RFP -Contracting a Technical Agency/NGO to Develop Digital tools for Supporting Psychosocial Wellbeing of Primary Health Care Providers for a USAID

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About the Organization

EngenderHealth is a leading sexual and reproductive health and rights organization working in 15 countries around the world to achieve gender equality in and through sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR). Our programs ensure equity and compensate for historical and social disadvantages that have prevented women and girls from operating on a level playing field. We work through gender-equitable approaches to ensure women and girls can access quality sexual and reproductive health information and services. Ensuring equitable access means often means encouraging self-reflection among EngenderHealth staff members, facility-based health providers, community health workers, and the communities in which women and girls live to challenge their own stereotypes and biases and contribute to gender-transformative change. Through our programs, we ensure that the structures and systems that women and girls routinely interact with (health, education, legal, community) are conducive to the empowerment of women and girl.

Working in India since 1988, EngenderHealth has contributed to the improvement of public health through strong evidence-based, technical public health policy and programming to expand and improve reproductive, maternal, new-born, child, and adolescent health (RMNCHA) services in many regions of the country. EngenderHealth’s India program has made important contributions to RMNCHA health care, including family planning, maternal and child health, HIV/AIDS, youth engagement, and gender at the national, state, and district levels.

About the Proposal

The COVID-19 pandemic presented an unprecedented challenge to public health systems across the world. In India, total cases crossed over 32 million, most of them happening during the second deadly wave which pushed the country to the second spot for having the highest no. of COVID cases in the world. Almost 0.4 million have lost their lives due to COVID. This has caused tremendous social disruption with huge number of women being subjected to violence, abuse and apathy, straining the health system further. Moreover, health care workers (HCW) are experiencing burnout, thereby greatly increasing chances of medical errors, affecting well-being of providers and safety of clients. Data also shows that disease epidemiology is constantly evolving and the young population particularly women of reproductive age group, adolescents and new born are at greater risk of contracting with infection a current vaccine are not licensed for people under 18 years of age. The primary health care system is best placed to address any increased surge in this specific age group.

Therefore, to strengthen the capacity of primary health care response and address the gendered impact of the COVID pandemic, we propose to implement interventions to promote and prevent psychological problems in health care workers (HCW) and the primary health care system to respond to anticipated surge in COVID related emergencies among adolescents, newborns and women of reproductive age with a strong gender, youth, and social inclusion lens.

Project Approach:

• Complement and strengthen GBV prevention, screening, counselling, treatment and referral mechanism through engaging health providers, CHW and various community stakeholders.
• Promote and prevent psychological problems in health care workers (HCW) to maintain system efficiency for pandemic response
• Prepare primary health care system to respond to expected surge in COVID related emergencies among adolescents, new born and women of reproductive age group.

 Project Geographies:

• 4 districts from each of the following states will be selected – Assam, Odisha, Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh and Karnataka. Districts will be selected in consultation with state governments based on set criteria and needs of respective states.

Specific Task Requirements for a technical agency:

• Create/adapt a mobile application which works on android and iOS should follow all digital design principles - end users involved in testing, open source, etc.. it should be compatible with common versions of android and IOS being used in India. The purpose of application would be to:
• Provide primary health care workers (doctors, nurses, ANMs, other facility staff, ASHA and other volunteer workers etc.) with a tool to self-detect signs of stress, anxiety, depression and other common mental problems and promote psychosocial well-being.
• Provide them with necessary self-help interventions to deal with stress and other common mental health problems.
• Link them with online/telephonic counselling in case it is required
• Provide them with information of where in-person services can be availed if required.
• Identify/adapt available government of India/UN organization technical material for psychosocial well-being of health care providers and create user friendly content for the users keeping in mind the understanding of the community health workers.
• Share the necessary algorithms (questionnaire, tools) for development of the app.
• The app content should be made available in 4 other languages beside English - Odiya, Assamese, Hindi, Kannada.
• Pre-testing of the mobile application in the field for its operational feasibility.
• Orientation and training of field implementing agency and state government to create master trainers/resource-pool for its further roll out in the districts by field implementing agency.
• Integration/migration to NIC/govt. server for its long term sustainability.
• Identify local institutions that will provide telephonic psychological support including in-person support and link them with our platform and provide the necessary support (to be done with the support of implementing agency)
• Quality check of 10% responses from chat bot conversations/online sessions to ensure quality of services.
• Provide mentoring/technical support to field implementing agency as well as district health teams and mid-term review of the project.
• Create periodic reports and presentation consolidating the learnings from the project

Key Deliverables:

• Finalize and co-create the work plan - Within 2 weeks
• Finalize the technical content for adoption/ development of the application. - Within 1 month
• Develop mobile application including algorithms and provide app content in English and 4 other specified languages. - Within 3 months
• Identify local institutions that provide necessary telephonic/in-person support - Within 3 month
• Training and orientation of implementing agency, district resource team and identified local institutions - Within 6 months
• Continuous mentoring and technical support - Ongoing during the project period
• Periodic reports. - Ongoing during the project period
• Mid- term review of the project for exploring its integration/migration to NIC/govt. server for its long term sustainability. - Within 12 months
• Presentation consolidating the learnings from the project. - End of the project

Other Requirements:

• We also request the agencies to attach the following along with the proposal.
• Evidence of registration
• FCRA registration
• Goods & Service Tax Registration, if any
• PAN Card & TAN letter copy
• Total Annual turnover in last 3 years

 Evaluation of the Proposal:

Once the capacity statements are received by the due date and time, EngenderHealth team will review all capacity statements and evaluate them based on technical and financial aspects. The evaluation criteria is as follows:

Organization technical capacity of providing similar technical support - 50%

Technical capacity and CV of key persons and their available time- 20%

Financial bid- 30%

Proposal that fail to meet the terms set out in the instructions will be rejected. Selected agencies may be asked to present and submit their approach and work plan. EngenderHealth may reject any bid that (1) is not signed and dated by authorized employee (2) is not substantially responsive to the terms and conditions of the RFP, (3) is incomplete, including and without limitation, does not have requested supporting documents, (4) and, is otherwise not generally in order. Such proposals shall be deemed inadmissible

EngenderHealth reserves the right:

• To accept or reject any and all proposals and/or to annul the RFP process prior to award, without thereby incurring any liability to the affected respondents or any obligation to inform the affected respondents of the grounds for EH's actions prior to contract award
• To negotiate with Respondent(s) invited to negotiate - the proposed technical approach and methodology, and the proposed price based on the respondent’s proposals.
• Amend this RFP at any time .

Deadline

20 Sep 2021

Job Email id:      VAgrawal(at)engenderhealth.org

Tags Food, Agriculture and Nutrition Healthcare and Healthtech Others