Child and Newborn Health Specialist at Management Sciences for Health (MSH)

Responsibilities for the Health Specialist Job:

• The Child and Newborn Health Specialist will oversee the strengthening of provider skills in newborn healthcare services by scaling up high impact interventions and reinforcing widely accepted standard care practices.
• With guidance from the Senior Advisor, s/he will also be responsible for guiding the scale-up of the use of ORS/zinc in the management of diarrhea in private facilities.
• To address inequities in immunization coverage, s/he will scale up the Reaching Every Community (REC) approach.
• Utilizing the national Harmonized Competency Based Training Curriculum for Obstetrics and Neonatal Care, the Senior Advisor will ensure appropriate care at various levels as well as a reinforced referral system through continuous trainings and training of trainers.

Specific Accountabilities:

Under the technical guidance of the Child and Newborn Health Senior Advisor, the Specialist will undertake the following activities:

• Utilizing distance learning approaches, conduct trainings to review standard newborn care practices such as early breastfeeding initiation and lactation counseling.
• Introduce high-impact practices such as kangaroo mother care for preterm/low birth weight babies, chlorhexidine cord care, and neonatal resuscitation (Helping Babies Breathe). Additional topics will include compassionate and respectful counseling as well as injectable antibiotics for sepsis treatment.
• Train and mentor healthcare workers at high-volume health facilities in an exchange program to ensure providers have practical supervised experience in a setting with sufficient caseload to ensure diversity and depth of experience.
• Train trainers for the staff of private clinics and pharmacies to provide ORS/ZINC as part of their provided services.
• Promote data review of the various mentoring and quality improvement approaches to ensure continuous provision and quality improvement.
• Using tailored plans and Community Champions, among other approaches, collaborate with county authorities to design and implement a quality assurance strategy and to implement the
• Reaching Every Community (REC) approach to address inequities in immunization coverage.
• Perform other duties as assigned.

Qualifications for the Health Specialist Job:

• Bachelor’s degree in public health or other related field and 4-6 years’ experience, a Master’s degree and 2-4 years’ experience, or a Doctorate and 0-2 years’ experience.
• Demonstrated experience implementing newborn and child healthcare interventions.
• Previous experience training healthcare workers in high volume settings.
• Strong written and oral presentation skills in English required. Working knowledge of local languages is recommended.
• Willingness to relocate to Baringo and to travel within Kenya required.

Reports To: Child and Newborn Health Senior Advisor

Background Information: Management Sciences for Health (MSH), a global health nonprofit organization, uses proven approaches developed over 40 years to help leaders, health managers, and communities in developing nations build stronger health systems for greater health impact.