Consultant - Disability Services Review and Assessment

The International Rescue Committee (IRC) is a leading emergency and development organization, working with refugees, displaced persons, and communities affected by conflict in over 40 countries. The IRC also resettles refugees to the United States in 20 offices across the country in partnership with State Department, United Nations High Commission for Refugees and partner non-governmental organizations. Persons with disabilities face challenges in all contexts, and the IRC is committed to increasing our organizational awareness of this issue so that our programs take into account the needs of persons with disabilities, and become increasingly inclusive. The IRC seeks a consultant to help document current efforts, and to help organizational awareness of this important issue.

Aim: To document existing programs supporting persons with disabilities, raise awareness of the needs of persons with disabilities in the IRC context, and present findings to IRC senior staff.

Objectives:

1) Develop an inventory of current IRC work that directly targets or includes persons with disabilities (include WRC’s work on refugees with disabilities).

2) Assess the various units, departments and key stakeholders within IRC that need to be reached to achieve buy-in and institutional support, for example, International Programs including US Programs, the Technical Units, Regional and Country Directors, Human Resources, the IRC Board – especially the Program Committee, Overseers, President and Vice-Presidents.

3) Determine linkages with the Women’s Refugee Commission, WRC technical assistance and guidance.

4) Identify and assess other stakeholders, competitors, possible partners, and potential donors for this disabilities work.

5) Present findings at IRC senior staff meeting.

Activities:

· Interview key IDP, USP and WRC staff on programs and work done to date on disabilities.

· Review program reports on outcomes, progress and learning for all projects and work conducted on disabilities.

· Through key stakeholder interviewers at HQ and field levels, determine who needs to be influenced, brought on board and supportive to ensure institutionalization of disabilities integrated across the organization.

· Review the WRC’s work on disabilities and assess how it can help shape and guide IRC’s disabilities strategy.

· Assess possible supportive roles for the WRC in implementation of the initiative.

· Do a mapping of other actors and outside stakeholders – their roles, their approaches to mainstreaming disabilities, overlap, possible synergies, and possible funding sources for moving this work forward.

· Produce a document with recommendations for next steps to increase the IRC’s commitment to the needs of persons with disabilities.

Outputs:

· Inventory matrix of current and previous disability programs and activities.

· Mapping of other actors and stakeholders.

· Recommendation document on next steps.

· Convening a senior staff meeting to review the findings and recommendations.

Required Qualifications:

· Prior experience as a professional consultant.

· Prior work with displaced populations.

· Bachelor’s degree required; Master’s degree preferred.

· Strong oral and written communication skills.

· Significant experience in designing, implementing, and/or evaluating programs that serve persons with disabilities, ideally in both international and domestic contexts.

· Experience in organizational change management.

Consultant - Disability Services Review and Assessment