Adolescent & Youth Mobilization Officer 

Public Health, Social work
South South-East
August 4, 2022
Full Time
Application ends: August 17, 2022

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Job Description

 

 

Job Title Adolescent & Youth Mobilization Officer  Reporting to Service Marketing and Communications Manager
Location South South-East Direct Reports N/A
Marie Stopes Sierra Leone

 

Marie Stopes International (MSI) is a global social business providing personalized, high quality, affordable contraception and safe abortion services to women and girls. MSI has 13,000 team members working in 37 countries to deliver our mission: children by choice, not chance. Marie Stopes Sierra Leone (MSSL) is a founding member of the MSI Partnership, operating in Sierra Leone for 30 years and becoming the largest non-governmental provider of family planning (FP) and sexual & reproductive health (SRH) services in the country. MSSL delivers services in every district of Sierra Leone through its outreach, centres/clinics and social marketing channels. 

 

The Function
The MSSL Integrated Marketing team is responsible for creating a unified and seamless experience for clients to interact with the MSSL brand and services; blending all aspects of marketing communication including social marketing, service marketing, advertising, sales promotion, direct marketing, call centres, social media and advocacy. The team ensures that all forms of communication and messaging are carefully linked together across all service delivery and marketing channels. 

The team ensures that MSSL is continually driving towards program sustainability and increased uptake of FP and SRH services for adolescents, youth and adults. MSSL uses social marketing to ensure that people have an option to buy high-quality, affordable contraceptive products in the private sector. It also provides an opportunity to offer information and referrals to our other services for clients interested in switching to long-acting or permanent methods. Call centres will become increasing integral to all MSSL channels and where applicable, may offer telemedicine for SRH services in addition to building awareness of the full MSSL offering, helping to translate a client contact into a client service.

The team contributes to furthering MSI’s mission: Children by Choice not Chance by bringing modern business approaches to MSSL’s marketing strategy in order to move the organisation towards surplus generation, financial sustainability, high productivity and growth by bringing FP methods closer to the client.

The Role
The Adolescent & Youth Mobilization Officer position’s primary role will be providing technical support to address female and male adolescents and youth needs in Family Planning programming, including strengthening community mobilization, increasing the use of appropriate IT and social media to meet Family Planning needs of adolescents and youth, and ensuring that Family Planning training addresses adolescent and youth friendly services (AYFS) concept and criteria.  

The Adolescent & Youth Mobilization Officer will also be proactive in the support of a high-quality demand creation activities that will contribute to the implementation of the MSSL marketing strategy that increase client uptake for our products and services. Critical measures of success are improvement in the community mobilization techniques that will inform conversion on service uptake and client referrals for MA / PAC service support and referrals; 

The Adolescent & Youth Mobilization Officer will be managed by the Service Marketing Manager and will directly interface with the Community Based mobilizers. The position requires close integration with cross-functional teams, with the Outreach and Center Channels. 

Key Responsibilities

 

Technical Support and Stake holder Relations

  • Provide technical assistance in the planning, implementation, and monitoring of Adolescent/Youth activities on MSSL projects. 
  • Provide capacity building in Adolescent/Youth activities to MSSL staff and local partners 
  • Provide oversight and quality assurance regarding Adolescent/Youth strategies and materials (including supporting development and use of Adolescent & Youth Sexual Reproductive Health (AYSRH) quality standards) 
  • Participate in the development /update /adaption and/or reviews and/or dissemination of Adolescent/Youth materials and technical tools.
  • Coordinate and conduct a variety of trainings and assessments of Adolescent/Youth services.
  • Ensures research results and best practices related to Adolescent/Youth are documented, shared and incorporated into practice and into the projects
  • Supports AYSRH advocacy activities in country and identifies new opportunities for MSSL to develop innovative approaches in AYSRH programming
  • Provide technical assistance for conducting site assessments and strengthening referral systems, in-service and/or pre-service education, and supportive supervision 
  • Establish and maintain working relationships with counterparts in other agencies / consortium and MoHs
  • Participates in meetings/ workshops related to AYSRH, and disseminates technical updates, best practices, and lessons learned to all stakeholders.
  • Identify training needs for clinical and community healthcare providers and assist in the design and implementation of measures to address those needs
  • Work with M&E staff to design, implement a plan to track data/results related to adolescent/youth services to inform adjustments in project implementation

 

Demand Creation

  • Coordinate advocacy, demand generation, and policy support, across project sites as required 
  • Lead the formulation of innovative approaches for scale up of targeted adolescent/youth services
  • Work with health care providers, local authorities, community members and project team members to identify community-based service delivery issues that impede access to care and uptake of RH, long acting contraception and family planning services.
  • Identify and implement appropriate facility- and community-based strategies to address service delivery gaps
  • Document successes, lessons learned and challenges in implementation as well as reports on demand creation  activities including routine quarterly and annual reports and other reporting requirements as requested
  • Document and maintain an inventory of successful tools and approaches for Adolescent/Youth services
  • Establish and maintain relationships with the media and other networks

 

Community Based Mobilizer Supervision

  • Support the recruitment, selection, mentoring, coaching, training and management of community-based mobilizers that will further demand creation and increase service uptake within the community.
  • Support CBMs in developing and sharing monthly activity plans in consultation with the field teams 
  • Support all administrative issues of the CBMs that range from branding, identification and monthly payments etc
  • Routine monitoring and reporting of all CBM activities and their impact

 

Qualifications & Experience (essential/desirable)
  • Minimum of a degree in adolescents/youth services, social work, social communications, public health or a related field; 
  • Minimum of three (3) years’ relevant professional experience in INGO setting.
  • Proven expertise in effective adolescent/youth FP programming; knowledge of adolescent/youth physical, social and psychological development; knowledge of gender behaviours related to FP; 
  • Proven results in expanding use of FP services including developing community mobilization; successful use of FP Social Behavioral Change Communication (SBCC) particularly through IT and social media; demonstrated knowledge about gender and how it is linked with FP;
  • Experience achieving adolescent and youth behaviour change results through use of IT and social media; achieving increased community mobilization and stakeholder support for adolescent/youth FP services;
  • Demonstrated experience in management, coordination, teamwork, and planning skills, with proven ability to function effectively with multiple counterparts in the public, NGO and private for-profit sectors;
  • Experience training health care providers, outreach workers, or peer educators. 
  • Excellent interpersonal communication skills.
  • Computer literacy (Word) and email (Outlook) required.
  • Experience in managing volunteers an advantage
  • Strong organizational abilities that enable you to manage your workload, follow through on objectives and meet deadlines
  • Proven communications, presentation and negotiation skills. You must be able to “sell” the services that MSSL offers in a way that attracts support and report clearly and without prejudice on outcomes

 

 

Personal attributes
  • Strong commitment to the goals and vision of MSI and MSSL.
  • Strong supporter of the cause for contraception and a woman’s right to safe abortion. (Pro-choice.)
  • Highly self-aware and adapt style to suit the situation or audience. 
  • Flexible and friendly, Calm under pressure, Attention to detail.
  • Reliable and self-confident.
  • Willingness to develop own skills and knowledge in line with the needs of the role.
  • Interest in social media platforms.

 

MSI Behaviours and Values

Team Member Behaviours

Work as One MSI

  • You contribute, use, and share accurate data and evidence to improve understanding, insight and decision-making across MSI, enabling us to maximize our ability to influence others
  • You share relevant knowledge, expertise and resources to strengthen teamwork and prevent duplication of effort
  • You actively work as part of a team, providing support and flexibility to colleagues, demonstrating fairness, understanding and respect for all people and cultures.

Show courage, authenticity and integrity

  • You hold yourself accountable for the decisions you make and the behaviours you demonstrate
  • You are courageous in challenging others and taking appropriate managed risks.

Develop and grow

  • You seek feedback to enable greater self-awareness and provide the same to others in a way which inspires them to be even more effective
  • You manage your career development including keeping your knowledge and skills up to date.

Deliver excellence, always

  • You strive to consistently meet and exceed expectations, putting clients at the Centre of everything, and implement smarter, more efficient ways of performing your role
  • You build and maintain effective long-term working relationships with all stakeholders, and are a true MSI ambassador.

MSI Values
  • Mission driven: With unwavering commitment, we exist to empower women and men to have children by choice not chance
  • Client centered: We are passionate about our clients and dedicate our efforts to delivering agreed objectives to the highest possible quality
  • Accountable: We are accountable for our actions and take responsibility for everything we do to ensure long term sustainability and increased impact
  • Courageous: We recruit and nurture talented, passionate and brave people who have the courage to push boundaries, make tough decisions and challenge others in line with our mission.

 

HOW TO APPLY:

Send all Applications and CV to the Email Address Below. 

recruitment@mariestopes.org.sl

 

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