Technical Advisor - Parenting and Youth at Catholic Relief Services (CRS)

Job ID: #1355371

Job Summary

• The Parenting and Youth Technical Advisor will provide technical leadership for the 4Children Nigeria project around strengthening parenting and youth programming among current PEPFAR implementing partners (IPs) with a focus on creating opportunities within the existing portfolio to more effectively and holistically address the needs of adolescent girls age 10-18 years.
• This position identify and work with STTA to conduct evidence-based review, adaptation and consolidation of curricular on parenting with view to come up with common approach to parenting support and development that IPs will use to train CSOs.
• The focus will be on strengthening the capacity of current IPs in the areas of parenting, especially for adolescents, including those living with HIV, with an emphasis on developing strong communication between caregivers and adolescents. Other opportunities include leveraging child protection networks to identify ways to reduce violence against children and HIV risk for adolescent girls.
• This position will increase awareness among IPs about principles of adolescent girl programming and support them to adapt them to their context.
• S/he will liaise closely with the Household Economic Strengthening Technical Director to identify ways to address structural/household economic issues (e.g., pulling girls out of school) that put adolescent girls at risk and support appropriate programmatic response.
• This position will also work closely with the Case Management and Referral Network Technical Advisor to support IPs to identify opportunities for more robust case management and referral networks to address the needs of this population and create stronger linkages with health services.

Specific Responsibilities

• Lead assessments of IP parenting curricula in use in Nigeria ages, stages and special populations (e.g., CLHIV and ALHIV) and make recommendations to address gaps including the identification of STTA as needed.
• Organize and facilitate training of trainers (TOTs) for IP staff on evidence-based parenting curricula that have been contextually adapted and ready for scale-up.
• Identify and appropriately adapt evidence-based curricula and guides for training in youth-serving approaches with tools for applying these approaches with a focus on adolescent girls and ALHIV.
• Collaborate with 4Children Nigeria technical staff to include parenting-related benchmarks into IP and State sustainability plans and household case plans; ensure appropriate benchmarks are identified to monitor household progress.
• Collaborate with other 4Children Nigeria technical staff to identify opportunities to integrate youth-serving approaches into existing programming with a focus on adolescent girls.
• Co-facilitate with relevant 4Children Nigeria technical staff TOTs for IP staff for the integration of youth-serving approaches and principles of adolescent girl programming into ongoing activities.
• Synthesize best practices and develop guidelines and training programs in these areas, and support local IPs to incorporate robust prevention interventions into their programs.
• Ensure approaches are aligned with CRS policies.

Qualifications

• Master's Degree in Social Work, Social Sciences, Education or a closely related field.
• Five to six years professional field experience in youth and/or parenting programming in an HIV/OVC context.
• Familiarity with child development and its application in a programming context
• Familiarity with the development and use of youth-serving programming approaches, tools and strategies.
• Experience working with local partners and participatory methods for youth integration and promotion of positive parenting.
• Experience working in consortiums with both international and local NGO partners.
• Excellent written and oral communications skills in English
• Strong interpersonal, cross -cultural and training/mentoring skills
• Advanced computer literacy