdh and the Client.
• Conducting in-depth review of existing child well-being indicator and subsequent data collection and analysis tools, including scientifically validated methods and identifying gaps and opportunities for improvement.
• Developing an indicator system with accompanying measurement and guidance tools (indicator reference sheet), that are culturally relevant.
• Designing data collection tools and related training materials; and
• Supporting the preparation of the field testing, reviewing the materials post field test and improving the indicator framework based on lessons learned from the testing.

4. Scope of Work and Key Tasks: 

The scope of work includes conducting a comprehensive review and analysis of existing child well-being systems to inform the development of robust child well-being indicators. Based on the findings, the service provider(s) will develop an innovative and context-appropriate indicator framework, along with accompanying tools and guidance, to address identified gaps and support field testing and capacity- building efforts. Lastly, the service provider(s) will support on some activities related to the field testing of the indicator framework, tools and guidance.

Phase I: Assessment and Desk Research:

The service provider(s) will conduct a comprehensive review and analysis of existing child well-being systems to inform the development of robust child well-being indicators. This includes:

• Inception workshop to frame the objectives, scope and information need.
• Mapping key stakeholders and their respective approaches to measuringchild well-being.
• Defining criteria to assess existing indicators and methodologies.
• Key informant interview with Tdh, the private company and other relevant stakeholders.
• Assessing current indicators, methods and approaches used to measure child well-being in the development field.
• Identifying gaps and limitations in existing measurement frameworks.
• Analyzing ethical and methodological considerations in collecting data on child well-being, in consideration of the very contexts of intervention.
• Synthesizing insights from relevant organizations, academic literature,and grey literature.
• Provide a full assessment report and present finding for validation by Tdh and the Private Company.

Phase II: Development of Indicator Framework, Tools, Guidance and Training Materials:

Building on the findings of Phase 1, the service provider(s) will:

• Prepare and facilitate a co-creation workshop including Tdh and the Private Company.
• Facilitate regular meetings with Tdh and the Private Company to collect feedback on the tools being developed.
• Design an innovative and context appropriate indicators framework and their definitions to address identified gaps (using the provided template).
• Develop an indicator sheet that outlines indicator measurement modalities.
• Prepare detailed methodology for data collection and analysis, including Sampling strategies Data sources, Tools and instruments, including questionnaires / interview or observation guides with scripting instructions.
• Prepare Enumerator training materials, Guidance on mitigating bias and ensuring data reliability and Data cleaning and processing protocols, statistical techniques, and validation procedures.
• Provide a support / framework to aggregate data enabling to give account of results reached globally.
• Provide final indicators and data collection & analysis material, and training package for field testing, for feedback and validation.

Phase III: Field Testing and Capacity Building: 

This phase is subject to confirmation by the client. If confirmed, the service provider(s) will: 

• Co-develop with Tdh field testing methodology.
• Attend the feedback meeting with the enumerators, participate in analysis and decision- making meetings about changes to be made and co-develop recommendations with Tdh.
• Refine indicators, tools, and guidelines based on testing results and the meeting discussions.
• Submit final package incorporating post field testing recommendations.

5. Suggested Methodology: 

This service contract will be based on review of existing literature on child well-being frameworks, and other web-based resources from reliable sources that meet the standards for accuracy.

The service provider(s) will apply a mixed-method, participatory, and child-centered approach, combining quantitative and qualitative data. Ethical safeguards, informed consent, and sensitivity to child participation will be mandatory. Tdh will provide guidance on engagement with the company, data management protocols, and reporting requirements. In addition, the deliverable will include presentations of desk review analysis and findings, co-creation workshops /strategic discussion with Tdh’s key programme team and potentially the company.

Throughout the assignment, the service provider(s) will engage and work collaboratively with the Global Child Rights and Business Advisor and Senior MHPSS Advisor of Tdh's Child Protection Expertise and the Quality and Accountability Global Advisor of the Quality & Accountability department in Tdh. The Global Child Rights and Business Advisor will act as the main focal point toward the company, whereas the Senior MHPSS Advisor and Quality and Accountability Global Advisor will act as the technical leads and main focal point. These will further be discussed and agreed upon during the inception phase and will be reflected within the assignment workplan.

6. Expected Deliverables and Timelines: 

The service provider(s) is required to submit the following deliverables which will be reviewed and endorsed by Tdh before submission to the company. The service provider(s) should undertake to include an initial briefing with Tdh focal point and the technical leads in his/her schedule as well as regular progress report meetings.

The assignment should take place from 10 November 2025 until 30 April 2026 . The total number of working days for the service provider(s) to conduct the assignment and submit the deliverables is 50 days.

• Phase I: Including preparation, research and findings presentation, co-creation and delivering the assessment report**– by Mid-December 2025**
  • Deliverable: Assessment report and presentation on existing systems, quality review, and identified gaps.
• Phase II: Including service provider(s)’s proposed indicator framework and related data collection systems, guidance, training materials and presentation to company, finalization and endorsement**– by February 2026**
  • Deliverables: A Comprehensive Indicator Framework (with additional Indicators).
    Detailed methodology for data collection and analysis, including tools, protocols, guidance and training materials.
• Phase III: Including attending feedback meeting, analysis & decision-making meeting and refining the framework– by mid-April 2026
  • Deliverable: Refined Child Well-Being Indicator Framework, incorporating lessons from field testing and discussions with Tdh and the company.

7. Roles and Responsibilities:

The focal points for the service provider(s) at Tdh will be the Global Senior MHPSS Advisor and Quality & Accountability Global Advisor – MEAL Specialist, who are also the technical leads for this project. The Global Child Rights and Business Advisor will provide overall strategic direction and leadership during this project, ensuring that the project aligns with global child rights and business standards, while acting as the focal point toward the company.

Tdh's role will be as follows:

• Provide overall strategic, technical direction and leadership during this project, ensuring that the project aligns with global child rights and business, MHPSS and MEAL standards.
• Support the assessment phase by providing key contacts, documentations and act as key informants.
• Participate in discussion about methodological orientations and approaches.
• Provide technical inputs by contributing ideas, feedback, and technical perspectives to guide the service provider(s)’s work and help improve the final products.
• Manage the field testing, including the training of the participants of the field test, provide guidance for structuring the feedback and analysis from the field testing.
• Communication and internal Tdhliaison management.
• Review and validation of all the deliverables required in this TOR.

The role and responsibilities of the service provider(s): 

The service provider(s) must sign the Terre des hommes Safeguarding Policy, Code of Conduct (and other relevant policies that will be presented at the contract signature state) and be willing to adhere to its principles and expected practices. If a breach of the policy or code of conduct takes place, the service will be terminated immediately without any financial burden on Tdh.

• To deliver the assignment as per the signed contract, Terms of Reference, and the Technical and Financial Offer and relevant annexes, including Tdh policies where applicable (e.g. those related to Data Protection and Safeguarding).
• To submit all required deliverables as per the agreed deadlines.
• To be available for regular check-in calls, as necessary, throughout the assignment to share updates on the progress.
• To ensure that the identified Tdh Focal Points are regularly informed in case of any questions and issues (particularly, delays and blockages) that may emerge during the assignment and may require mutual discussion/planning.
• To generally ensure the confidentiality of the process as well as the information and documents received from Tdh.
• The service provider must:
  • Be registered as a legal entity or as an independent worker in his/her country of residence.
  • Provide proof of VAT registration status (unless not required according to the value of the annual turnover).
  • Submit invoices based on the deliverables set forth in the service contract, such as tools or reports.
  • The service provider(s) will report to Tdh’s Technical leads for the project, under the overall supervision of Global Child Rights and Business Advisor. Tdh will facilitate access to relevant documentation, stakeholders, and coordination with the company.

8. Profile Required: 

Tdh will accept applications from both individuals, teams, academic entities, NGOs and companies if they are officially registered with a tax number, which can be proven by legal document. In case the work is conducted by a team, the team should ideally be diverse, and gender balanced.

Required Experience and Skills:

• Master’s degree in Social Sciences, Child Rights, Human Rights, Development Studies, or related fields.
• Demonstrated experience in monitoring and evaluation, indicator framework development, human rights due diligence. Expertise in developing and implementing child well-being or social impact indicators is an advantage.
• Familiarity with community-based and development projects in cocoa, coffee, or agricultural value chains is an advantage.
• Demonstrated experience in qualitative and quantitative data collection methodologies and analysis.
• Expertise in child-friendly data collection approaches, including ethical considerations.
• Expertise in the field of Mental Health and Psychosocial programming.
• Knowledge of Standard M&E tools used in the field of development / humanitarian interventions in MHPSS programming.
• Training and communication skills.
• Strong analytical, report writing, facilitation skills and ability to convey information and knowledge in a tailored manner to the target audiences’ needs.
• Full written and oral proficiency in English.
• Strong graphic skills, computer proficiency in producing quality written materials as well as graphic, visual material.

How to Apply: 

Interested applicants shall submit their application via email to: ken.tenders@tdh.org and any technical questions on the bid to sophie.mareschal@tdh.org. The e-mail should have the subject-line: Child Rights and Business – Child Well-Being Indicator Framework – Applicant’s name. The deadline for submission is 29 October 2025.

The application package shall include:

• Technical Offer – should contain understanding of the ToR and
  • outline of the methodology
  • short concept note outlining some key considerations
  • workplan with a timeline.
• Financial Offer indicating daily fees in CHF. The indicated prices should be net amounts.
• Up-to date CV of the expert(s) and professional profile/portfolio in case of an organization (max. 3 pages/CV or company profile).

Applications – incl. all annexes – must be in English. Other languages will not be accepted. Applications must be submitted as a single application package. Documents sent separately will not be accepted.

The Technical and Financial Offer must be signed on the first and last page and stamped (if an official stamp is available). Both offers shall contain the name and contacts of the lead expert (or the representative if it is a team, company or similar)

Note: This assignment is subject to the availability of funding. The contracting authority shall not be held liable for any commitments or compensation in the event that funding is not secured, and the service is not contracted.