Head of Health Support

Our vision, our mission and our work are all defined by one goal ending extreme poverty, whatever it takes. We believe that no-one should have to live in fear that they won’t have a home to sleep in or enough food to feed their children. For over 50 years we have been working with the world’s poorest people towards this goal.

Today we are a team of over 4,400 highly skilled and dedicated professionals from 50 countries who share an exceptional depth and diversity of experience. We want committed, values driven staff to join our Dublin team and are currently looking for a Head of Health Support to be part of our strategy, advocacy and learning department.

We are committed to providing our staff with the skills needed to excel in their jobs. Concern offers in-house management and leadership courses and tailored organisation-wide learning opportunities both in-person and online. All employees are required to undertake training in equality, diversity and inclusion; the Code of Conduct; and safeguarding, along with any other training required for the role.

Our culture is values driven and friendly. A global engagement survey conducted in 2022, responded to by 3,577 of our staff, showed that 89% of our staff would happily recommend Concern as a great place to work and 94% are proud to tell people that they work for Concern.

Our office is in Dublin 2 and we are currently working a hybrid model (50% remote working) and offer flexi time. Overseas travel is part of this role.

The job:

To ensure the maximum effectiveness of Concerns global health programme, including MNCH, nutrition and WASH, by providing leadership, policy and strategic direction at HQ level and managing technical support, guidance and capacity building for Concern country-based technical and programme staff.

If you join us, this is what you will be doing:

1. Lead the development of policy, strategy and guidance to ensure a joined-up approach to health, to include maternal, child and newborn health (MNCH), WASH and nutrition and to embed any required HIV responses under the health portfolio.
2. Given Concerns strong reputation in nutrition, ensure that nutrition support is embedded in health system strengthening as much as is possible in fragile and conflict contexts.
3. Give the importance of nutrition-sensitive interventions in addressing chronic malnutrition, coordinate effectively across the key Concern technical assistance teams to ensure coherence on our nutrition work.
4. Ensure that Concern health policy, strategy and all guidance documents are tuned to best practice in protracted crises and fragile and conflict affected contexts where frontline health services receive poor support from central government and where health service delivery capacity is compromised.
5. Ensure that the movement to localisation is factored centrally into our support to local health services, balancing the challenges of health systems strengthening in fragile and conflict-affected contexts and protracted crises with the ambition to localise. This should also include realistic guidance on exit strategies, as well as on the role of local civil society organisations in public health.
6. Establish, or re-establish, and maintain strategic relationships with key external stakeholders at a global level to ensure Concern is involved in health policy discussions and brings its unique voice to those debates. Provide guidance on key strategic partnerships to develop.
7. Ensure that all health guidance is in line with the latest WHO and Health Cluster guidance, the latest evidence and best practice for the contexts in which Concern works.
8. Provide guidance on responses to the HIV pandemic, ensuring it is embedded in our support to health systems strengthening and their preparedness and disease surveillance and management.
9. Support alignment with and coherence of key cross-cutting issues such as equality, gender, disability, protection, DRR, conflict and environmental sustainability by working with those advisers and ensuring their guidance is embedded in guidance to health programmes.
10. Support, with other senior advisers and advisers, guidance on Social and Behaviour Change (SBC) interventions and methodologies to address the shift to healthier behaviours among our target group and other stakeholders.
11. Manage a team of professional and experienced technical staff in health, nutrition and WASH to ensure that their work is effective at programme level and that they are being developed and empowered.
12. Develop and maintain strong relationships with the country programmes to ensure that technical support is appropriate and strategically used.
13. Provide direct technical support to country programmes, as required and appropriate.
14. Support organisational goals through the facilitation of learning and innovation from and between our programmes as well as learning embracing other sectors and approaches.
15. Ensure that the organisations values and policy commitments, including accountability and equality, are reflected in assigned responsibilities.
16. Demonstrating leadership on workplace equality, diversity and inclusion and role modelling a positive safeguarding ethos.

Skills you will bring:

Essential:

• Experience in strategic planning for or strategic management in the public health sector or civil society engagement with the public health sector.
• At least eight years experience in work on global health.
• A minimum of five years working in low-income countries, preferably in fragile and conflict affected countries or contexts.
• A minimum of five years providing technical assistance to public health or health related programmes.
• Experience of managing a multi-sectoral and multi-skilled team.
• Demonstrated ability to negotiate and influence policy makers within national governments, international donors, UN organisations and academic institutions.
• Masters level or higher post-graduate qualification in a relevant discipline or a basic medical degree with the right experience.
• Leadership skills and the ability to identify key challenges and lead people in dealing innovatively with them.
• Management skills that empower and develop team members.

Desirable:

• Experience of working in fragile and conflict-affected contexts or protracted crises and have a balance of long-term and emergency or recovery-related experience.
• Experience in publishing or facilitating the documentation of learning from field programmes to international standards.
• Strong understanding of and an ability to engage with high quality research (institutions).
• Knowledge of French and/or Arabic.

You will report to Head of Technical Assistance, Directorate of Strategy, Advocacy and Learning (SAL) and work with Senior Nutrition Adviser Support, Senior WASH Adviser and 1 2 specialist health advisers.

The salary is from 71,521 to 84,143 (band 7) and this is a permanent fulltime contract.

We encourage all eligible candidates, irrespective of gender, ethnicity and origin, disability, political beliefs, religious beliefs, sexual orientation, or socio-economic status to apply to become a part of the organisation. Concern is against all forms of discrimination and unequal power relations and is committed to promoting equality.

If this role sounds right for you, please apply with your CV and cover letter. We will respond to every applicant. Please be aware we may offer positions before the closing date.

If you have any concerns about our recruitment process and need particular assistance – for example if you have a visual impairment or are neuro-divergent – please let us know and we will do our best to accommodate you.

Important information:

Concern has an organisational Code of Conduct (CCoC) with three Associated Policies; the Programme Participant Protection Policy (P4), the Child Safeguarding Policy and the Anti-Trafficking in Persons Policy accessible here. These have been developed to ensure the maximum protection of programme participants from exploitation, and to clarify the responsibilities of Concern staff, consultants, visitors to the programme and partner organization, and the standards of behavior expected of them. In this context, staff have a responsibility to the organization to strive for, and maintain, the highest standards in the day-to-day conduct in their workplace in accordance with Concerns core values and mission. Any candidate offered a job with Concern Worldwide will be expected to sign the Concern Staff Code of Conduct and Associated Policies as an appendix to their contract of employment. By signing the Concern Code of Conduct, candidates acknowledge that they have understood the content of both the Concern Code of Conduct and the Associated Policies and agree to conduct themselves in accordance with the provisions of these policies. Additionally, Concern is committed to the safeguarding and protection of vulnerable adults and children in our work. We will do everything possible to ensure that only those who are suitable to work or volunteer with vulnerable adults and children are recruited by us for such roles. Subsequently, working or volunteering with Concern is subject to a range of vetting checks, including criminal background checking.

During this job application, you will provide Concern with your personal data. Concern takes its responsibilities towards this personal data very seriously and is committed to complying with all relevant data protection legislation.You have certain rights under data protection legislation. For more information on how to exercise those rights please visit www.concern.net/about/privacy