Social Behavior Change – SBC Advisor at Catholic Relief Services (CRS): (Deadline 13 March 2024)

Social Behavior Change – SBC Advisor at Catholic Relief Services (CRS): (Deadline 13 March 2024)

Job Title: Social Behavior Change – SBC Advisor

Department: Programming/INECD

Band: 9

Reports To: Deputy Chief of Party-Programming

Country/Location: Rwanda (Kigali) with Field Trips

About CRS 

Catholic Relief Services is the official international humanitarian agency of the Catholic community in the United States. CRS works to save, protect, and transform lives in need in more than 100 countries, without regard to race, religion or nationality. CRS’ relief and development work is accomplished through programs of emergency response, HIV, health, agriculture, education, microfinance and peacebuilding.

Job Summary:

The Inclusive Nutrition and Early Childhood Development (INECD) Activity promotes nurturing and responsive care practices, especially in the areas of health, functioning, nutrition, and early childhood development (ECD) for caregivers and children. Specifically, the activity aims to improve health and nutrition outcomes among women of reproductive age and adolescents and improve infant and young child feeding practices. It also aims to address child development gaps and significant unmet physical rehabilitation and assistive technology (rehab/AT), and social inclusion needs for infants and children. The activity will focus on community-level service delivery, community-health facility linkages and district level capacity development, as well as address issues of inclusion and participation, including access to programs and services for children and adults with disabilities, in line with Government of Rwanda priorities.

As SBC Advisor, you will provide technical advice, guidance, and support to a wide range of program design and implementation issues in line with Catholic Relief Services (CRS) program quality principles and standards, donor guidelines, and industry best practices to regional and Country Program (CP) teams to advance the delivery of high-quality programming to the poor and vulnerable. Your technical knowledge, advice and guidance will contribute to determining how effective, adaptive and innovative CRS’ SBC programming is across the globe.

You will work as part of a team on the INECD Program and ensure the integration of SBC in all technical areas of INECD. Your expertise in Social and Behavior Change or Behavioral Sciences will ensure the programming and implementation of high-quality SBC activities.

The SBC Advisor will technically advise/mentor a team of SBC officers and the SBC Advisor from the consortium (Three Stones International) and will ensure effective coordination of SBC component from the National level up to the community level. You will ensure the quality, timeliness, and efficiency of SBC outcomes. In collaboration with the MEAL team, you will document success stories, lessons learned from INECD approaches and best practices from program implementation areas and share with the technical team for informing evidence-based decision making and scale up of best practices and lessons. 

Roles and Key Responsibilities 

• Lead and support the implementation of SBC approaches and their integration into all program areas and regularly document progress and learnings for adoption, revision and scale up.
• Collaborate with partners and teams to employ a Social Behavior Change approach to overall INECD programming.
• Take the lead to update the existing national Social and Behavior Change Communication strategy for integrated early childhood development, Disability Inclusion, nutrition, and WASH (2025-2029) by analyzing existing evidence, formative research and baseline findings, experience from grassroot implementation and stakeholder consultation at different levels.
• Support and follow up on the SBC related studies including the formative research, barrier analysis and develop dissemination plans to translate the evidence and recommendations to inform program implementation and policy advocacy.
• Lead the documentation and dissemination of SBC best practices, lessons learned, success stories, updates, and photos/videos across the project stakeholders.
• Collaborate with MEAL team to establish a monitoring system to track SBC indicators, quality and targets, quality data reporting and ensure that lessons learned from project implementation inform programmatic decisions at all levels.
• Strengthen the capacity of program staff in designing and implementing high-quality SBC interventions based on SBC knowledge and skills such as Human Centered Design, Community Engagement and other Social and Behavior Change approaches.
• Provide oversight to the SBC component, including undertaking field visits to Implementing Partners to oversee implementation, provide on-site feedback and supportive supervision on required improvements, and generate field visit reports with timely and appropriate follow-up on action points.
• Liaise with a range of external stakeholders including MoH, RBC/RHCC and other development partners active in SBC programming, and members of HPSD&EH Technical Working Group to guide development and SBC agendas and areas of collaboration.
• Liaise with other CRS Country Program SBC interventions such as STRONG project to adopt positive health and nutrition behaviors among adolescent girls and young women through the conceptualization, co-design, development, and production of tailored and effective SBC content strategies. Provide leadership in developing, pretesting, monitoring SBC tools and resources.

Basic Qualifications

• Master’s degree in international development and program design, Health Behaviors, Public Health, Psychology, Sociology, Health Communication, or Marketing with an emphasis on ECD, Nutrition, or Disability Inclusion.
• Minimum of 7 years of relevant technical experience in SBC.
• Demonstrated experience in managing SBC portfolio in large scale SBC programs at a national level.
• Previous experience developing SBC strategy documents, social or commercial marketing and providing technical assistance and developing SBC approach of successful proposals for external donor funding.
• Experience and skills in networking and relations with national level government ministries and agencies, donors, peer organizations, and faith-based and civil society partners. Understanding of partnership principles.
• Experience in mentoring, coaching, facilitation, and training applying adult learning principles and practices.
• Experience with program monitoring and evaluation, including applying data collection tools and methodologies, data analysis, and data presentation.
• Proficient in MS Office packages (Excel, Word, PowerPoint), Web Conferencing Applications, information and budget management systems, knowledge-sharing networks
• Outstanding work ethic, self-motivated, and ability to set tasks and work independently to achieve goals and targets.

Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities 

• Excellent relationship management skills with ability to influence and get buy-in from people not under direct supervision and to work with individuals in diverse geographical and cultural settings.
• Strong strategic, analytical, problem-solving and systems thinking skills with capacity to see the big picture and ability to make sound judgment.
• Strong written and oral communication skills
• Strong presentation, facilitation, training, mentoring, and coaching skills
• Proactive, resourceful, and results-oriented 

Required Languages:

• Oral and written fluency in English and Kinyarwanda. French is a plus.

In-Country Travel Required (up to 40%) 

Key Working Relationships:

Supervisory: Dotted lines with the Sr SBC Officers and partner SBC advisor

Internal: 2DCOP, Technical Advisors, INECD and IP Coordinators, CP programming teams

External:  Relevant RBC and NCDA staff, HPSD&EH TWG member organizations, Districts leadership, INECD consortium and Implementing partner organizations.

Agency-wide Competencies (for all CRS Staff)

These are rooted in the mission, values, and guiding principles of CRS and used by each staff member to fulfill his or her responsibilities and achieve the desired results.

• Builds & Maintains Trust
• Collaborates with Others
• Open to Learn
• Leads Change
• Develops & Recognizes Others
• Strategic Mindset
• Personnel Accountability
• Acts with Integrity

CRS is an equal opportunities employer and strongly encourages applications from women and people of disability. CRS provides inclusive conditions for work and during the recruitment process.

How to apply

Interested and qualified candidates should complete the attached application form, Self -Declaration Clause and submit them together with one page Cover letter plus updated CV (maximum three pages) all in/as one document – via email only to: [email protected] not later than Wednesday March 13^th, 2024, at 5:00pm.

Please, include below statement in your cover letter: 

“By applying to this job, I understand and acknowledge that CRS requires its staff to treat all people with dignity and respect and to actively prevent harassment, abuse, exploitation, and human trafficking. Further, I understand that if I am a successful candidate, I will be subject to a comprehensive background check, and my personal/professional references will be asked to evaluate my behaviors related to the above safeguarding-related topics.” 

Also include your full names and title “SBC Advisor @ Band 9” in the subject line. Due to anticipated high interest in this post and the expected number of applicants, only short-listed candidates will be contacted.

Kigali February 29^th, 2024.

Hans Fly 

Country Representative