Humanitarian Support Personnel – Public Health Promotion

The post holder will undertake a series of deployments normally up to 6 months in duration for which specific Terms of Reference will be negotiated and agreed with relevant parties prior to deployment and or revised in the early stages of the deployment. Often these deployments will be to support fast moving emergency situations, and/or complex and difficult operating environments, where Oxfam has had to rapidly scale–up its programme and capacity.

Deployments will normally include some or all the following responsibilities:

Technical:

• As part of a multi-disciplinary team, carry out rapid and ongoing assessments of the public health risks faced by communities affected by emergencies. Make recommendations for response interventions which are consistent with Oxfam’s policies and guidelines.
• Identify and assess the current resources and capacity of national counterparts, humanitarian agencies, and government authorities to respond to the public health needs arising from the emergency. Identify any unmet needs likely to present risks to the health of the affected population.
• Contribute towards planning and proposal writing to provide clear objectives and establish indicators for monitoring and evaluating the programme including indicators relating to participation and gender.
• In selected countries, support country teams with developing a socio – cultural analysis of the local population to enable them to engage communities more effectively in WASH.
• Ensure that work aims to meet Sphere Standards and adheres to Oxfam’s emergency guidelines and protocols.
• Ensure that accountability to affected communities is central to ways of working and promotes the full and equal participation of women.
• Be familiar with and abide by Oxfam’s Code of Conduct and other regulatory codes such as the Red Cross Code of Conduct, Partners in Aid Code, Oxfam International protocols, and the Inter- Agency Field Co-operation Protocol.
• Ensure programmes are safe, are sensitive to gender and other power dynamics and ensure that they are informed by the community to benefit from the work.

Leadership:

• To foster an appropriate working culture built on Oxfam’s values, respectful and cognisant of power imbalances internally and between Oxfam, our partners and the communities we serve.
• Coordinate public health activities within Oxfam and with external agencies. and if appropriate provide briefings to Oxfam staff and supporters and to the media in agreement with the program manager, the Global Humanitarian Team and Media Office.
• Represent Oxfam at national level to other agencies and authorities, including the WASH cluster where this is operating and at other inter-agency forums where appropriate, to assist with the development of the WASH strategy and technical standards.

Management:

people, budgets, assets, projects and decision making.

• Lead and task manage a team of national and international public health promoters to implement and monitor appropriate health promotion interventions in emergency contexts. Budget design and tracking for sectoral activities is part of the remit of the team leader.
• Implement health promotion initiatives appropriate to the context. This will involve working in close collaboration with engineering colleagues to ensure that technical and social aspects of water and sanitation and malaria control programming are closely integrated and with food security and livelihoods colleagues to maximise the potential for cohesive programming.
• Involve women and men in the affected populations in the assessment, planning, implementation and monitoring of public health activities and play a key role in ensuring that communities are informed and consulted about Oxfam’s work and have opportunities to give their views on, and influence programme activities.
• Work with others to ensure that gender, protection issues are addressed in public health initiatives.
• Where requested act on occasion, as the local project manager in the absence of the substantive post holder.
• In selected countries, support country teams to build the resilience of communities to disasters focusing on DRR and more self-sustaining approaches to WASH.
• Support, with the rest of technical staff, advisors and managers, the understanding and use of key analytical tools and frameworks related to safeprogramming.
• Recruit and supervise public health promotion staff when on deployment. This may involve the writing of job profiles, work schedules, objective setting and appraisals.
• Build the capacity of Oxfam staff and partners through mentoring and coaching, on the job supervision and informal and formal training. Contribute to the joint facilitation of inter-agency training initiatives where appropriate.

When not on assignment, the post holder may

• Undertake research or written assignments to contribute to institutional learning.