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#27: Mara's first year as an independent child protection specialist - lessons learned



Hello, and you're listening once again to the Impact Consulting Podcast, where we profile people - just like you - who are independent consultants in the international development and social impact spaces.


This week, we present to you a lovely conversation with the lovely Mara Tissera Luna about her lessons learned from her first year of consulting full-time.


About Mara

Mara is an Argentine and Italian child protection specialist with 10+ years of qualitative research, policy analysis, and programme evaluation experience, mainly in Latin America and the Caribbean region. Her research and policy analysis in Latin America, Europe, and Central Asia have produced 20+ publications. She has lived in Hungary since 2015, but she will soon move to California.


Mara has performed qualitative analysis on the protection of migrant and refugee children, institutional care, child suicide prevention, violence against children, and early childhood policies, among other child protection topics.

What we talk about

Mara has done so well to establish herself as an expert in child protection. I was therefore keen for her to share what she'd learned from her first year consulting full time. We touch on a number of great learnings in relation to both how to get clients and how to work with them once you've got them, including:

  • How to clarify the terms of reference for a consultancy early on.

  • Experiences with short/long-term consultancies.

  • How to know how long a consultancy actually takes (in working days).

  • Differences in networking/business development for thematic specialists and skills-based specialists

  • How to communicate what you do (and sell yourself) to clients!

If you're interested in independent consulting in the child protection space, you may want to check out Mara's new International Child Protection Consultants Facebook Group.


Useful links


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