Child Health Advisor - Nigeria Integrated Health Program at Palladium Group

Location: Kebbi  Application Link

               Sokoto  Application Link

                Bauchi  Application Link

Project/ Role Overview

• IHP is an integrated health program with an expanded effort with the Government of Nigeria (GON) to identify and support rapid scale-up of proven interventions through improvement of service delivery and strengthening of health systems. It will focus its support for service delivery in six intervention areas, family planning, malaria, routine immunization, nutrition, maternal/newborn health, and treatment of childhood pneumonia/diarrhea.

Overview

• State level Child Health Coordinator will be responsible for providing leadership in child and neonatal survival, capacity building, clinical mentoring and supportive supervision in Child Health for an upcoming USAID award in Nigeria.
• The State level Child Health Coordinator will provide technical assistance at the State primary health care and community level activities.
• This integrated health project aims 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 PHC. 
• Also, the position will provide support to strengthen community-based services to enhance access, referrals and linkages to the formal PHC system.
• The project will operate over a 5-year period.

Responsibilities

• Provide technical guidance on child health, Integrated Community Case Management (ICCM),  Integrated Management of Childhood Illness interventions (IMCI) through PHC and community-based platforms. Guidance must be sound, evidence-based and responsive to the needs of Bauchi State and USAID.  The position will work within a team to support the state to address barriers, and recommended protocols to scale routine immunization, and treatment for malaria, malnutrition, pneumonia, diarrhea and other common child health initiatives.
• Provide technical leadership, and build local capacity using proven training approaches on promotion WHO’s Quality of Care Standards for Children (2018).
• Provide curriculum review, revision, and master training oversight and follow-up clinical mentoring to promote child health with emphasis on high impact, and integrated child survival interventions.
• Provide guidance to facility (PHC) and community-based structures (CHIPS/CORPS) to enhance community based identification of childhood illnesses, and supporting referral systems between communities and facilities to ensure childhood illnesses receive the appropriate level of care. 
• Liaise with M&E and SPHCDA staff to encourage case management, follow-up, and surveillance of childhood illnesses.
• Work with partners, to provide key child health messages to radio-broadcastings, SMS and other community-based health messaging.
• Advocate with other ministries, community, NGO’s, and religious leaders to support and promote support and access to best practices for child survival: (Vitamin A, Deworming, Hygiene, Dietary Diversity, iCCM and IMCI).
• Contribute to and coordinate 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.
• Represent program at state level stakeholder meetings and technical working groups in relation to service/quality improvement of RMNCH and related technical areas.

Management:

• Contribute to annual work planning, training plans and quarterly reports and other required technical reports.
• Contribute 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.
• Evaluate program progress against deliverables on a quarterly basis
• With the State Technical Director, oversee program design, implementation, quality assurance and monitoring of work plan.
• 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:

• State level Child Health Coordinator 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 Coordinator must be intimately familiar with the context in Nigeria and have in-country experience with USAID programs.

Additional qualifications include:

• An experienced Child Health Advisor or any other closely related health care professional; other related courses (e.g. MPH, Nursing or other relevant degree) will be an advantage.
• Minimum 7 years of experience working in Child Health, 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, 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.