Technical Lead, Integrated Child Health and Nutrition at Palladium Group

Project Overview and Role   
Palladium brings more than 50 years of experience applying rigorous, evidence-led methodologies to international development. Our work covers health, education, economic growth, governance, environmental issues, informatics, workforce development, and monitoring and evaluation, offering innovative approaches that support the design, planning, implementation, and evaluation of development programs. Our presence extends across more than 90 countries, creating positive impact over 100 projects through the dedication of 2,000+ project and home office staff.

The Integrated Health Project (IHP) aims to strengthen local capacity and systems to contribute to reductions in child and maternal morbidity and mortality in target states, and to increase the capacity of health systems (public and private) to sustainably support quality primary healthcare. The Technical Lead: Integrated Child Health and Nutrition will be responsible for providing technical leadership in child health and nutrition at facility and community levels.  The position will provide technical assistance from the Abuja County office (ACO) and liaise with relevant federal level agencies in order to create an enabling environment for enhanced Reproductive, Maternal, Newborn, and Child Health plus nutrition and malaria (RMNCH + NM) at the State primary health care and community levels.

Job Description
The position will liaise with State Coordinators and other technical staff to facilitate strong RI systems, integrated service delivery at PHC levels, capacity building, clinical mentoring and integrated supportive supervision in child health and nutrition. This position will also provide support to strengthen community-based services (and the CHIPS strategy) to enhance access, referrals and linkages to the formal PHC system. The project will operate over a 5-year period.
 
Responsibilities   

• Provides technical oversight and strategic direction on integrated child health and nutrition services with expansion of primary health care and private sector models and approaches for children and their families.  Includes an emphasis on expansion of high impact, evidence-based practices, as well as community health and community engagement in partnership with other IHP staff and partners.
• Advises on quality improvement and quality assurance approaches of PHC services with the focus on integrated child health and nutrition, including the development of tools and resources for the delivery, scale-up, and documentation of high-impact interventions at facility and community levels in the public and private sector.
• Provides technical leadership on routine immunization (RI) systems and integrated RI/child health approaches to minimize missed opportunities on uptake and use of services by newborns, children and their families.
• Supports capacity building, mentorship and supportive supervision approaches of facility and community providers with an emphasis on scale up of high impact child health and nutrition services in the public and private sector.
• Supports expansion of integrated service delivery platforms to streamline and build efficiencies in the health system which promote preventative and curative health interventions.  This includes Integrated Community Case Management (iCCM), Integrated Management of Childhood Illness, integrated RI, integrated nutrition (including promotion of high impact nutrition practices within Baby Friendly Initiatives such as exclusive breastfeeding and infant and young child feeding at facility and community levels). 
• Supports the IHP learning agenda aimed at synthesizing and packaging learning from across all states across a range of child health and nutrition topics.
• Collaborates with the IHP technical advisor for malaria to ensure expansion of case management approaches for malaria, including malaria diagnostics and treatment, and implementation of malaria prevention activities in the child health and nutrition portfolio including iCCM and IMCI platforms.
• Supports advocacy activities for PHC services quality improvement and resource mobilization for health services at the federal, state, LGAs, and community levels and among private sector stakeholders
• Prepares technical papers, training materials, curriculum review and presentations for capacity building for child health, nutrition and CHIPS/CORPS outreach at the facility and community levels
• Supports State IHP teams and stakeholders to rollout state level CHIPS strategy and strengthen community-based structures (CHIPS/CORPS) case management and referral systems (including emergency transport for very sick children) and referral systems between communities and facilities to ensure childhood illnesses receive the appropriate level of care. 

Partner and Stakeholder Coordination and Advisory Services:

• Participates in relevant federal-level Technical Working Groups and provides support to the FMOH and in IHP states for updating child health and nutrition quality policies based on global, national, and IHP state needs.  Supports state level adoption and adaptation of relevant national policies in IHP states to achieve program goals;
• Coordinates with other USG projects’ technical assistance provided to stakeholders on community engagement to ensure access to quality services  to avoid duplication of efforts and ensure integrated approach to capacity building;
• Liaises with commodity and supply chain experts within federal (as needed) and state authorities and will collaborate with other USAID-donor funded supply chain initiatives (e.g. PSM) to support RI and IMCI/iCCM commodities management.
• In collaboration with other USAID partners (e.g. Breakthrough Action), provides strategic leadership for the design and implementation of communication strategies and strategic behavior change communication for public sector, private sector, and community counterparts by providing strategic direction for strengthening the delivery and quality of nutrition and child health services within integrated RMNCH+NM platforms. 

Management:

• Contributes to annual work planning, training plans and quarterly reports and other required technical reports.
• Collaborates with the program’s monitoring and evaluation (M&E) team on activities to ensure that the program meets set targets in accordance with national and USG standards.
• Contributes to timely, accurate and appropriate reporting of program activities and results.
• Ensure quality program implementation consistent with MOH Nigerian Guidelines, global best practices and USAID Nigerian Strategic Directions.
• Evaluates program progress against deliverables on a quarterly basis
• With the Deputy Chief of Party oversee program design, implementation, quality assurance and monitoring of work plan in the targeted states.
• Coordinate with the other members of the technical team and NGO partners to develop and implement feasible facility and community-based approaches
• Perform other duties as assigned by supervisor which contribute to the achievement of program goals.

Requirements
Required Qualifications:

• The Technical Lead: Integrated Child Health and Nutrition must be a proven leader in the field of with senior-level management experience in public health programs.  S/he must be well recognized by the RMNCH community in Nigeria. The Technical Lead must be intimately familiar with the context in Nigeria and have in-country experience with USAID programs. Additional qualifications include:
• An experienced Child Health, Nutrition or Community Health Advisor with a relevant degree (e.g. MPH, Nursing or other relevant degree)
• Minimum 10 years of experience working in Child Health, Nutrition or Public Health in Africa, preferably in Nigeria
• Demonstrated expertise in working directly with host-country senior government officials and policy makers in child survival and MNCH.
• Experience working with host-country partners, organizations, and institutions
• Strong skills in design, implementation and monitoring of program components; e.g. services, training, integrated supportive supervision, clinical mentoring, patient counseling, advocacy and coordination.
• Demonstrated capacity to work with African experts and partners in developing technical materials and providing training to improve service delivery, advocacy and resource mobilization for expanding quality improvement of MNCH services.
• Experience with technical leadership for programs funded by USAID and/or other donor programs in developing countries, with significant Nigeria experience.
• Strong verbal, listening, writing, and intrapersonal skills essential for effective coordination among several institutions and staff involved in a broad range of activities.
• Fluent in English, (written and oral communication) and Hausa and/or Fulfulde.
• Willingness to travel throughout Nigeria as necessary.
• Nigerian nationals are strongly encouraged to apply.