The specific objectives of the endline study are:

• To assess the change in awareness of the availability of mental health and HIV support structures within health facilities among Adolescents and Young People (AYP) aged 15-24 years
• To document changes in AYP (15-24 years)’s levels of depression
• To assess AYP (15-24 years)’s changes in knowledge and attitudes around MH and HIV (HIV testing, PrEP and ART)
• To establish the progress in the access to and uptake of HIV and mental health services among AYP (15-24 years)
• To assess changes in AYP’s perceptions regarding issues of accessibility of service providers, cultural acceptability, availability and appropriateness (youth-friendly, gender sensitive, inclusive, and responsiveness)
• To document the change in knowledge and perceptions around HIV and mental health among health service providers in Mombasa County
• To assess the perceptions of health providers regarding the barriers AYP face in the uptake of HIV and MH services by AYP and how these barriers have been addressed by the programme

Study methodology

Tiko expects to apply the same methodological approaches used in the baseline study, that is, mixed-methods approach based on a quasi-experimental design in Mombasa (the treatment county) and Kwale (the control county). We will apply these methods:

• A quantitative survey conducted through client exit interviews with Adolescents and Young People (AYP) aged 15-24, who accessed FP, HIV, mental health (MH), and family planning (FP) services at health facilities in Mombasa and in comparable facilities in Kwale
• Analysis of service data from facilities (sourced from DHIS2 and Tiko platform) in the intervention and those in the control counties
• A facility assessment survey to track commodity stocking, facility
• Qualitative data collected from AYP using focus group discussions
• Qualitative data collected from health providers and county officials using key informant interviews

Scope of work

The primary purpose of the work is to design and conduct an endline study to be implemented between in July – Aug 2024 in Mombasa and Kwale counties. The successful bidder is responsible for ensuring timely submission of the following deliverables:

• Activity Protocol review and approval, Time Frame May 2024 , Deliverable Submitted by Tiko.
• Activity Draft inception report, field work plan and quality control plan, Time Frame June 2024, Deliverable – Inception report, Research/Evaluation team, Presentation of the inception report.
• Activity Scripting of tools, Time Frame June 2024, Deliverable , Scripted questionnaire.
• Activity Training, pilot and data collection, Time Frame July 2024, Deliverable, Field implementation report
• Activity Cleaned final dataset(s) containing all data collected for the endline, including survey responses and KII/FGD transcriptions & codebook, Time Frame August 2024, Deliverable, Submit final, cleaned data sets in either Stata/SPSS or NVivo or other qualitative package (including excel)

We are looking for a bidder with the following skills and qualifications:

• Demonstrable expertise in research and/or evaluations among Adolescents and Young People (AYP) and on SRH, HIV (HIV testing, PrEP, ART) and mental health in Kenya
• Demonstrable expertise in public health policy and service delivery in Kenya
• A track record of designing, implementing and reporting on programme research/evaluations in Kenya including but not limited to:
• Expertise in conducting impact evaluation using statistical approaches such as propensity score matching, interrupted time series, regression discontinuity, etc
• Experience in qualitative approaches for impact assessment such as outcome harvesting and contribution analysis
• Experience in data collection and analysis using participatory methodologies
• The team leader and members should have the following skills and expertise:
• A postgraduate degree in a research-oriented social science or a related discipline with extensive knowledge of and experience in leading (designing and undertaking) large scale quantitative and qualitative research
• A team leader/team member with global standing in the public health space, specifically in AYP SRH, experience in digital health technologies is an added advantage
• A history of publication on AYP SRH, HIV and mental health in peer-refereed, high impact journals, preferably in high impact journals
• Track record of managing and coordinating evaluation/research exercises, and delivering agreed outputs on-time and on-budget
• Excellent and demonstrated understanding of ethical issues in research, including in child protection and safeguarding of research participants
• Ability to respond to comments and questions in a timely, appropriate manner
• Capacity to use mobile data collection for data collection, and analysis of survey results
• Excellent verbal and written communication in English and Kiswahili required