Research Fellow (or PhD Candidate) Jobs at Liverpool VCT, Care & Treatment (LVCT)

On Wednesday, March 20th, 2013
Liverpool VCT, Care & Treatment (LVCT) is an established Kenyan NGO that utilizes research to inform policy reform advocacy and strengthen HIV service delivery.  We optimize our impact on the HIV/AIDS response by building capacity of partners and pay special attention to vulnerable groups and populations with special needs. LVCT’s focus is on the scale-up of quality-assured HIV counseling, testing and care services.

The Community Strategy in Kenya was revised in 2005 as the vehicle to deliver the National Health Sector Strategic Plan and as a way to achieve the health pillar of “Vision 2030”. Although the community strategy has been in use in Kenya since 2005, there lacks clear quality assurance and reporting structures to make it fully functional to achieve desired results.

The Division of Community Health Services has developed a scheme of service for Community Health extension Workers (CHEWs) and redefined the roles of CHEWs and Community Health Workers (CHWs).
 
The implementation of the scheme of service needs to be informed by evidence to ensure its success.  It is anticipated that vertical programmes will use close-to-community (CTC) providers to deliver services including maternal and child health, HIV, TB and malaria.
This project is a component of a multi-country project titled “Reaching out and linking in (REACHOUT): Heath systems and close-to-community services”.  The aim of the REACHOUT project is to maximize the equity, effectiveness and efficiency of CTC services in rural areas and urban slums in six countries: Mozambique, Indonesia, Kenya, Malawi, Bangladesh and Ethiopia.

Project title: Strengthening the community health strategy in Kenya: home based counselling and testing.
HIV remains a major public health concern in Kenya.  Kenya wants to expand HIV services at community level to identify and ensure effective linkage between communities and health services and retention of clients in health care. There is need to develop human resource capacities, guidelines, standard operating procedures (SOPs), supervision mechanisms, quality indicators and tools to address this gap.

LVCT’S component of the REACHOUT project will focus on testing a comprehensive quality assurance approach, determining CHEWs impact on health care, data collection mechanism in order to promote expansion of close to community (CTC) providers and health care nationwide.

Project period:
 5 years

We therefore seek to fill the following vacant position for this project

Position: Research Fellow (or PhD Candidate) 

Ref: RF/RO/LVCT/03/2013
 
Reporting To: Research Manager
 
Location: LVCT HQ (Nairobi)

Job Purpose:

To lead the implementation of the REACHOUT project.

With technical support from the Principal Investigators, s/he will be responsible for the design, implementation, data analysis, reporting and dissemination of study results.

Duties and responsibilities:

  • Carry out a context analysis of the community strategy and HIV services in Kenya.
  • Develop and implement the study protocols.
  • Adapt the REACHOUT framework to the Kenyan context with a focus on improving home-based HIV testing and counselling.
  • Implement two improvement cycles focusing on a comprehensive approach to quality assurance for CTC services.
  • Carry out an intra-country comparison of CTC services in other REACHOUT countries.
  • Undertake data analysis and reporting
  • Prepare presentations and publications
  • Develop implementation and dissemination plans and ensure their utilisation
  • Work closely with the relevant LVCT programmes to provide guidance for implementation of community strategy
  • Build staff capacity in research and data analysis
Qualifications and qualities:
  • A Master’s degree in a relevant field with at least 3 years’ experience as a lead researcher.
  • Desire and willingness to undertake a PhD through this project
  • Demonstrable technical knowledge in the health systems research.
  • Experience in building partnerships across diverse groups and working with multidisciplinary teams.
  • Self-driven and able to work under pressure
  • Ability to engage with and provide technical assistance to policy makers and programme staff
  • Willingness to travel in–country and regionally.
Interested and qualified applicants are invited to submit their cover letter and CV (Max. 3pgs) along with contacts of three referees, salary history and expectations to recruitment@lvct.org so as to arrive NOT later than March 22, 2013 stating the position and job reference number on the subject line.

Human Resource and Administration Division,
Liverpool VCT, Care and Treatment,
P.O Box 19835, 00202

Nairobi, Kenya
Or email: recruitment@lvct.org
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