Home-Based Child Care Lead, EDCAN at PATH

PATH is seeking a Home-Based Child Care Project Manager to support the Global Home-Based Child Care Project.

About the Global Home-Based Child Care Project

Hundreds of millions of children are cared for in homes around the world every day and yet support for them and their carers is limited. This is a unique opportunity to make a difference to the lives of these children by creating a movement to support home-based care globally.

Home-based childcare (HBCC) is a form of non-parental childcare that takes place within the home of either the child or the provider, as opposed to a center.  While global data is scarce, anecdotal and other information indicates that HBCC represents one of the most popular forms of childcare globally.  In developing countries, very few employed women have access to organized childcare or nurseries (Lombardi and Sammen 2019).

Despite its prevalence and critical importance, HBCC is under supported, regulated, and financed. This initiative seeks to effectively scale enabling environments for HBCC by testing and scaling methods of building systems to support HBCC in three different contexts, establishing a global learning community to share learning tools and resources to support HBCC. Ultimately, we aim to strengthen HBCC systems in 100 communities in the next 10 years.

The first phase of the project will run for 18 months from January 2022 – July 2023 and will focus on:

• Convening and mobilizing all the stakeholders in the HBCC ecosystem in 3 key geographies that will receive “Spark Grants”
• Mapping the systems in these 3 key geographies, including understanding the key players and the levers for transitional change
• Beginning to develop and pilot solutions to challenges to scaling HBCC support systems in those 3 key geographies
• Establishing a learning community to exchange lessons, resources, and tools to advance HBCC systems globally

We are looking for a Home-Based Child Care Lead to provide the entrepreneurial energy and the expertise to help kick start this new project, forge strategic partnerships, develop the vision for Phase 2 of the project, and raise funding for Phase 2 of the project. Initial funding is secured, and the groundwork has been laid for a successful start to the project.

The HBCC Lead will lead the HBCC Task Force, hosted by the Early Childhood Development Action Network (ECDAN) and report to the Executive Director. The role will involve close collaboration with project partners Spring Impact, Nexial, home-based child care working groups in countries, funders and other stakeholders.

Specific duties:

Project management (5%)

• Facilitate the smooth implementation of the work plan across 3 Spark Grant sites and global learning community; manage timeline and activities to ensure that milestones are achieved in a timely manner
• Manage resource allocation and 5-year planning for technical projects on HBCC across core geographies

Partnership development (10%)

• Develop and sustain trust-based, reciprocal, and culturally responsive relationships with childcare partners, government agency leads and other stakeholders.
• Convene and mobilize stakeholders in Spark Grant sites to understand the home-based childcare system and work to address barriers to advance the scale up of enabling environments for home-based child care
• Identify strategic opportunities for partnership and facilitate collaboration towards shared goals
• Leverage the strengths of partners and explore opportunities to pilot and test solutions to shared challenges
• Be an active representative of the HBCC initiative and its work including through participating and presenting in global meetings

Technical assistance (25%)

• Offer evidence-based recommendations, guidance, and support, to partners in Spark Grant sites when requested and where appropriate drawing on experiences in other countries and in other fields e.g. public health and education
• Link partners to subject-matter experts as needed/ where relevant
• Facilitate the exchange of learning and promising practices across Spark Grant sites through the learning community
• Ensure technical quality across the project

Strategy development (30%)

• Strategically position home-based childcare globally in both the government and non-governmental level
• Develop a strategy and associated funding proposal for Phase 2 of the project to implement and scale-up, building on the strategy developed by Spring Impact and the blueprints for action created in Phase 1 of this project
• Identify and address barriers to project goals, working with partners to resolve them and ensure smooth implementation

Learning community facilitation (15%)

• Establish and facilitate a global learning community to advance our understanding of how to build systems that enable home-based childcare
• Coordinate the surfacing, documentation, analysis, and dissemination of lessons learned + resources developed during Phase 1

Fundraising and reporting to donors (15%)

• Track, analyze and report on ongoing programme activities using reporting templates required by donors
• Form and nurture strong relationships with funders with the aim of galvanizing investment of public and private resources for supportive ecosystems around home-based childcare

Required Experience

• Seven plus years leading projects in the non-profit sector.
• Advanced degree is related field.
• Experience of successful process and project design, management, delivery, and evaluation.
• Strong record of brokering, building, leading, and managing successful strategic partnerships.
• Strong interpersonal skills and experience working effectively in teams and cross-cultural settings.
• Ability to direct multiple long and short-term activities simultaneously with minimal supervision.
• Demonstrated success in working with local government and NGO stakeholders.
• Demonstrated understanding of the socio-cultural issues and nuances of working in communities and with vulnerable populations.
• Strong understanding of childcare for children aged 0-6, including knowledge of child safeguarding concerns, quality standards, processes for licensing. Understanding of global trends related to the future of work, care economies, informal economies and women’s economic empowerment strongly preferred.
• Demonstrated ability and affinity for delivering technical assistance in the global south
• Experience in leading the development of successful proposals for funding.
• Experience with establishing, motivating, and running learning communities or communities of practice.
• Experience in Kenya, Mozambique, South Africa, or India.
• Fluency in a second language (other than English), particularly Portuguese.
• Experience developing strategy, systems mapping and systems thinking.