Consultant - Strengthening New-born at Save the Children Nigeria

Save the Children is the leading independent organization for children in need, with programs in over 120 countries, including the United States. We aim to inspire breakthroughs in the way the world treats children, and to achieve immediate and lasting change in their lives by improving their health, education and economic opportunities. In times of acute crisis, we mobilize rapid assistance to help children recover from the effects of war, conflict and natural disasters. Each year, we and our partners reach millions of children in communities around the world.

We are recruiting to fill the position below:

Job Title: Consultant - Strengthening New-born Care Project

Location: Igabi LGA, Kaduna

Project Background, Objectives and Description
Since February 2016, Save the Children with funding from Johnson and Johnson (J&J) has been implementing a Strengthening New-born Care project (hereafter referred to as the project) in Igabi LGA, Kaduna state. The project aims to contribute to the vision of the National 100K Babies Initiative in reducing neonatal mortality in Kaduna by 2018. The objectives of the project are as follows:

• Advocate for the adoption of National Policies containing newborn health interventions at the State level and strengthen planning, resource utilization and mobilization for newborn health implementation in at least 1 LGA in Kaduna State by 2018.
• Improve delivery of quality newborn health care services in one Local Government Area (LGA) in Kaduna state by 2018.
• Strengthen referral linkages for newborns between PHCs and higher level facilities in one LGA in Kaduna state by 2018.

Status and Description of the SNBC Project

• The project is supporting thirty four health facilities (32 PHCs and 2 Hospitals). Newborn corners were established in each of these facilities, while Kangaroo Mother Care (KMC) corners were established in two (2) secondary health facilities. Additionally, the project equipped each of the facilities with various newborn supplies including mucous extractors, hand washing materials, resuscitation tables, Ambu bags, and face masks (newborn sizes).
• A total of 176 health workers have been trained on ENCC and mENCC in Igabi LGA (Doctors - 5, Midwives - 45, and CHEWs - 126) using nationally approved training manuals/guidelines. Also, the project supported the establishment a pool of twenty five (25) trainers for Kaduna state. Thirty four (34) facility in charges and eighteen (18) record officers were trained on health management information system (HMIS).
• The project established peer to peer mentoring on essential newborn care to sustain the knowledge and skills providers have acquired, and data-based quality improvement processes at the health facilities to improve newborn health service delivery.
• At the state level, the project contributed to several initiatives including revision of Kaduna state 2017 Essential Medicine List (EML) and child health policy and treatment guidelines in line with National recommendations. In addition, the project participated in the review of both Kaduna SMOH and SPHCDA annual operational plans and Kaduna State Strategic Health Development Plan (2017-2021). Finally, the project contributed to the development of the Nigeria Every Newborn Action Plan (NiENAP).

Scope of the End line Assessment

• To assess the project performance, an end-line health facility assessment of the project will be carried out to compare project achievement against the baseline findings and identify lessons learnt. The consultant will collect data through interviews of facility in-charges or the most senior staff member on duty. Also, he/she will review facility data records in all 34 health facilities. The original 22 program health facilities will be assessed through the use of a modified comprehensive version of the baseline health facility assessment tool, whereas an abridged tool will be used to assess the 12 most recent health facilities. Activities in the 12 new health facilities were initiated in the third year of project, and interventions have been in place for only 2-3 months at the time of the end line assessment.
• The end line health facility data will be compared to the baseline data based mainly on information from the original 22 original facilities to provide a comprehensive assessment of the project’s achievement. In recognition of the limited time of implementation in the 12 new facilities, before and after comparison will be restricted. A few additional questions will be included to the endline assessment tool to gather in-depth information on improvement of quality of care for newborn health services in the targeted facilities.
• The objectives of the assessment are to:
  • Assess the effectiveness of the project in improving the skills and knowledge of health workers delivering newborn care services in Igabi LGA.
  • Assess the contribution of the project in strengthening newborn care at the state level.
  • Assess the facilities’ readiness to provide quality newborn care services in Igabi LGA including improvement in facility systems such as capacity building for health workers, availability of relevant commodities, equipment and infrastructure, quality improvement processes, and use of data use for decision-making.

Specifically, the end-line assessment will seek to determine:

• If there have been significant improvements in the availability and provision of essential newborn care services in supported facilities
• If service providers in these facilities have the knowledge and skills needed for delivery of quality newborn care services
• Is there an increased use of newborn data for decision-making at health facilities and LGA levels
• The key enabling and inhibiting factors in improving newborn health services in the supported facilities
• If there are ongoing peer-to-peer mentorship at the facilities? What has worked well? What were the challenges and how were they resolved? The sustainability of this process beyond the life of the project
• The QI processes in place at the health facilities? Challenges associated with these and how these have been addressed. Likelihood of continuity beyond life of the project
• The availability and utilization of WASH equipment including handwashing corners and high level disinfection.

Tasks
The consultant will deliver high-quality data according to expectations and within a timeframe agreed with Save the Children. The selected consultant will work closely with the project technical leads. He/she will be supervised by the project M&E officer during all phases of the evaluation. The consultant will be required to collect the data electronically using a selected android device that will be provided by SCI. he/she will be expected to complete the tasks listed below:

• Review relevant project documents provided by the project staff including project description, baseline report, Routine project data collection tools, training materials, etc.
• Review and provide input to the end-line health facility assessment tools and associated dummy tables that will be provided by the project team
• Work with the project technical staff to develop and submit a study protocol to the Kaduna State Health Research Ethics Committee (HREC) for ethics board approval, and respond to any questions that the board might have.
• The protocol will include the timeline for completing the key tasks for the assessment ending with the submission of a final assessment report
• Recruit, train and supervise a limited number (1-4) of enumerators to conduct the data collection.
• Responsible for data entry and cleaning and analysis using an appropriate statistical database - SPSS, STATA or Excel to be agreed upon with the project staff
• Ensure safe handling, confidentiality and security of all data in both hard and soft formats.
• Enforce strict anonymity of data, to protect study respondents and comply with ethical standards.
• Develop and share a draft assessment report using the agreed upon table of contents and report format, for review and feedback by project staff
• Finalize by addressing feedback from project staff, and submit the assessment report to SCI
• Transmit full data sets to SCI. Daily field report during data collection detailing area covered, problems encountered and proposed solutions, and including summary statistics of entered data.

Consultant Requirements
Interested consultants are expected to send in a detailed proposal that clearly articulates the following:

• Consultant’s profile(s) and capacities
• Statement of experience
• Work-plan and delivery timelines

Deliverables

• Study Protocol, following local IRB format, and with the necessary approvals obtained before assessment is initiated
• Study database (SPSS/STATA and/or Excel) with full set of data cleaned, with variables clearly labeled.
• Finalized study tools (modified from baseline assessment for 22 health facilities and an abridged version for 12 health facilities).
• Draft and final health facility assessment report, including information on changes seen from baseline to endline assessments.
• A final report to be submitted the project team.

All work must be completed by the end of October, 2018.

Minimum Qualifications

• Eligibility to perform the aforementioned work in Nigeria.
• At least 5 years’ experience in areas of public health, MNCH, health/social science
• At least 5 years’ experience implementing surveys to collect individual, household, community and stakeholder level data.
• Strong capacity and experience in planning and organizing survey field work
• Good network of experience enumerators, supervisors, and data entry clerks and ability to mobilize and retain them.
• Proven experience with data quality assurance mechanisms (field work management, data entry programming, etc.).
• Strong knowledge of data collection using mobile application and analysis software such as SPSS, STATA or Excel.
• Familiarity/experience with both field and central-based data entry methods desired.
• Ability to communicate in English and Hausa (desired) for quality data collection.
• Familiarity with the health sector in Nigeria desired.

Application Closing Date
30th August, 2018.

How to Apply
Interested and qualified candidates should:
Click here to apply online

Candidates are expected to submit

• A full Curriculum Vitae
• A cover letter highlighting: thematic experience, experience working in the Nigerian context, experience in this sector and ability to conduct this work
• Three samples of similar pieces of work – evaluations etc. (ideally individual authorship)
• A brief (not more than 5 pages) summary of how you would carry out this piece of work, including methods and approaches that would be used and sub-research questions on which you would focus as well as a timeline
• A detailed budget for carrying out this piece of work, including consultant’s fees, air travel (if applicable), logistical costs, research assistants/enumerators’ fees, software fees, VAT, other costs etc.