Job Description

TITLE: Maternal, Newborn, Child and Adolescent Health and Nutrition (MNCAHN) Specialist

TEAM/PROGRAMME: Health

LOCATION: Pujehun Office

GRADE TBC

CONTRACT LENGTH: 10 Months (with the possibility of extension)

CHILD SAFEGUARDING:

Level 3: the post holder will have contact with children and/or young people because they work in country programs.

ROLE PURPOSE:

Save the Children with funding from Latter-day Saint Charities, a humanitarian arm of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. This project seeks to reduce maternal, neonatal, and child mortality, stillbirths and morbidity in Sierra Leone by strengthening the capacity of district health management teams and health care providers. At the community level, the project will support community-led solutions to improve the quality, coverage, and accountability of maternal, new-born, and child health care, and to promote the uptake of MNCH and nutrition services. The project will also utilise a digital application to improve quality of care.

The Clinical Maternal New-born Health Specialist position will report to the Project Manager with a dotted management line from the Country Health and Nutrition Technical Specialist. The incumbent will lead the design and implementation of all Maternal and New-born and Child health interventions across two operational districts (Port Loko and Pujehun) with technical support from the HNTS She/ He will provide quality technical assistance to national and district stakeholders and program staff to ensure technical design and approach align with the Ministry of Health protocols and global MNCHN guidelines such as Helping Mother Survive, Helping Babies Breathe, IMAM and IYCF, Integrated Maternal, New-born and Childhood Illnesses (IMNCI), Integrated Community Case Management (ICCM). She/ He will also provide technical support to build capacity for district health management teams and service providers to review and use MNCHN data for decision making to improve quality care. In line with Save the Children’s mandate, in the event of a major humanitarian emergency, the role holder may be expected to work outside the normal role profile and be able to vary working hours accordingly.

SCOPE OF ROLE:

Reports to: Project Manager with matrix management from the HNTS

Staff Directly Reporting to this Role MNCHN Project officers

Budget Responsibilities: No

Role Dimensions Works closely with the Health and Nutrition Technical Specialist, MEAL Team, US Based Technical Team, and other relevant project teams. Supports representation of Save the Children in health sector meetings with donors, partners, and relevant line ministries.

KEY AREAS OF RESPONSIBILITY

• Provides quality technical assistance to national/district stakeholders and IMNCHN program staff, to ensure that the IMNCN technical approaches align with the needs and priorities of the Ministry of Health, and in line with Save the Children’s Common Approaches/evidence-based practices.
• Leads the design and implementation of MNCAHN clinical training for the project following global / national guidelines.
• Leads on coaching and mentoring activities to build the capacity of service providers at all levels across the project’s operational districts.
• Work with MoH and other Technical advisoers to adapts global learning and emerging evidence into local and context-specific solutions to sustainably improve access to and quality of health and nutrition services and practices across the continuum of care,including antenatal care, intrapartum care, postnatal care, , and child health .
• Represents Save The Children at national technical working group meetings, in collaboration with the Health Technical Specialist.
• Work with other staff and partners to develop and monitor workplans, ensuring that they integrate the appropriate technical approaches and methodologies. Provide quality assurance in managing and updating all project information in PRIME and in the use of PMM tools.
• Participate in the development of donor reports and other critical documents to ensure they are accurate and of high quality.
• Monitors program data and results, to inform decision-making, learning and modification to technical strategies as appropriate; and to share learning with others.
• Ensures quality assurance for the technical unit by contributing to the development of standards for technical interventions and routinely utilizing program data to identify program and country quality issues and trends and recommends strategies to resolve them.
• Manages the implementation of activities; contributes to the development of materials/ tools used to implement key technical interventions; and adapt them as needed.
• Identify opportunities for sustainable approaches to ongoing activities.
• Prepare and submit monthly work plans and relevant documents to line manager as requested.
• Other significant duties may be assigned by her/his line manager.
• Liaising with HNTS, supply chain, and project staff on the procurement and distribution of medical commodities and supplies for the project.
• Work closely with the HNTS on development, review or address technical project challenges and frequently updating the Country HNTS on project challenges
• Comply with all relevant Save the Children policies and procedures, including, but not limited to fraud and anti-bribery, child safeguarding and code of conduct, sexual harassment, anti-bullying and gender equality, safety and security, finance, procurement, and human resources.
• Ensure all activities of the project are implemented in line with safe programming procedures

BEHAVIOURS (Values in Practice)

Accountability:

• Holds self-accountable for making decisions, managing resources efficiently, achieving and role modelling Save the Children values.
• Holds the team and partners accountable to deliver on their responsibilities - giving them the freedom to deliver in the best way they see fit, providing the necessary development to improve performance and applying appropriate consequences when results are not achieved.

Ambition:

• Sets ambitious and challenging goals for themselves and their team, takes responsibility for their own personal development and encourages their team to do the same.
• Widely shares their personal vision for Save the Children, engages and motivates others.
• Future orientated, thinks strategically and on a global scale.

Collaboration:

• Builds and maintains effective relationships, with their team, colleagues, Members and external partners and supporters.
• Values diversity sees it as a source of competitive strength.
• Approachable, good listener, easy to talk to.

Creativity:

• Develops and encourages new and innovative solutions.
• Willing to take disciplined risks.

Integrity:

Honesty encourages openness and transparency; demonstrates highest levels of integrity.

QUALIFICATIONS

A clinical degree required SRN, Nursing, Midwife, CHO, or equivalent qualification

EXPERIENCE and SKILLS

• At least 3-5 years of experience in leading complex, multi-intervention, and integrated MNCHN programs/projects, and trainings in collaboration with national/local health ministries and international partners.
• Strong technical knowledge and substantive experience in planning and leading key clinical trainings in line with Sierra Leone Ministry of Health protocols, as well as and global technical MNCHN approaches, such as Helping Babies Breath, Helping Mothers Survive, iCCM, MIYCAN, and so forth.
• Advanced knowledge of international MNCHN best practices.
• Experience in M&E with a focus on MNCHN data collection, analysis and report-writing
• Excellent planning, management and coordination skills, with the ability to organize a demanding workload comprised of diverse and challenging tasks and responsibilities.
• Excellent oral and written skills in English. Proficiency in writing technical and programmatic reports that document program directions and results.
• Strong skills in building a team, supervision, training, and mentoring.
• Strong computer skills (i.e. Word, Excel, Outlook, PowerPoint).
• Patient, adaptable, flexible, able to improvise and remain responsive and communicate clearly and effectively under pressure.
• Strong interpersonal skills with managing multicultural teams; strong knowledge/experience of gender quality, child protection, and inclusion issues in the Sierra Leone context is preferred.
• Willing to travel to and work in basic conditions with minimal logistical support.

Additional job responsibilities

The duties and responsibilities as set out above are not exhaustive and the role holder may be required to carry out additional duties within reasonableness of their level of skills and experience.

Equal Opportunities

The role holder is required to carry out the duties in accordance with the SCI Equal Opportunities and Diversity policies and procedures.

Child Safeguarding:

We need to keep children safe so our selection process, which includes rigorous background checks, reflects our commitment to the protection of children from abuse

Health and Safety

The role holder is required to carry out the duties in accordance with SCI Health and Safety policies and procedures.