State Midwife Mentor at Palladium Group

Project Overview and Role

• The Maternal, Newborn and Child Health Programme (MNCH2) is a UKAid funded, five-year programme that provides technical assistance to improve access to and utilisation of quality health care for pregnant women, newborns and children in six northern Nigerian states - Jigawa, Kaduna, Kano, Zamfara, Katsina and Yobe.
• MNCH2 is managed by Palladium and a consortium of six Nigerian and international organizations.

Summary of the Role

• The post of State Midwife Mentor contributes to strengthening state capacity development systems by promoting increase in the number and availability of skilled health workers in the state, upgrading the skills of health workers (nurses, midwives, nurse aides, senior and junior chews, TBAs) in basic, comprehensive and emergency EMOC, designing and implementing coaching and mentoring programmes to improve skills and attitudes of service providers at all sites in the state and conducting integrated supportive supervisory at project sites, joint setting of targets for clinical service and systems improvements, conducting follow up visits to ensure implementation of activities aimed at promoting transfer of skills in integrated maternal and neo natal care, EMOC, PMTCT, routine immunization and IMCI to frontline health workers at project sites.

Responsibilities
Capacity Building, Coaching and Mentoring:

• Conduct skills, knowledge and capacity assessments of different categories of state health workers including nurses and midwives and share findings with stakeholders.
• Carry out mentoring activities for implementation of high impact Integrated Maternal New-born Child Health continuum of care interventions such as- Focused Antenatal Care (FANC); Skilled Birth Attendance (SBA); Emergency Obstetric and New-born Care (EmONC); Helping Babies Breath (HBB); Post Natal Care (PNC); Community Based New-born Care and Integrated Community Case Management (Iccm) for diarrhea, malaria and pneumonia.
• Upgrade the skills of health workers (nurses, midwives, nurse aides, senior and junior chews, TBAs) in basic, comprehensive and emergency EMOC. Utilize best practice in mentoring/supportive supervision to increase the capacity of service providers midwives and nurses at designated facilities to provide essential obstetric and newborn care to support normal labour and birth including presence of a companion, food and fluids, and use of desired positions for labour and birth
• Implement a system of coaching mentoring and supportive supervision to ensure prompt identification and management of pre-eclampsia and eclampsia, prevention and treatment of obstructed labour, postpartum haemorrhage and newborn asphyxia.
• Provide leadership at project sites and coordinate clinical activities for implementation of improved quality of care and critical points of continuum of care for mothers and babies.
• Carry out activities to improve quality in the recruitment of health workers and training including enrolment, duration, curriculum development and effective transfer of skills to service providers. Implement capacity building activities to ensure health workers acquire hands on competencies in EMOC and that transferred skills are internalized.
• Design and implement coaching and mentoring programmes to improve the skills and attitudes of service providers at all sites in the state. Work with state health ministry and facilities to improve access to and use of basic and comprehensive emergency obstetric and newborn care, helping to ensure that the neo natal births that develop complications are promptly identified and managed.
• Organize and coordinate implementation of quality improvement techniques/ approaches: monthly quality improvement meetings, conduct integrated supportive supervisory at project sites, agree targets for clinical service and systems improvements and conduct follow up visits to ensure implementation.
• Disseminate approve job aids, charts, standard operating procedures, logistics, equipment usage within facilities, organize on-the-job training for nurses, midwives and other categories of health workers in the state. Work with SMOH and training institutions in the state (e.g faith-based organizations etc) to provide pre-service training, in-service training and refresher courses.
• Work with local government training teams to roll out competency-based trainings in EMOC and related technical areas. Participate in all training activities for mater trainers and mentors (MTMs) and provide support for successful in large facilities sand clustered facilities.
• Implement mentoring schemes including peer-to-peer mentoring, exchange visits, development of job aides, charts and quality improvement committee meetings to upgrade skill sets of health workers.
• Develop pool of programme mentors in the state to boost skills development of service providers particularly in under-served and remote facilities. Participate in the provision of additional training to non-technical staff at sites including ward attendants, ancillary staff, nurse aides etc).
• Ensure improved quality of services and infection prevention practices that help reduce postpartum and newborn infections through provision of technical support and regular mentoring and supportive supervision schedules.
• Work with management of health facilities at state and PHCs to ensure efficient functioning of facilities in appointment /scheduling, maternity operations, drugs/essential commodities, equipments and patient servicing issues etc.
• Work closely with SMOH and state training institutions including private sector organizations e.g FBOs and provide support for pre-service trainings, in-service trainings and refresher courses for health workers.
• Work closely with state midwifery service scheme, community midwifery scheme, and national youth service corps, Sure P CCT and sister projects to increase the number and distribution of human resources for health.
• The state midwife mentor will deliver coaching and mentoring activities based on good knowledge of findings and data on maternal and neo natal health care (important reports include 2012 Saving One Million lives, 2013 ICCM of Child hood diseases in Nigeria, 2013 NDHS report for Nigeria, NDHS report for North Eastern zone as well as global reports relating to meeting 2015 MDG goal on maternal and child health, report of capacity assessments and supportive supervision reviews in state PHCs etc).

Planning, Budgeting and Coordination:

• Acquire good understanding of project implantation plan including logical framework, approved indicators for the project at activity, output and outcomes.
• Contribute to the development of annual workplans as well as state level monthly/quarterly implementation work plans for improvements in integrated MNCH services.
• Participate in the development of budget for activity implementation, management and monitoring of expenditures by partners and staff of facilities on all maternity and child health services.

Monitoring and Reporting of Results and Achievements (metrics):

• Design and implement a system of monitoring of project activities that ensures the achievement of project outputs and outcomes.
• Prepare and submit activity reports, monthly and quarterly reports to show progress in achievement of indicators in the project logical framework including output results.
• Support monitoring and evaluation of project activities as well as state M & E activities at state level and facilities.
• Participate in project review meetings including community level reviews, project monitoring, reporting and documentation.
• Participate in the collection, analysis and reporting of service data from sites and utilize same for improved decision making at facility and state MDA levels.
• Familiarize herself/himself with technical developments in maternal, newborn and child health and share with partners and stakeholders.
• Participate in operations research to evaluate effectiveness of approaches and interventions implemented to improve maternal, neonatal and child health- MNCH.

Social Mobilization and Advocacy Issues:

• Contribute to implementation of advocacy and social mobilization activities to policy makers, health planners, traditional rulers, gate keepers, religious leaders, CBOs, community level committees and community members- facility health committees and ward development committees.
• Promote the rights of women, children and most-at-risk-populations to quality service delivery within facilities and in the communities in the state.

Requirements
Qualifications:

• A Degree in Nursing and Midwifery with Master's Degree in Public Health (MPH) and at least 3 years post NYSC experience in maternal newborn and child health as well as RH/FP programming will be an added advantage.
• The candidate should reside in each of the project states and should have strong interpersonal communication skills, excellent written and spoken English Language and proficiency in the use of Computer applications in MS Office Suite applications, including Word, Excel, and PowerPoint and relevant web-based M & E softwares used to generate project reports.

Job Competencies
Core Competencies:

• Integrity, commitment to the organization and its mandate
• Cultural sensitivity/valuing diversity
• Performance Management/developing people
• Working in teams
• Communicating information and ideas
• Analytical and strategic thinking
• Result orientation/commitment to excellence
• Knowledge sharing/continuous learning

Functional Competencies:

• Facilitation, coaching and mentoring skills.
• Result-based programme development and management.
• Leveraging the resources of national government & partners/building relationships.
• Innovation and flexibility in adapting to resource constraints.
• Resource mobilization.
• Job knowledge/technical expertise.
• Good knowledge on maternal, neonatal and child health issues/priorities at community, local government, state and national levels.