Program Coordinator || Maternal and Child Health - Building Bridges || Bhi...

JOB DESCRIPTION: PROGRAM COORDINATOR
Building Bridges (BB)
Maternal and Child Health (MCH) – Bhiwandi

ABOUT SNEHA

A secular, Mumbai-based non-profit organization, SNEHA believes that investing in women's health is essential to building viable urban communities. SNEHA is 450+ people strong, innovative and progressive organization that works on health and nutrition in urban slum pockets with women and their families. SNEHA follows the life-cycle approach to health and nutrition, by intervening at critical junctures (adolescence, preconception, conception, pregnancy, postnatal, infancy and toddlerhood, family planning) to ensure improved health and nutritional outcomes for women and children living in some of Mumbai’s most vulnerable and deprived slums and in the Mumbai Metropolitan Region (MMR) as well.

SNEHA recognizes that, in order to improve urban health standards, our initiatives must target both care seekers and care providers. We work with communities residing in informal settlements to empower women and communities to be catalysts of change in their own right and collaborate with existing public health systems and health care providers to create sustainable improvements in urban health. We have currently 11 programs running across SNEHA which are Maternal and Child Health (MCH), Public System partnerships (PSP), Empowerment, Health and Sexuality of Adolescents (EHSAS), Prevention of Violence against Women and Children (PVWC) (e) SNEHA Centre, SNEHA Shakti, Healthy Cities Project (HCP), Palliative Care, Livelihood Generation, Central Operations, Research and Information Management.

ABOUT THE PROGRAM

Maternal and Child Health (MCH) – Building Bridges, is a focused Direct Community Intervention in 10,000 households in the three communities of Bhiwandi. The Maternal and Child Health (MNH) program of SNEHA has been working in Bhiwandi since 2016; directly working with in 10,000 Households (HHs) and indirectly working with the public health systems of BNMC spanning 12 intervention areas across 3 Health Posts and one state run – Indira Gandhi Memorial Hospital. The MCH program is committed to improve the health status of women and children in the most vulnerable urban slum areas. The program has been working with the most vulnerable communities to fill in imbalanced gaps in accessing health care services between population groups and promote health and well-being. The programme reaches out to married women in the reproductive age (MWRA) between the age of 15 to 49 years, covering women in the antenatal and postnatal stages, couples for family planning counselling and children in the 0-6 years’ age group for immunization, home based care of the low birth weight babies, nutrition, early and exclusive breast feeding and early identification and treatment for infectious disease. The MCH frontline workers conduct home visits to counsel pregnant women and mothers with infants, on antenatal and postnatal care, caring for new-born and immunization for children. They also organize community awareness activities like street plays, exhibitions and mass campaigns on topics like breastfeeding, complementary feeds, immunization and importance of handwashing. They also support the public health system during immunization camps, surveys for COVID- 19, training of volunteers and regular capacity building of government public health workers, sevikas of the Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS), Accredited Social Health Activists (ASHAs).


ABOUT THE PROGRAM ON PREVENTION OF VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN

SNEHA’s Program on Prevention of Violence against Women and Children (PVWC) aims to develop high-impact strategies for primary prevention, ensure survivors’ access to protection and justice, empower women to claim their rights, mobilize communities around ‘zero tolerance for violence’, and respond to the needs and rights of excluded and neglected groups. The Program prioritizes enhanced co-ordination of the state response to crimes against women through a convergence approach that works with government and public systems to reinforce their roles in assuring basic social, civil and economic security.

Violence against Women in BB - MCH

Building Bridges - MCH is embarking on a new intervention of addressing violence against women by building an ecosystem of non-tolerance to violence against women – a socioecological approach with the involvement family and community members. This intervention will be implemented across the 10,000 households in the three major intervention areas alongside the Reproductive Maternal and Child Health Integrated model with a focus on identification of women survivors of violence and conducting prompt and appropriate referrals for services like counselling, crises intervention, legal aid etc.

This new initiative will work on two major pillars of intervention:

a. Primary prevention: The primary prevention component will entail community outreach, mass awareness, and workshops with women to enable them to talk about difficult issues in their lives, integrating gender socialization as a part of understanding the different facets of violence.

b. Comprehensive service-delivery: The service-delivery component will entail establishing referrals for counselling and other services for women undergoing any form of abuse or violence. The project seeks to interface with government and non- government organizations to build networks and referral mechanisms for addressing issues of abuse and violence against women.

THE PROFILE

The Program Coordinator (PC) will oversee the primary prevention and comprehensive service-delivery component of the project. The person will be responsible for coordinating activities between primary prevention and service- delivery components. He/she will maintain regular contact with project members to make sure that the systems are in place and the project runs smoothly and productively. Regular communication with other contributors for monitoring, documentation and evaluation input needs to be ensured. The program coordinator will ensure efficient and effective coordination between primary prevention and counselling and extended response.

The PC will have to divide time for overseeing field activities, overseeing counselling and extended response, along with administration and finance responsibilities and collaboration with the Finance, HR and Administration Managers. The incumbent also contributes to MBB- MCH level operations and development of the program’s vision and achievement of its goals. They will have communication and presentation skills, together with the ability to organize and motivate others. They will demonstrate flair, enthusiasm, innovation and leadership when faced with challenges in the communities and will provide immediate response to local occurrences. The Coordinator should possess an understanding of gender, violence against women, knowledge on counselling and mental health and an exposure to community mobilization activities.

The Coordinator will directly report to the Associate Program Director for day-to-day functioning and implementation of the work.

DUTIES & RESPONSIBILITIES: Overall efficient day-to-day coordination of violence against women at all project sites
• Execution of the violence against children by converting the project vision into a working strategy. Implement the plan for the project in the program sites in coordination with the community and counselling teams.
• Coordination with counselling, community and system teams to create convergence. Ensure that there is constant collaboration between the counselling and community teams, particularly with regard to cases and referrals.
• Regular monitoring of the project development for achieving milestones in time.
• Maintain documentation required in the project; preparation of tables and charts in Word, Excel and PowerPoint.
• Participation in and contribution to the other activities and events of the BB – MCH Program.

Primary Prevention

• Planning and ensuring execution of primary prevention activities with the community mobilization team to organize campaigns, group-based workshops with women and other support groups.
• Assisting community team in building a group of volunteers.
• Assisting the team in providing an expeditious response to cases of women and ensuring follow-up with the volunteers and the community team.
• Planning and implementation of trainings
• Responding and intervening in emergency cases reported through the project.
• Ensuring the confidentiality and anonymity of the beneficiaries in the project.
• Capacity-building of volunteers - designing an advanced programme and conducting sessions for the volunteers.
• Writing project reports, overseeing data entry and data quality entered by community teams

Counselling and extended response

• Overseeing the day-to-day functioning of the counselling center and coordinating crisis counselling activities such as immediate relief and support, and long-term intervention (extended response) and services to women undergoing abuse or violence. The role entails trouble-shooting, guiding and providing a quick response and support in crisis.
• Provide strategic direction to counsellors in involving parents and family members for counselling
• Monitor the follow-up of cases and ensure need-based outcomes are achieved
• Planning and implementation of trainings
• Writing project reports, overseeing data entry and data quality entered by counsellors

Finance, Human Resources, and Administration: The Coordinator oversees finance, human resources, and administrative functions, including:

• Preparing a monthly activity plan and budget.
• Manage project budget(s) and maintain accounts.
• Ensuring that voucher submission and accounting timelines are met by team members.
• Ensuring that staff members are trained for their roles as well as ensuring personal development.
• Supervise the team: train, mentor, and conduct appraisals of team members. Shared Responsibilities of all Senior Team Members In addition to the essential duties and responsibilities listed above, all team members are expected to contribute to the following shared responsibilities:
• Participate in team planning processes.
• Participate in programmatic and team review and evaluation processes.
• Contribute to organizational and strategic planning processes.


QUALIFICATIONS AND EXPERIENCE

Educational Qualification:

• Master’s Degree or higher in the relevant field (social work, public health, mental health from a recognized institution
• At least 5 years’ work experience in operational planning and implementation of project plans.
• Prior experience in developing and/or managing technology.
• Demonstrated ability to trouble-shoot technology related problems in the field.
• Experience in development projects (health, violence, gender) an advantage.
• Experience of working in a community setting is preferred.
• Effective training skills and excellent communication skills, including documentation.
• Well-versed in database management, data collection, MS Excel, Word, PowerPoint.
• Oral and written command of English and Hindi.

MANAGERIAL, LEADERSHIP COMPETENCIES

• Strong implementation skills and ensuring results within timelines and budgets.
• Effective team management.
• Effective delegation: setting clear expectations, tracking progress and communicating information people need on their jobs.
• Ability to collaborate with a variety of stakeholders in the field.
• Work according to the ethical standards of the project and the organization.

PERSONAL ATTRIBUTES

• Commitment to gender equality.
• Achievement mindset to accomplish project goals.
• Effective communication, personal, and interpersonal skills.
• Sound values and work ethics.
• Open to diversity and respect for everyone.

Applications to be sent via email to sejal.kandalgaonkar@snehamumbai.org with Subject line: “PROGRAM COORDINATOR - BUILDING BRIDGES”

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