Baseline Survey Consultant

Role Overview

Kituo Cha Sheria is recruiting an experienced Baseline Survey Consultant to build the evidence foundation for a legal aid programme addressing child sexual exploitation and abuse (CSEA) and gender-based violence (GBV). The consultant will design and deliver a mixed-methods baseline across seven Kenyan counties, gathering information from survivors, communities, service providers and justice-sector institutions, and converting it into measurable starting values for the programme's results framework. The findings will determine how the programme sharpens its theory of change, sets targets and tracks progress towards stronger access to legal aid and justice for survivors.

Key Responsibilities

• Lead the inception phase: convene a scoping meeting with Kituo Cha Sheria and, where relevant, UNICEF and county partners to refine the assessment questions and agree governance arrangements; produce an inception report covering the methodology for quantitative and qualitative components, the sampling strategy and sample-size determination for the survey, key informant interviews and focus group discussions, a data management and quality-assurance plan, ethical and safeguarding provisions, and a detailed workplan.
• Conduct a desk review of the programme design and results framework, relevant national legal and policy instruments (including the Children Act 2022, Sexual Offences Act 2006, Legal Aid Act 2016 and Protection Against Domestic Violence Act 2015) and existing secondary data.
• Develop the data collection package: a household/survivor survey, key informant interview and focus group guides, and a service-provider checklist that capture awareness of and access to legal aid, survivor experiences of reporting and seeking justice, and the way referral and coordination mechanisms function.
• Recruit and train enumerators where a field team is proposed, covering the tools, research ethics, child safeguarding and data collection protocols.
• Oversee fieldwork across the seven counties and their 42 sub-counties with samples designed to allow disaggregation by county, sex, age and disability; conduct key informant interviews with police, prosecutors, judiciary and probation officers, health providers, county child protection and gender officers, and Kituo Cha Sheria staff; and facilitate focus group discussions with community members, adolescent girls and boys, community paralegals and, only where ethical safeguards permit, CSEA/GBV survivors.
• Review and spot-verify records relating to case management, referrals and Court User Committees in order to assess the capacity, coverage and functioning of Community Justice Centres and GBV/Children's Court User Committees.
• Analyse and report: clean and code quantitative and qualitative data, establish baseline values for every indicator in the results framework, and draft a baseline assessment report containing an executive summary, findings by objective and county, and actionable recommendations supported by clear data visualisation.
• Validate and disseminate: facilitate a validation workshop with stakeholders, incorporate feedback into the final report, a 4–6 page summary brief and the completed indicator baseline matrix, hand over the clean dataset with code book and methodological annex, and support the sharing of findings with county and national audiences.

Requirements & Qualifications

• Advanced degree (Master's or equivalent) in monitoring and evaluation, statistics, social sciences, development studies, law or a closely related field.
• At least 10 years of professional experience designing and leading baseline studies, evaluations or research on GBV, child protection, access to justice or comparable subject areas.
• Demonstrated mixed-methods expertise, including quantitative sampling and analysis, and qualitative design, facilitation and analysis.
• Prior experience conducting research with survivors of violence or other vulnerable populations, grounded in survivor-centred, trauma-informed practice and a solid grasp of child safeguarding and PSEA requirements.
• Familiarity with Kenya's legal, justice and child-protection systems; previous work with UNICEF or similar development partners is an added advantage.
• Excellent report-writing and communication skills in English; working knowledge of Kiswahili and the languages spoken in the target counties is an advantage.
• Willingness and ability to travel to all seven target counties, including remote and hard-to-reach locations.
• Where a small field team is proposed, a clear description of team members' qualifications and of how data quality and ethical standards will be assured.
• Commitment to sign and comply with Kituo Cha Sheria's and UNICEF's child safeguarding, PSEA, confidentiality and data protection policies; any tools involving children or survivors must be cleared before fieldwork,