Save the Children Job Consultants (Front-Line Health Workers)

We work together, with our partners, to inspire breakthroughs in the way the world treats children and to achieve immediate and lasting change in their lives.

We are recruiting to fill the position below:

Job Title: Consultant (On-the- Job Training of Selected Front-Line Health Workers)

Location: Gombe 

Background
Every year more than 10 million children die before they reach their fifth birthday, many during the first year of life. Half of these deaths are due to acute respiratory infections, diarrhoea, measles, malaria, malnutrition; or often to a combination of these conditions which are largely preventable and treatable conditions. Various factors bordering on socioeconomic determinants of health and have been proposed as possible underlying factors for this outcomes.

As part of efforts to address these challenges, Save the Children with funding from GSK is currently building the capacity of frontline health workers in the delivery of MNCH interventions. The project aligns with the National Strategic Health development plan (2010-2016), the Integrated Management of Maternal, Newborn and Child Health Strategy (IMNCH) 2013, and IMCI and ICCM guidelines and implementation strategies.

The IMCI guidelines which was developed by the World Health Organization (WHO) and the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) promotes prompt identification of childhood illnesses in the outpatient settings and provides appropriate treatment and referrals when necessary. The guideline also helps to improve the quality of care of sick children at the referral level by providing an effective link between the care provided at the community and the management approach in the facility and promotes the rational use of resources. Currently, the number of health workers trained on the IMCI guideline in Gombe State is low. This situation coupled with the deficit in human resources for health in the state and the high cost associated with traditional IMCI trainings (6 days training) increasing the pool of health workers with the requisite skills in IMCI at facility level is challenging.

To address this challenge, Save the Children has developed  an On-The-Job training and mentoring approach which aims to increase the number of health workers with knowledge and skills to manage common childhood illnesses at the PHC level, that involves multiple visits to health workers’ at their respective facilities for the purpose of building/strengthening their individual capacities in IMCI. 

Objectives

• To enhance the skills of selected frontline health workers from selected health facilities in Gombe state in tackling common childhood illness at the facility level using the IMCI guidelines; and  
• Using an on the job approach for the purpose of reinforcing learning and addressing skills gap of trained health workers.

Purpose of the Assignment

• The purpose of this consultancy is to build the capacity of the health workers in select health facilities that are underserved and hard to reach  with perceived ‘gaps’ in the provision of essential services to mothers and children in the treatment of common childhood illnesses. Based on the findings of a TNA that would be conducted by the consultant, the consultant(s) will conduct on-the-job training for the health workers using the National IMCI guidelines.

Specific Tasks

• Initial assessment of health workers ability to properly manage a child with childhood illnesses such as malaria, pneumonia and diarrhoea. This will be by onsite observation of health workers in the child welfare clinics using a skills checklist.
• After the clinic session, the consultant will review the skills checklist findings with the health workers and agree on the findings.
• The consultant would develop  a training plan based on this assessment which would detail the names of health workers to be trained, the dates of the visit and the training content for each visit.
• The consultant using the IMCI chart booklet, trains the health workers on how to appropriately assess, classify and treat a child presenting in the facility with malaria, diarrhoea and pneumonia. Also the health workers will be trained on how to counsel the caregivers on appropriate home management of the illnesses and when to return to the facility for follow-up.
• The consultant will pay four (4) visits to the same health facility to ensure the health workers have been fully trained and have the necessary skills required to properly manage a child presenting with malaria, pneumonia and diarrhoea; be able to check for malnutrition and initiate treatment and give vaccines that are due or missed.
• At the last visit, the checklist would be used to assess the health workers again to determine any knowledge and skills gain
• Consultant then leaves behind a chart booklet for the use of the health workers.
• Consultant will also conduct a follow up visit (within six weeks of completion of the training) to assess improvements in the knowledge and skills amongst the health workers in the selected facilities.
• During the follow up visits, the consultant will observe the health workers again using the skills checklist and provide feedback on the pre-training and post-training skills assessment results.
• Training reports are the end of the satisfactory training then developed by the consultants and shared with SCI office*.

*During the conduct of the OJT, Save the Children MNCH Advisors would visit the health facilities to apply a training quality checklist for the purpose of monitoring the quality of the training conducted.

Expected Output
By the end of the assignment the trained health workers will be able to: 

• Demonstrate how to effectively assess, classify and treat cases of common childhood illnesses
• Demonstrate to and educate mothers on disease prevention and homecare practices that promotes early detection and treatment of common childhood illnesses within communities.

The consultant will submit the following:

• Inception report detailing the facility visit plan, checklist that will be used and how the findings from the facility visits will be analyzed. 
• Monthly report of activities
• Final Consultancy report. Report should include timing of the training, venue, return demonstration, Names of participants at each training phase. Feedback from trainees; pictures taken during training sessions (at least 3 pictures for each training). Challenges/success during the training including recommendations for future trainings.

Click here to apply online