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

OVERALL RESPONSIBILITIES

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 ACCOUNTABILITY

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

• 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: MSH Kenya Country Representative