Family and Community Participation Officer (Eldoret) - Kenya Primary Literacy Programme at Education Development Center

Position Description

• The Eldoret Family and Community Participation Officer will provide technical assistance and training in their region to Youth led organizations conducting effective after-school remediation programs for primary school learners and engaging families in support to learner learning and well-being.
• The Family and Community Participation Officer will possess expertise in working with local youth organizations in support of children’s reading improvement and well-being, as well as in strategies to support family and caregiver engagement in reading and in identifying and addressing barriers to community and family level reading support. The successful candidate will possess strong technical skills as well as the ability to collaborate in a highly effective manner with technical and operational counterparts within the project team, with grantee organizations and community members, with MOE and local government counterpart agencies, and other education sector stakeholders.

This is a full-time position based in Kisumu, Kenya and relocation costs will not be provided. The position has day-to-day reporting to the Regional Education Advisor and technical reporting to the Family and Community Participation Advisor.

The Family and Community Participation Officer’s responsibilities will include, but are not limited to:

• Provide technical assistance to regional KPLP youth grantees in the development and implementation of effective, CBC-aligned after-school programs supporting learning remediation and learner well-being.
• Provide technical guidance to regional KPLP youth grantee organizations in effective engagement of family and caregivers for learner well-being and reading support.
• Support the implementation of child safeguarding procedures.
• Collaborate with technical team members in the development and review of the implementing instruments for data collection.
• Support the development of structured, simplified subset of games and activities based on the reading remediation approaches incorporating Social and Emotional Learning (SEL) and Universal Design in Learning (UDL and Universal Design in Assessment (UDA).
• Support prompt collection and submission of implementation data.
• Participate in the development and implementation of the collaboration, learning, and adapting (CLA) agenda, including in facilitating lessons learned and information sharing activities related to community and family engagement.
• Train youth organizations and youth facilitators in building school-home-community linkages (engaging schools and families, identifying learners for remediation and for screening, supporting reading at home, etc.)
• Provide monitoring and technical assistance to youth organizations implementing community based after school remediation
• Prepare data and information for project quarterly and annual reports, and other data as required.

Qualifications

The candidate for the position of Family and Community Participation Officer shall have at a minimum the following qualifications: 

Education:

• Bachelor’s degree in education, early grade reading, literacy and language instruction, community-based development, social work, or related field.

Skills and Experience:

• 5 to 6 years of progressively responsible and directly relevant experience.
• Experience in strengthening family engagement in reading and in providing related technical assistance.
• Experience in providing technical support and orientation to youth-led organizations.
• Experience in assessing youth organization capacity building needs and supporting implementation of capacity building plans.
• Demonstrated experience in support of strengthening the relationship between schools and families and caregivers.
• Experience with providing technical oversight and quality assurance to youth engagement in supporting children’s learning and wellbeing.
• Experience in development and implementation of policies and procedures to ensure safeguarding of learners.
• Demonstrated ability to collaboratively design and deliver training content related to parental and community engagement for reading support and primary grade language and literacy learning.
• Experience in coordinating with central and district-level education authorities.
• Knowledge of gender-responsive and inclusive education practices.
• Strong organizational skills.
• Capacity to work in difficult conditions and function well under pressure and hard deadlines.
• Ability to multitask.
• Experience in collaboratively delivering capacity building with community and education sector counterparts and stakeholders.

Language:

• Fluency in oral and written English and Kiswahili is required.