Maternal Health/Family Planning Technical Specialist at Palladium International

The Following Are The Objectives

The overall goal of this project is to enhance the capacity of the local partners to increase demand and deliver high quality maternal and family planning services to the underserved populations in Narok County - Kenya, while ensuring sustainability of the environment in which they depend on.

• Improve availability of integrated maternal health and family planning information and services through integration with environment and while addressing gender barriers
• Increase awareness, demand and acceptance of maternal health and family planning services by addressing socio-cultural barriers including Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) and through integration with environment.
• Strengthen the community health and environment platforms, systems, and structures to support uptake of maternal health and family planning services
• Strengthen the capacity of the Narok County Health department to plan, finance and implement cross sectoral integrated health and environment programs/projects.

NPI EXPAND is looking for an individual consultant to provide technical expertise to the sub-grantees in maternal health and family planning (MH/FP). The consultant will work closely with the Gender Advisor to ensure that planned activities integrate gender.

The MH/FP Specialist is a health expert who has managed maternal health and family planning programs and integration of MH/FP with other health and development activities. The MH/FP technical specialist will work under the overall direction of the Country Team Lead, NPI EXPAND Kenya. This position will play a significant role in providing MH/FP technical standards, direction, guidance, and measurement related activities (FP/MH and maternal and perinatal death surveillance and response as well as capacity strengthening. They will be responsible for technical quality assurance of the MH/FP components of the project.

Primary Duties And Responsibilities

• Establish and implement a system to ensure technical quality of MH/FP project activities and ensure integration with interventions in other reproductive health activities.
• Provide mentoring and capacity strengthening at the individual and organizational levels to the sub-grantees on MH/FP and quality of care through rollout of FP standards and any other government quality documents/guidelines.
• Work with the subgrantees on innovative approaches for scale-up of targeted MH/FP services.
• Provide technical assistance in the rollout of Emergency Obstetric and Newborn Care (EmONC) and long-acting reversible contraception (LARC) mentorship approach in line with the national guidelines. Ensure that the process is completed, and the mentored health care workers (HCW) are certified as competent.
• Provide technical assistance in the rollout of maternal and perinatal death surveillance and response reporting guidelines from county to community levels, including verbal autopsies.
• Conduct dissemination of key policy documents in MH and FP to the subgrantees so that they can cascade the same to the sub-counties (i.e., gender, anti-female genital mutilation (FGM), child protection, menstrual hygiene management related to MH/FP.
• Support the different partners in reporting of family planning and related reproductive and maternal health services in accordance with national guidelines and standards.
• Provide technical assistance and coordinate the different partners to ensure that the Community Based Distributors are trained according to the recommended Government of Kenya Standards, are graduated, and are fully certified.
• Provide mentorship to the different partners to implement, monitor, and report on facility and community-based family planning and related maternal health services.
• Work with the partners to ensure that in all the sub-counties the Commodity Security Technical Working Groups are revitalized and active

Required Qualifications

• Advanced university degree in any of the following - public health, medicine, social sciences, or other related discipline. The degree must be directly related to the substantive area identified in the job description of the post.
• 7 years of relevant and increasingly responsible experience in managing reproductive health or health programs, of which at least 5 years of experience at the national and/or county and community advising on reproductive, maternal, and newborn health, family planning, and adolescent sexual and reproductive health.
• General knowledge of the principles and operational aspects of integrated MH/FP care.
• Experience in quality improvement in one or more of these areas: maternal, newborn and child health, immunization, family planning, and/or reproductive health.
• In-depth knowledge of government of Kenya family planning and maternal health standards.
• Experience in training and coaching facility and community-based health personnel on family planning and maternal health.
• Familiarity with USAID’s administrative, management, and compliance around family planning and maternal health.
• Ability to work independently and with team members and partners at all levels.
• Good communication and interpersonal skills.
• Professional experience strengthening the capacity of local organizations in Kenya and working with international partners.
• Fluency in written and spoken English and Kiswahili.
• Ability to travel within Narok county up to 60% of the duration of the assignment.

Eligibility Requirements

To be considered for this assignment, the applicants must meet the following minimum eligibility requirements:

• Must be a Kenyan national legally registered with government of Kenya and compliant with government tax laws; (Existing Tax Identification Number, copy of current tax compliance certificate).
• Should have the demonstrated experience to fully execute the proposed activities within the proposed timeline.
• Must have a legal bank account in operation (Provide correct bank account details).
• Must have experience of undertaking Family planning and Maternal Health assignments in Kenya.
• Previous work in Narok county or similar settings will be an added advantage.
• Must demonstrate ability to work with multiple stakeholders in executing similar assignments

EXPECTED OUTPUTS

Monthly Reports Detailing

• The number of service providers supported, mentorship activities, updates on training and recommend areas of improvement.
• Progress of training of Community Based Distributors.
• Updates on overall mentorship and technical support offered.
• Recommendations on areas of improvement to enable quality delivery of services.
• Progress on process for revitalizing the sub-county Commodity Security Technical Working Groups.