Program Officer – Social Protection at The Center for International Health, Education and Biosecurity (CIHEB)

OVERVIEW OF POSITION:

The Social Protection Officer will implement strategies that build resilience of Adolescent Girls and Young Women (AGYW) by equipping them with economic skills and opportunities that ultimately reduce HIV risk behaviours, HIV transmission, and sexual gender-based violence. These include gender-specific training on financial literacy, job readiness skills, entrepreneurial skills, and linkage to opportunities in the communities for social and economic empowerment. The Officer will equally take the lead in the identification of AGYWs for education support while ensuring retention and monitoring of outcomes.

TECHNICAL RESPONSIBILITIES:

• Lead the development of social protection strategies to guide and structure the provision of interventions across the CIHEB Kenya supported wards.
• Supervise and provide overall technical assistance through training, mentorship, and support to ward-level site staff focusing on Social Protection guidelines, SOPs, strategies, COP priorities component, and DREAMS package of evidence-based interventions.
• Leverage on public-private partnerships to expand Social Protection opportunities for AGYW towards 100% achievement of social protection donor targets.
• Map and mobilize public-private sector partners for apprenticeship, job placement, business mentorship, and coaching among others for AGYW.
• Expand the capacity of FC and EP Facilitators to offer quality HIV prevention services and subsequently lead in beneficiary engagements in other ES pathways.
• Coordinate and support viable AGYW-led businesses with business start-up kits for sustainability and self-reliance. Manage the application processes, verifications, disbursement, and monitoring of the start-up projects post-support.
• Ensure compliance with SOP, timely disbursement, and equitable access to education subsidy by guiding staff and working closely with the community advisory team to prioritize vulnerable AGYW for education subsidy and comprehensive economic support.
• Disseminate LMA results and align findings to inform ES implementation, support project staff to identify and link AGYW to quality learning institutions as appropriate e.g. those registered with TVETS and other examining bodies.
• Coordinate with the TVET institutions and support the linkage of AGYW for internships and gainful employment post-training and follow-ups.
• Support routine documentation, monitoring of social protection components, and evaluation data of supported activities by the program and make recommendations for program Improvement.
• Support the Pilot of DREAMS Innovation HUB (Start-Ups) for AGYW employment sustainability
• Oversee and spearhead the pilot of business coaching training and implementations by EP staff.
• Supervise, manage, and track ward-level activities and ensure adherence to guidelines, standard operating procedures, organization and donor standards, and policy.
• Oversee supervision of field staff, mentors, and change agents to ensure quality implementation of services to AGYW within the supported sites throughout the recruitment, onboarding, structuring, performance monitoring, and day-to-day management.
• Support ward staff generate monthly technical programmatic reports including documentation of lessons learned, best practices, challenges, and opportunities for programming.
• Mentor staff on CQI and ensure quality improvement teams (QIT) meetings are documented every month.
• Support periodic site level data quality assessments (DQA), SIMS and ensure proper documentation for quality delivery of interventions to AGYW.
• Support and organize integrated MoH and other stakeholders’ joint support supervision and service QA(SQA) activities every quarter. Write and disseminate reports and monitor centres’ positive adjustments to report findings.
• Represent the organization in various sub-county forums stakeholder forums, technical working groups, and other national programmatic events or forums.
• Coordinate maintenance of site-level equipment inventory records at designated sites including preparation of quarterly equipment maintenance reports.
• Work with site staff to rationalize the annual leave schedule to ensure undisrupted program coverage across the year.
• Analyse site-level programmatic data promptly, identifying programmatic gaps and challenges.
• Build the capacity of affiliated partner organizations and groups such as local school faculty, civil society organizations (CSO), community-based organizations (CBO), local government entities, and engaged lay workers on CSEA

REQUIRED QUALIFICATION:

• Bachelor’s degree in economics, Entrepreneurship, Developmental Sciences or a related field
• Demonstrated capacity in apprenticeship, business mentorship, and working with young people is an added advantage.
• At least 3 years’ experience coordinating and monitoring AGYW economic strengthening activities in preferably DREAMS program.
• Experiences in coordinating small, medium, and micro enterprises/Business start–up projects.
• Training in HIV prevention is an added advantage.
• Strong interpersonal and coordination skills.
• Demonstrated ability to work as a team leader and player.