Project Officer at Investing in Children and their Societies (ICS-SP)

About the Anticipated Project

The project aims to pilot the Parental Empowerment and Engagement guidelines in the context of ICS -SP whole school approach. The whole school approach was developed in consultation with schools, parents, children, KICD, MOE and stakeholders over the last 8 years, and involves empowering and building the capacity of the whole school system to have a shared vision of improving child protection and learning outcomes. The whole school approach addresses multiple barriers and brings together a number of complementary evidence based solutions that target and empower parents, teachers, students, school leadership, community, service providers and government ministries to work together towards improving student success in school and in life. In this project, and guided by the PEE guidelines, all these stakeholders will be provided with knowledge and practical guidance on what they can do to enhance and support parental involvement and engagement. Jointly their actions will contribute to safe and supportive home and school learning environments. The project sites are Kiambu, Machakos and Kisumu.

We are looking for applications from individuals with relevant experience and technical qualifications to join our team in delivering this project and contributing to the agenda of reducing violence in and around schools in Kenya.

Role Profile

Location: Kisumu/Nairobi (One in each site)

Reporting to: Project Coordinator, Project

Purpose of function

Under the mentorship and support from the Project coordinator, the Project Officer(s) for the project will be responsible for the day-to-day engagement of the different community and stakeholder cadres while overseeing locational level plans are successfully implemented, contributing to the overall success of sub-county level plans. 5000 parents and caregivers have improved knowledge and skills to nurture and support their children’s learning both at home and in school. This project seeks to ensure that:

1. Schools are knowledgeable, resourceful, have in place and use policies, practices and a variety of strategies that support and facilitate parental engagement in positively promoting children’s learning
2. Key service providers and communities understand the role of parents in promoting student learning and have the capacity and willingness to support schools with appropriate services, programmes and resources to improve parental engagement and learning
3. Children from 12 schools have access to resources and safe spaces where they can learn child rights and develop life skills that will enable them to achieve success in school and life
4. Evidence and best practices available to demonstrate benefits of parental engagement and the need to increase investments in national roll out of PEE guidelines

Objectives of this project will be:

1. To provide parents with opportunities to acquire necessary information, knowledge, and skills to support their children’s education at home and at school.
2. To build capacity of public primary schools to have in place policies, practices and structures that support parental engagement and collaboration and that yield higher levels of student academic success.
3. To mobilize and build capacity of service providers and communities to collaborate and provide schools with appropriate support and services that enhance parental engagement and student learning
4. To create safe spaces and platforms in public primary schools where children can continuously learn and practice their rights and life skills
5. To inspire and influence national roll out of the Parental Empowerment and Engagement Guidelines (PEE) through research and advocacy.

Roles and responsibilities

Project implementation

• Train parent facilitators to provide, skilful parenting training ,advisory services and referral support to parents
• Facilitate parent educators to implement and train parents on parenting skills, PEE and how to partner with school
• Community awareness and outreach on parenting and importance of parental involvement in education
• Facilitate partnerships with community organizations to provide support and resources for parent engagement
• Conduct annual case conferencing for families to share information about their children’s goals, strengths, and special talents
• Train school leadership and teachers on PEE and importance of parental engagement
• Train school leadership and teachers on how to create respectful, reciprocal relationships that support and empower parents and strategies that promote parental engagement and partnerships
• Promote standards for safe and protective learning environments
• Provide guidance that support parent/ teacher conferences and meetings

Project monitoring and reporting

• Prepare periodic reports, financial reports and records on project activities on a timely basis ,
• Monitor progress, ensures adherence and evaluates first line performance of the project
• Receive monthly reports from Field officers and community facilitators, review and refine before sharing with Programme officer
• Highlight areas of concern vis-à-vis the project performance indicators agreed upon
• Collate lessons learnt, success factors and facilitates dissemination as necessary, including providing content to the communication unit for the development of materials
• Periodically monitor and update beneficiary database of the projects and update in before finally sharing with Programme officer well as other interested departments
• Update project documentation on a timely basis

Networking and resource mobilization

• Maintain effective interface with government authorities MOE, DCS and TSC as well as broader network of stakeholders at implementation level
• Contribute to the development of proposals, project concepts and communication materials for visibility and fundraising
• Mobilize and organize school -community meetings and community service learning opportunities
• Build strong relationships between the school and community organizations to improve the school and parental engagement
• Represent the organization in meetings and networks at project level and as assigned

Human Resource Management

• Supervise field staff and community volunteers by articulating performance and behavioral expectations, displaying model behaviour, maintaining open lines of communication and being clear about roles and relationships
• Organize meetings on regular basis with designated field staff and community facilitators to foster positive relationships
• Support field staff and community facilitators in formulating performance objectives and indicators and conducts performance reviews
• Support development of field staff and facilitators by initiating mentorship and coaching processes
• Coordinate recruitment of community volunteers
• Proactively identifies and resolves field staff and community facilitator conflicts and concerns

Financial Management

• Scrutinize funds requests by field staff and community facilitators and approves or recommends them as appropriate
• Ensure proper accountability of fund requests by self and other field staff

Requirements

• At least 3 years proven project implementation experience
• Extensive understanding of child, family, community engagement approaches development and programming trends.
• Strong project administration experience
• Sound understanding of community engagement and facilitation approaches
• Implementation knowledge of child development and child wellbeing programmes
• Strong interpersonal, communication, facilitation and presentation skills
• Basic degree in social sciences /development studies/ community development or related disciplines.

Qualifications, Skills and Experience

• Degree in Social Sciences or its equivalent.
• Minimum of 3 years of work experience in project implementation position in a relevant project targeting children and families and communities to care for children.
• Experience working with vulnerable children, teachers and their families.
• Practical experience working in collaboration with the Department of Children Services, Ministry of education Department of gender and social services.
• Experience with lifeskills training in schools
• Good writing skills, including case studies.
• Experience in activity budgeting and expenditure tracking.
• Excellent community mobilization skills.