Senior Project Officer – Case Management and Referral at Catholic Relief

Job Summary:

The Senior Project Officer – Case Management and Referral will work closely with and report to the Nawiri Case Management and Referral Program Manager (CRS) to ensure quality implementation of the Nawiri nutrition case management approach by providing county level technical guidance, monitoring and supervision of the implementation process, based on the CM standard operating procedures to ensure timely identification, quality assessment, case plan development, service provision or referral, monitoring, and case closure for targeted malnourished children in their respective wards. S/he will ensure appropriate linkages with and information sharing between the various stakeholders providing complementary services around and within the case management approach. The SPO will be responsible for providing technical guidance to strengthen bi-directional referral networks amongst and between other nutrition specific and nutrition sensitive interventions, and between the community and the health facility, for comprehensive and multisectoral interventions to reduce malnutrition. This will include identification of successful referral models within the county, providing capacity strengthening efforts to the supervisors and the case workers and ensuring quality implementation of the case management processes in all the wards, at the county level. The incumbent will also ensure that critical county level information and learning collected within the case management process is shared and used to inform IMAM care protocols and efforts at all levels.

Specific Responsibilities:

• Capacity building
  • Provide county leadership on the implementation of the case management process
  • Build capacity of the CM teams, Nawiri staff at county level, and other relevant stakeholders on the case management approach standard operating procedures (SOPs).
  • Support the roll out and dissemination of updated guidance, standard operating procedures, and other job-aids to facilitate case management and referral at the household and community levels to health and other multisectoral nutrition services.
  • Support the CHAs and the supervisors to identify and ensure effective bi-directional referral of malnourished children to and from the IMAM services and to other multisectoral services at the ward level.
  • Test, review and implement household achievement benchmarks in collaboration with the Nawiri activity leads, and other relevant stakeholders; ensure a mechanism for assessing and tracking benchmarks towards graduation is integrated into the case management system.
  • Coordinate technical working groups (TWGs) for case management and referral networks; solicit membership and support regular meetings and the development of products that support GOK Ministries, and other relevant stakeholders to improve case management and referrals.

• Supportive supervision and quality improvement
  • Responsible for all county level quality CM program implementation
  • Oversee quality improvement initiatives and learning exchanges related to case management and referral networks among GOK and other relevant stakeholders. Identify successful referral models within Kenya, developing and providing training in relevant guidance, delivery mechanisms, and promising practices.
  • Lead county level supportive supervision activities and monitoring field visits to provide mentoring and technical assistance to CM team for quality implementation of the CM processes.
  • Support the case management POs and the supervisors to lead the case conferencing sessions to manage complex cases
  • Support case management POs and supervisors to organize and lead review meetings to review progress of CM implementation
  • Attend CM training and participate in CM meetings

• County Government engagement and representation
  • Leverage the sustainability planning process to assess the existing case management processes and referral networks; ensure engagement of the county government teams and other relevant stakeholders, in planning, and implementation of all steps of the CM process, including eventual hand-over.
  • Lead the introduction of the Nawiri’s program to local government departments and lead engagements with the relevant departments to strengthen adherence to IMAM protocol and to ensure bi-directional referrals to relevant services
  • Represent Nawiri program in relevant meetings at county and Sub County including technical working groups and other events.

• Reporting
  • Provide timely inputs to Nawiri quarterly, annual planning, monitoring, reporting, and budgeting processes.
  • Prepare and submit a monthly report detailing progress of CM implementation including successes and challenges, general observations, and changes/adaptations to implementation
  • Document project results and impacts in various forms, including media stories, promising practices, lessons learned, case studies, client satisfaction, etc.
  • Lead the CM data collection and reporting on CommCare and other reporting channels.

• Safeguarding
  • Continuously sensitize program team and participants on safeguarding.
  • Ensure compliance with CRS’s safeguarding policies
  • Report any incident of safeguarding in program operations for appropriate action/follow up.

Core Competencies:

• Dedicated and hardworking; sets clear goals and manages toward them
• Highly self-motivated
• Easy to interact and engage with various community members
• Collaborates effectively with staff and stakeholders
• Confident and proactive in pursuing organization goals
• Manages financial resources with integrity
• Applies program quality standards to project design and organizational learning
• Demonstrated commitment to respect, equity, diversity and inclusion including gender equality.

Qualifications:

• University degree required, preferably in Nutrition, Public Health, Medicine, Nursing or social studies
• Minimum five years of professional experience 2 of which should be related to management of integrated management of acute malnutrition and/or nutrition or public health programs
• Expertise in the OVC case management system and referral, including CM implementation and monitoring and evaluation is a must.
• Experience implementing the IMAM protocols and/or multisectoral nutrition projects is an advantage
• Demonstrated ability to test and implement user-friendly guidance, tools and standard operating procedures for use at the health facility and community levels, and the ability to provide training, technical assistance and mentoring in their use.
• Experience working in both healthcare and community settings.
• Demonstrated ability to design and conduct trainings.
• Knowledge of GOK and USAID programming, process, guidance and frameworks is strongly preferred.
• Experience coordinating assessments, data collection and similar activities preferred.
• Capacity to work closely with, understand, and support diverse partners including but not limited to government actors, civil society, and faith-based organizations, as well as healthcare providers and other multisectoral nutrition service providers.
• Strong interpersonal skills and the ability to manage complex and sensitive organizational relationships, particularly between health facilities and community-based providers of social services.
• Strong analytical, negotiation and mentoring skills.
• Excellent written and oral communications skills in English.
• Proficiency in the use of Microsoft Office suite, including Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Outlook; familiarity with network analysis software a plus.