The Ugandan Jobline

Job Title:    Senior Health Officer – SHARE  

Organisation: Right To Play (RTP)

Duty Station:  Kampala, Uganda

About US:

Right To Play (RTP) is a global organisation that protects, educates and empowers children to rise above adversity using play. By harnessing play, one of the most powerful and fundamental forces in a child’s life, we help 2.3 million children to stay in school and out of work, to prevent life-threatening diseases like HIV and malaria and to stay safe from exploitation and abuse.

About SHARE Program:

The Sexual Health and Reproductive Education (SHARE) program is a new program funded by Global Affairs Canada. SHARE will be implemented as a consortium led by Right To Play, in partnership with Water Aid, the Forum for African Women Educationalists (FAWE) and FHI 360. This program will operate in Ghana, Mozambique and Uganda, and will use a gender-transformative and rights-based approach to improve the reproductive health of adolescents, particularly girls and young women. SHARE is a five-year program that will work with girls and boys aged 10-24, both in and out of school, to empower them to demand better sexual and reproductive health care. The initiative will also work with Community Health Workers and Health Care Facilities to ensure their services are adolescent-friendly and gender-responsive, and engage community members in activities to increase support for adolescents and young people to access SRHR education and gender-responsive services. SHARE will work across multiple government partners, notably ministries of health, ministries of education and ministries of water, to ensure systematic approaches to service delivery and strengthening.

Job Summary:  The Senior Health Officer reports directly to the Program Manager where applicable and will be responsible for ensuring the technical quality of services, strategic leadership and oversight for the project in the Country. The Senior Health Officer works with consortium partners and community Based Organizations to provide technical support in relation to setting the project targets, works with the Project Manager and project officers to develop and execute the project action plans, and to monitor the implementation process of the work plans, for quality assurance. The incumbent will facilitate operational capacity building initiatives, technical capacity, and supports coordination with local government and other key partners in relation to promoting sexual and reproductive health for youth and young women. The Senior Health Officer directs and supervises consultants supporting the development of resources, toolkits, training materials and others.

The incumbent will work with the project’s partners and stakeholders to facilitate project activities and input into the overall project. The Senior Health Officer will be expected to serve a technical role, which includes regular travel to the project sites, with the Project Officer, to meet with partners to provide technical assistance and ensure the smooth continuity of the project activities. The incumbent will also be expected to initiate collaboration among key stakeholders and represent RTP at technical meetings.

Key Duties and Responsibilities:

Job Responsibility #1: Technical Leadership (50% of Time):

• Provide technical leadership to project teams to support quality program delivery
• Work closely with the line manager to strengthen and standardize program technical assistance frameworks to ensure alignment with government and global best standard practices on the project and maximize alignment across consortium partners.
• Collaborate with headquarters and all partners to ensure programming aligns with RTP’s mission and vision and that project best practices and lessons learned are shared
• Lead efforts to ensure that critical, high-quality project knowledge and information is identified, made available and accessible to project teams.
• Provide technical support to implementing partners to adapt and co-create school and community-based sexual education interventions, health service quality improvement efforts and community engagement strategies to address barriers to adolescents’ access to SRHR information and services and gender inequality.
• Collaborate with the Project Team and other specialists to track project deliverables ensuring they meet appropriate levels of quality and are on time and per the project plan.
• Lead RTP in donor policy influence and advocacy at the national and regional level
• Conduct regular monitoring visits to support project staff and implementing partners in delivering project outputs.

Job Responsibility #2: Stakeholder Engagement & Partnerships (20% of Time):

• Participate in Technical Working Groups, maintaining communication and feedback loops with the project manager on all substantive work regarding the project.
• Participate in stakeholder meetings related to sexual and reproductive health at the national and regional level
• Build collaborative relationships between sexual and reproductive health activities with the broader networks
• Look for synergies among consortium partners and push for effective interactions (partner meetings, national strategy sessions and workshops, county-level work, etc.)
• Provide clear communication and updates to the project manager, project staff, HQ, national and local governments, consortium partners and implementing partners

Job Responsibility #3: Monitoring, Evaluation, Research and Learning (15% of time):

• Provide inputs to the development of project technical reports as required by the donor, including documentation of successes, lessons learnt and challenges in implementation
• Manage or advise on selected research initiatives identified to test essential hypotheses related to health programs.
• Provide technical support to the project and MEL strategy development and implementation
• Contribute to core publications, articles, books, and panels to share research results and practice.
• Consolidate learning from the program to inform strategic direction, priorities, and learning.

Job Responsibility #4: Advocacy and Policy (10% of Time):

• Serve as Right To Play representative in national/regional meetings focusing on sexual and reproductive health, as needed, to develop and strengthen core partnerships and networks with key stakeholders in the health sector, including governments, networks, and multi-lateral institutions, to contribute to the health policy dialogue.
• Supports collective advocacy initiatives at the national level to advance key health positions and contribute to policy papers, standards, and tools in collaboration with national networks
• Facilitate other aspects of health programming at the national level based on needs. May include facilitating relationships, issue-specific problem solving, escalating questions to the national level, developing project management solutions to SRH program challenges, enabling stakeholder collaboration, coordination/ follow up of agreed action points, etc.

Job Responsibility #5: Other tasks as assigned (5% of Time)

Qualifications, Skills and Experience:

• The applicant must hold a University degree in public health, nursing or similar discipline.
• Five years of experience in programs related to sexual and reproductive health
• Experience with adolescent and gender equality and empowerment programming
• Demonstrated experience working with local partner organizations and managing relations with key stakeholders.
• Experience with programme planning models, project management, monitoring and evaluation systems
• Demonstrated experience providing capacity building and training at individual and organizational levels
• Experience working on Global Affairs Canada, UNICEF, UNFPA, WHO, and/or other international development projects
• Experience managing projects within constraints of schedule and budget
• Experience in technical tools and materials development.
• Experience in research and developing high-quality literature reviews and case studies.
• Familiarity with MOH, MOE, WHO and SRH education guidelines, policies, regulations, program priorities and key planning documents
• Languages: High level of proficiency in written and oral English.

Competencies/personal attributes:

• Consistently communicates a compelling vision that generates excitement, enthusiasm and commitment to the group’s mission, purpose and goals.
• Ability to Identify and pursue opportunities to build and strengthen partnerships and alliances that are mutually advantageous and support the strategic interests of Right To Play.
• Ability to apply culturally appropriate approaches to communicate and interact with the Right To Play team and diverse audiences.
• Ability to value and recognize individual and team contributions. Expresses positive expectations of staff and provides specific coaching and feedback.
• Ability to understand children’s rights, protection and broader safeguarding.
• Ability to critically and reflectively explore new knowledge, theory, perspective and practice to support evolving leadership in a health role.
• Ability to adapt, learn and change through self-awareness and management of emotions and ability to develop supportive and productive work relationships.
• Ability to assess (cost, risks, etc.) associated with changes to current processes, systems, services or operations; considers the broader implications to the organization, partners, donors, governments, etc.
• Ability to ensure approved change initiatives are implemented and sustained.
• Ability to manage key user/client expectations.
• Champions the culture of continuous improvement that institutionalizes learning, innovation, and achievement.

Knowledge/skills:

• Proficiency in use of Microsoft Office applications.
• Thorough public health knowledge of contemporary Project issues and community-based interventions
• Training and capacity building techniques
• Demonstrated strong understanding of healthcare systems in the country context.

Desired Qualifications (An Asset)

• Master’s degree or equivalent combination of education and professional experience Specialization in sexual and reproductive health, population studies, health policy, play-based learning
• Formal training in adolescent sexual and reproductive health, including clinical, public health, programmatic and demographic trends, is strongly preferred.
• Training/Professional Experience in Child Protection

Who you are: You are highly driven, results-oriented, collaborative and well-rounded leader with a passion for working with children and youth. You are an exceptional communicator with excellent networking skills.

How to Apply:

All candidates should apply online at the link below.

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