Consultant – Community Health Worker Framework And Strategy

Requisition ID: req42506

Job Title: Consultant – Community Health Worker Framework and Strategy

Sector: Health

Employment Category: Consultant

Open to Expatriates: Yes

Location: IRC Global

Background

The International Rescue Committee (IRC) is one of the world’s leading humanitarian relief and development organizations. Founded in 1933 at the request of Albert Einstein, the IRC responds to the world’s worst humanitarian crises and helps people survive, recover and regain control over their lives. Working in more than 40 countries, the IRC is helping to restore hope and opportunity to millions of people. The health technical unit (HU) is organized in three sectors: Health (integrating general primary healthcare including sexual and reproductive health, child health, chronic care, mental health & Psycho-Social Support), environmental health and nutrition.

Community Health Workers (CHWs) represent a vital pillar of the global public health system, and core to the IRC Health Strategy allowing governments and NGOs to address the shortage of skilled health workers particularly in low-income contexts and remote settings with difficult access. With technical support and supervision from the skilled health workers from nearby health facilities community members can be supported to provide basic health services in their communities. The specifics of community health worker programs vary widely between and within cultural and political contexts and implementing organizations. The impact of COVID-19 pandemic on accessing already hard to reach population, and the increased use of new technology in health information dissemination imply further adaptations.

While the IRC has a robust history of supporting CHW programming in humanitarian contexts that include displaced and host communities, there is significant room for greater scale and impact by investing more in community-based approaches and standardizing our approach to community health. Efforts are underway to adapt and improve CHW programs from task shifting (iCCM, NCD and MHPSS care in the community, community-based FP, community based maternal and newborn care), low-literacy job aids to the digitization of CHW training and supervision, to the development of data models to predict optimal program design.

Preliminary work has been done to map out how different sub-sectors within health (including EH, SRH, nutrition, NCDs, MPHSS) are supporting CHWs and working through them. Further work is needed to enable a better understanding of the typology of CHWs IRC works with in all countries where IRC works vis a vis the internationally accepted definition of a CHW based on the tasks they perform. There is a need to have a shared definition of CHWs for IRC health programs. This work will culminate in a holistic vision that articulates the IRC’s overarching CHW strategy. This will include development of core competencies for CHWs including standards for selection, training, supervision, monitoring activities and strategies for motivating CHWs and community engagement in community health programs. This process will recognize the existence of functional MoH health policies or in the refugee settings where UNHCR guidelines and CHW strategies exist. Where MoH community health policies and strategies, IRC programming will work in alignment with them to support implementation and review the strategies as part of our quality improvement and systems strengthening work. The common definition of CHWs, core competencies, standards and strategy developed will primarily be targeted at all countries where IRC has health programs with possibilities of piloting products in humanitarian settings where systems are not in place.

A consultant will be engaged to design the IRC Community Health Worker (CHW) Framework and strategy that will include the holistic vision and articulate the overarching strategy to support all Community Health Programs implemented across all IRC countries irrespective of the phase of the crisis - acute emergency, protracted humanitarian and host community settings where the health systems may not be functional.

Scope of work

1. Review of consultancy TOR and development of an action plan with key dates for each deliverable.

2. Review of key documents and deliverables of the CHW working group and outline what additional information needs to be collected.

3. Review previous work done by IRC on developing a CHW strategy and see how it feeds into this work.

4. Highlight challenges and lessons learned from previous efforts trying to streamline CHW resources, evidence and systems at the IRC and/or in some of our larger CHW programs.

5. Review available digital tools being used in community health programs and recommend how digital interventions can support last mile delivery of integrated, community-level models such as iCCM, treatment of wasting, community-based maternal and newborn care (CBMNC), self-care, community-based chronic care, ensuring differentiation of the right tools by contexts, high/low income, digital coverage/literacy, and government policies/tools, and by type of community intervention.

6. Undertake scoping of CHWs cadres currently working in IRC health programs. Transcripts of Key Informant Interview that were conducted with Country Program will be reviewed, and addition KIIs will be conducted with Health Advisors and Technical Coordinators. Additional KIIs with selected organizations supporting CHW programs will be conducted to identify any useful approaches/resources that can be adapted. At the end of the scoping exercise, it is expected that:

a. A common definition of IRC CHWs will be developed.

b. IRC-supported CHWs and the different services they are offering across countries and health sub-sectors as well as externally supported CHWs by other NGOs implementing community health programs will be documented.

c. A collection of existing training materials (IRC branded and external) that are being used be in place.

d. Existing job aids, supervision checklists and data collection tools will be in place.

e. Strategies used for CHW selection/motivation/retention (if any) will be suggested.

f. Digital tools being used in community health programs across IRC Country programs will be documented.

g. A review any other ToRs and approached that are used by the different sub-sectors will be harmonized across the health sector

7. Conduct a workload analysis to assess the workload on CHWs supported by IRC and how it affects performance.

8. Develop a CHW framework and strategy, including an implementation plan for IRC. The consultant will remotely collaborate with a steering group of 3-5 people to review and approve the set deliverables.

Deliverables

1. Develop a framework document for IRC which will include common definition of CHWs for IRC, a set of core competencies, standards for selection, training, maximum acceptable workload and actions to deal with situations of excess work, supervision, monitoring of activities, motivation of CHWs.

2. Propose a functional management structure for a community health program that should broadly encompass the thematic areas of Leadership, Coordination, Service Delivery, Supply Chain Management and Human Resources for Community Health, Community based HIS systems.

3. Provide a standardized list of recommended tools, job aids and materials for use by CHW programs.

4. Provide recommended approaches and best practices for last mile delivery of integrated community-level models that increase both quality and scale.

5. Package all deliverables into one CHW strategy document with a roll out plan for IRC health programs.

All these documents should be organized in a shared drive for easy access.

Qualifications

IRC inputs

1. Agreed upon consultancy fee payment by deliverables.

2. Access to documents on preliminary work done on the CHW Framework.

3. Access to key IRC resource persons globally and at country level.

Key Working Relationships:

Position Reports to: Health Technical Advisor and will work with a steering group of 3-5 people responsible for reviewing, advising and approving the work of the consultant.

Job Qualifications:

Education: Master’s/post-graduate degree in public health, community health or other relevant field or equivalent combination of education and experience is required.

Work Experience: A minimum of 5 years of working in primary health care mainly community-based service delivery including a field experience implementing or providing technical assistance on community-based health programming preferably in fragile and conflict affected states.

Demonstrated Skills and Competencies:

• Applied field experience of community health programming in fragile and conflict affected countries
• Critical thinking and strategy mindset.
• Strong writing skills
• Demonstrated expertise in the designing similar framework documents or strategies.
• Team player with a track record of collaborating across multiple diverse teams.

Language Skills:

• Proficiency in either French, Spanish or Arabic desirable.
• Excellent verbal and written communication skills in English required.

The work is expected to be completed within 45 days over a period of 4 months.

#LI-REMOTE