Family Strengthening Officer x2

JOB ADVERT

Family Strengthening Officer x2

Free State (Thabo Mofutsanyana District x1 and Lejweleputswa District x1)

Project Description:

ACHIEVE is a USAID-funded global project whose primary goal is to reach and sustain HIV epidemic control among pregnant and breastfeeding women, adolescents, infants, and children. To reach this goal, ACHIEVE supports orphans and vulnerable children (OVC) and DREAMS service delivery, provides technical assistance to strengthen social welfare systems and improve service quality and reach, and supports capacity development for local partners to sustain services at the community level. ACHIEVE is led by Pact, in partnership with Jhpiego, Palladium, No Means No Worldwide, and WI-HER. ACHIEVE also has a network of resource partners, that are engaged on an as needed basis for technical support.

Within South Africa, ACHIEVE continues to expand on USAID/PEPFAR investment. Current activities can effectively be categorized into four service streams: OVC comprehensive, OVC DREAMS Family Strengthening, DREAMS Intensive Economic Strengthening (IES) and above site technical assistance. This includes a heightened focus on direct services to OVCAY, including monitoring and evaluation (M&E) activities to effectively record and report on service outcomes. 

Position Description:

The Family Strengthening Program Officer is directly responsible to and supervised by the Senior Family Strengthening Manager. The Program officer is mainly responsible for the direct implementation of the family strengthening intervention in Free State province, including mobilization, recruitment and enrolment of adolescent girls and their caregivers. The program Officer will support and supervise Family Strengthening facilitators who facilitate the family strengthening sessions with adolescent girls. The Program officer is responsible for the training and refresher training of facilitators, provide mentorship support and provide leadership to ensure provision of the highest quality family strengthening interventions.

Minimum Key Responsibilities and duties:

1. Support and Supervise Family strengthening facilitators in their role as facilitators of the family strengthening activities.

2. Provide training of new facilitators, and refresher training for all previously trained facilitators.

3. Provide coaching, and mentoring to Facilitators facilitation skills, enrolment, retention and graduation of AG on the FS program. 

4. Assign schools and set targets for each facilitator, ensuring assignment contribute to the reach of annual targets. 

5. Proactively monitor completion progress and target reach, resolving issues/problems and initiating appropriate corrective action in relation to district specific work plans. 

6. Provide administrative support of facilitators tracking timesheets, monthly reports, travel requests, and trip reports. 

7. Produce weekly, monthly, semi- annual and annual progress updates to be used by the senior FS manager in the development of narrative programme performance reports as required. 

8. Facilitate regular program meetings and joint activities with MEL DSOs to ensure program cohesion and attainment of targets

9. Organise and conduct bi-weekly reviews (Program and MEL) to ensure that interventions are aligned with workplan, and ensure that all facilitators clearly understand their responsibilities towards meeting targets.

10. Trouble shoot programme problems, identify and implement creative solutions to ensure smooth programme implementation. 

11. Promote the programme through advocacy, presentations, and participation in district technical forums. 

12. Support facilitators to engage new schools and strengthen collaborative engagements with current schools.

Minimum Education and Experience Requirements

1. Bachelor’s degree in Social work, or any related field;

2. Minimum 5 years’ relevant work experience;

3. Previous experience working with or within the South African Government, preferably at DSD or similar agency; 

4. Proficiency in database management and data analysis;

5. Strong team player with the ability to navigate complex organisational structures and motivate people for programme participation; 

6. Ability to think strategically and critically, and to bring imagination to solving problems with substantial complexity and ambiguity;

7. Excellent interpersonal skills and emotional intelligence: a genuine team player with strong listening, negotiating, and persuasive skills;

8. Must be a South African national with fluency in English and preferably local indigenous South African languages; 

9. Excellent verbal and written communication skills in English.

10. Valid South African driver’s license.

11. Eligibility to work in South Africa.

12. Willingness to travel extensively across different provinces 

Only applicants possessing the prescribed minimum qualifications and experience are invited to submit their electronic CVs and application letters with a subject line “Family Strengthening Officer and District” to sarecruitment@pactworld.org

Closing Date:  16 September 2024

Pact reserves the right to verify all information provided by candidates including credit rating. Please note that correspondence will be limited to short listed candidates only and if you do not hear from us within 3 weeks after the closing date kindly accept that your application was unsuccessful.