Baseline Survey For Improving Health Worker Capacity Project In Nigeria

Save the Children is an active member of the Nigerian National HRH Forum, especially within the Technical Advisory Committee, which aims to harmonise all support on HRH across Nigeria. Through partnership with the Government, it has influenced policy change to strengthen HRH through training and more equitable distribution of skilled health workers to areas where they are most needed, and have been instrumental in the development of the Task-shifting and Task-sharing policy.

In order to breach the gap created by the shortage of Human Resources for Health in Nigeria, GSK’s is currently supporting Save the Children to improve access to lifesaving healthcare, by directly building the capacity of 5,000 frontline health workers in Lagos, Gombe and Kaduna states in Nigeria. The focus of this intervention will be on improving skills of health workers in these three states to positively impact maternal and child health outcomes. In addition, by supporting activities to influence policy change, GSK’s support will contribute towards an overall goal of improving the quality of health services and reducing maternal, newborn and child mortality in Lagos, Gombe and Kaduna states in Nigeria. Working with the government, the approach of this intervention will focus on addressing key HRH challenges in three broad areas:

· Facility level: Improving the quality of care provided to mothers and children by training frontline health workers on the Integrated Management of Childhood Illnesses (IMCI), Essential Care for every Newborn, and the delivery routine immunisation services.

· Community level: Improving access to basic Maternal, Newborn and Child Health (MNCH) services for communities, through training health workers to treat common childhood diseases, and to educate mothers on disease prevention and home care practices to ensure the early detection and treatment of common childhood illnesses within communities.

· State level:Advocate and support the government to establish effective HRH management systems, ensuring that issues, ranging from planning, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of HRH, in the target states are adequately addressed, as well as owned and managed by the state in the longer term.

OBJECTIVES OF THE BASELINE SURVEY:

1. To review in-service capacity building Strategy for health workers in the target states on IMCI, Essential New-born Care, Data management and Routine Immunization; its challenges and successes;
2. To assess the skills of health workers on IMCI, Essential New-born Care, Data management and Routine Immunization in the 3 target states;
3. To review Human Resources for Health pertaining to MNCH with focus on its availability, distribution, and gaps; and the status of task shifting and task sharing policy in the target states;
4. To conduct a stakeholder mapping of the health sector as it relates to MNCH services and immunization in the target states;
5. To assess the indicators to be captured in the course of project intervention with reference to the proportion of sick under-5 children correctly managed by trained healthcare workers.
6. To select LGA for program implementation using context /situational health indices and other available secondary data source documents in each LGA .

EXPECTED DELIVERABLES

· Research tools and methodologies for the study (Including capacity / skills assessment tool

· Not less than 40 page final report containing executive summary, introduction, methodology, key findings, discussions, recommendations and annex.

· 6-Page research brief

· Power Point presentations to Save the Children in Abuja.

Essential Requirements

· A lead expert in the field of maternal, new-born and child health research in Nigeria.

· Demonstrate competency in maternal, new-born and child health programming.

· Must have a good understanding of HRH Policies in Nigeria.

· A minimum of 10 years’ experience in conducting qualitative and quantitative surveys in Nigeria.

· Minimum qualification required: MBBS, MPH, M.Comm or advanced degree in biostatistics.

· A good analytical, communication and report-writing skills.

HOW TO APPLY:

All applicants should send a C.V., a list of reports or publications that are similar in nature, and a covering letter with a 500-word statement explaining their suitability for the task. In addition, candidates should send an electronic version of a relevant report written in English in which the candidate was a sole author.

Deadline for submissions is June 29th 2015.All communications relevant to this advert should be directed to: Nigeria.ProgramsVacancy@savethechildren.org

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