New Job Openings at John Snow Incorporated (JSI)

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John Snow Incorporated (JSI), is a public health research and technical assistant firm dedicated to improving the health of individuals and communities throughout the world. It manages the USAID/DELIVER PROJECT and the Supply Chain Management System (SCMS) project in the Nigeria office. We are recruiting to fill the position below:     Job Title: Training and Development Specialist Location: Abuja Background The Maternal and Child Survival Program (MCSP) is a global U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) cooperative agreement to introduce and support high-impact health interventions in 25 priority countries, including Nigeria, with the ultimate goal of ending preventable maternal and child deaths (EPMCD) within a generation. MCSP engages governments, policy makers, private sector leaders, health care providers, civil society, faith-based organizations and communities in adopting and accelerating proven approaches to address the major causes of maternal, newborn and child mortality and improve the quality of health services from household to hospital. MCSP supports programming in maternal, newborn, and child health (MNCH), immunization, family planning and reproductive health, nutrition, health systems strengthening, water/sanitation/hygiene, malaria, prevention of mother-to-child transmission of HIV, and pediatric HIV care and treatment. Health systems strengthening, household and community mobilization, gender integration and eHealth are also cross-cutting themes and areas of the program’s work. In Nigeria, the MCSP MNCH program has been tasked with catalyzing central-level policy changes needed to accelerate declines in preventable childhood deaths. This includes ensuring increased access to treatment for childhood pneumonia, diarrhea, and malaria, especially at the community level. MCSP is also supporting states to improve access to high-quality preventive and curative MNCH services, including through the increased availability of essential commodities at both the facility and community levels. The MCSP’s program goal for child health is to increase access to quality treatment for childhood illness at both the community and facility levels, by improving the national policy environment for the scale-up of integrated Community Case Management (iCCM) and promoting state leadership and investments in child health. Consultancy Overview In spite of several Nigeria national policies such as the National Child Health Policy; National Malaria Policy; and Integrated Maternal, Newborn, and Child Health Strategy, over 700,000 under-five deaths were estimated to have occurred in 2015 in Nigeria. Most of these under-five die at home with no contact with formal health system. The adoption of the iCCM strategy provides timely treatment for common childhood illness at community level, especially for the most vulnerable children in hard-to-reach communities. Supporting iCCM helps ensure that sick children have access to life-saving promotive, preventive, and curative interventions at the community. At the state level, MCSP is currently supporting the SMOH in providing high quality child health services in 12 selected LGAs in Kogi and Ebonyi states through facility based integrated management of childhood illness (IMCI) and by implementing the iCCM intervention in 4 selected LGAs (2 per state) at the community level which will be achieved by working with relevant partners and stakeholders to strengthen the capacity of community resource persons such as patent proprietary medicines vendors to provide quality iCCM services. Acknowledging that the consistent availability of four pharmaceutical products (amoxicillin dispersible tablets, low osm. ORS/Zinc, ACTs and rapid diagnostic test kits) is crucial to the successful implementation of child health services at health facility and community levels; it becomes imperative that service providers and community resource persons are able to manage the inventory of these essential medicines so that they are available whenever a sick child needs them. Job aids will underscore relevant aspects of the training on inventory management and storage practices for easy reference and implementation. In addition to MCSP’s development of and inventory management Guide for Proprietary and Patent Medicine Vendors in 2017,many programs in Nigeria have developed detailed inventory management manuals including the now defunct SURE-P program (2013) and the National Malaria Control Program (2010). In addition, specific guidance for Central and Health Facility level management of RDTs was developed and published in 2009 by WHO and the USAID | DELIVER PROJECT. These and other more recent documents as available can serve as technical references for the development of job aids on inventory management and on storage of pharmaceuticals. Based on the above, MCSP Child Health requires the services of a training and development specialist with experience in developing content for public health supply chain related courses according to national guidelines. The consultant will develop user-friendly job aids on inventory management and storage best practices targeted to support health commodity managers at different levels, specifically patent medicines vendors, service providers and warehouse managers, designed to support their performance of basic logistics functions that relate to commodity security of essential medicines for childhood illnesses. Specific Tasks

• Task 1: Develop job aids as flip charts on Inventory Management for priority MNCH medicines. These Job aids should be tailored for use by service providers and patent medicines vendors
• Task 2: Develop job aids such as posters for best storage practices. These Job aids should be tailored for use by warehouse managers at state central medical stores and health facilities. Two sets of job aids may be required to reflect different priorities at these two distribution tiers.
• Task 3: Submit sample job aids on Inventory Management to MCSP CH team for review and approval
• Task 4: Submit sample job aids on Best Storage Practices to MCSP CH team for review and approval

Deliverable:

• Sample Job Aids on Inventory Management for iCCM and IMCI (flipchart) Sample Job Aids on Best Storage Practices (A2, thick card poster)

Qualifications& Experience

• S/he must be experienced in developing content for training on inventory management and storage best practices.
• Demonstrate excellent communication skills for a variety of target participants
• Must possess excellent presentation skills.
• The Training and Development Specialist should be currently active in supporting capacity building on supply chain functions for public health interventions.
• The Training and Development Specialist should be very familiar with training toolkits for Integrated Community Case Management and Integrated Management of Childhood Illnesses

Duration

• The total working days will include submission of sample job aids to MCSP’s child health team for review.
• Any extension in the number of work days or work period must have the explicit written approval of the Child Health Team Lead.
• As there is no travel associated with the ability to deliver on these tasks, MCSP will not cover the cost of transportation, accommodation and M&IE.
• An addendum on inventory management was designed as a component of the iCCM training for community resource persons, while the capacity of health facility staff was also built to enable them to manage essential medicines for childhood illnesses at service delivery points.
• The principles of inventory management remain the same but the job aids should take into account the difference in skill sets between service providers in health facilities and community resource persons and therefore be tailored to fit application to both users.
• The anticipated duration of this assignment shall be for a period of 15working days, covering the development and review of the job aids.

Expected Deliverable and Time-frame:

• The period of this assignment is expected to commence in June, 2018.
• The Training and Development Specialist will develop a detailed activity plan for the execution of this consultancy and submitted to the Activity Manager on this assignment for review and concurrence.
• Sample job aids should be submitted for final review by 29th June 2018.

Reporting

• The Activity Manager for this assignment is the Supply Chain Technical Advisor with oversight functions by the Child Health Team Lead, MCSP Abuja and Senior Technical Advisor on Supply Chain, Washington DC.
• All technical and administrative responsibilities related to this assignment should be brought to his/her attention.

Interested and qualified candidates should send their CV's and letter of motivation to: [email protected]  and [email protected]   Application Deadline 28th June, 2018.     Job Title: Consultant for the Development of National Child Health Advocacy Plan Location: Abuja Background The Maternal and Child Survival Program (MCSP) is a global U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) cooperative agreement to introduce and support high-impact health interventions in 25 priority countries, including Nigeria, with the ultimate goal of ending preventable maternal and child deaths (EPMCD) within a generation. MCSP engages governments, policymakers, private sector leaders, health care providers, civil society, faith-based organizations and communities in adopting and accelerating proven approaches to address the major causes of maternal, newborn and child mortality and improve the quality of health services from household to hospital. MCSP supports programming in maternal, newborn, and child health (MNCH), immunization, family planning and reproductive health, nutrition, health systems strengthening, water/sanitation/hygiene, malaria, prevention of mother-to-child transmission of HIV, and pediatric HIV care and treatment. Household and community mobilization, gender integration and eHealth are also cross-cutting themes and areas of the program’s work. In Nigeria, among other program objectives, the MCSP MNCH program has been tasked with catalyzing central-level policy changes needed to accelerate declines in preventable childhood deaths. The MCSP’s program goal for child health is to increase access to quality treatment for childhood illness at both the community and facility levels, by improving the national policy environment for the scale-up of integrated community case management (iCCM) and promoting state leadership and investments in child health. Consultancy Overview

• Currently, there is a dearth of national documents providing pathways to effective advocacy and demand creation for child health in Nigeria. There are obvious needs and challenges requiring strategic engagement with stakeholders and influencers for policy formulation, review, enforcement, investments as well as changes in behavior and practices. The Child Health Division of the Federal Ministry of Health; National Primary Health Care Development Agency along with other stakeholders have agreed that a National Advocacy and Demand Creation strategy for Child Health should be developed. The document when completed will serve as an advocacy and demand creation planning and implementation resource for all government and partner agencies implementing or planning child health interventions in Nigeria.
• MCSP will work closely with relevant government agencies and departments through the Government-led iCCM Advocacy Communication and Resource Mobilization Sub-Committee platform to develop an advocacy and demand creation strategy plan for child health interventions in Nigeria. The proposed document will cover child health thematic areas which include common childhood diseases and nutrition for under-fives. It is expected that the use of advocacy and demand creation strategy will help to strengthen an enabling environment that is supportive of improved child health and its outcomes
• Based on the above, MCSP solicits the services of an experienced Consultant to lead this strategy development effort. The Consultant must have relevant Advocacy and Behavior Change Communication experience and demonstrated expertise in development of related strategies and job aids. The consultant will work with ICCM Advocacy Communication and Resource Mobilization ACRM sub-committee while undertaking the under-listed tasks towards successful development of a national child health advocacy and demand creation plan.

Specific Tasks

• In consultation with MCSP and ACRM Sub-committee, the Consultant will: 1. Identify and review all available in-country advocacy communication and resource mobilization resources including the draft Integrated Community Case Management Communication and Demand Creation strategy
• Develop and review a result/logical framework for National Child Health advocacy plan.
• Build consensus and finalize a result/logical framework for National Child Health advocacy plan.
• Develop first draft of an integrated national advocacy plan as well as advocacy tools to support
• Plan and facilitate a Child Health stakeholder review of the developed first draft of the advocacy plan
• Revise draft advocacy plan and tools based on the inputs and contributions obtained from the stakeholder review
• Plan and facilitate a final review of the national advocacy plan and advocacy tools to secure consensus
• Finalize draft plan based on the inputs and contributions obtained from the final review including editing, formatting and sequencing.
• Produce and submit clean final National Child Health Advocacy plan

Expected Deliverables and Time Line:

• TOR posted and circulated widely (18th, June, 2018)
• Expression of interest/proposal submissions to include proposed content (24th, June, 2018)
• Review proposal and select finalist, contract signed (29th, June, 2018)
• Identify and review all available in country advocacy communication and resource mobilization resources including the draft Integrated Community Case Management Communication and Demand Creation strategy
• (3rd, July, 2018)
• Develop and review a result/logical framework for National Child Health advocacy plan (4th, July, 2018)
• Develop first draft of an integrated national advocacy plan, a result/logical framework and advocacy tools (20th, July, 2018)
• Plan and facilitate a stakeholder review of the developed first draft advocacy plan and advocacy tools Revise advocacy plan and advocacy tools based on the inputs and contributions obtained from the stakeholder review (26th, July, 2018)
• Plan and facilitate a final review of the advocacy plan and advocacy tools to secure consensus (9th, August,2018)
• Finalize draft advocacy plan and advocacy tools based on the inputs and contributions obtained from the final review including copy editing, formatting and sequencing (31st, August, 2018)
• Final report: Produce clean final draft of the advocacy plan and advocacy tools (Sept, 30th, 2018)

Please note that this is the expected timelines for the deliverables and NOT total number of days for each deliverable:

• MCSP requests that the consultant prepare a proposal with proposed number of days required for each deliverable, noting that the time taken for MCSP reviews and feedback should not be included as working days.

Qualification

• A Master's Degree in Behavior Change Communications, Social Science and related field
• Candidate must be an advocacy and communications experts with at least 8 years of sustained experience.
• Should be currently active in advocacy and communication and have proven competences and skills in developing advocacy and communication strategies and tools
• Should be very familiar with the all component of child health and integrated case management interventions
• Excellent knowledge of the Nigerian Health System at Federal, state, LGA and community levels
• Excellent facilitation, analytical and report writing skills

Duration:

• The anticipated duration for the overall consultancy shall be for a period of 25 working days as verified by the Activity Manager and Finance and Administration department at MCSP.
• MCSP will cover the costs associated with the review sessions.

Timeframe

• The period of this assignment shall be 25 days and expected to commence 1st July, 2018 and ends September 2018.
• The Consultant shall develop a detailed activity plan for the execution of this consultancy and submit to the Activity Manager of this assignment for review and concurrence.

Reporting:

• The consultant shall provide progress updates and reports to the National Child Health Technical Working Group.
• The Activity Manager for this assignment is the Advocacy Specialist with oversight function by the Child Health Team Lead, MCSP Abuja.
• All technical and administrative responsibilities related to this assignment should be brought to his/her attention.

Interested and qualified candidates should send their Applications to: [email protected] Applications should include:

• Proposal with a brief description of the intended process to comply with the deliverables included in the TOR
• Schedule of assignment and time frame for the deliverables
• A copy Curriculum Vitae

  Application Deadline 25th June, 2018.

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