Family Strengthening and Early Childhood Development Advisor

Background:
CRS is seeking a Family Strengthening and Early Childhood Development Advisor for an anticipated multi-county child development, care, and protection project. The overall objective of the project is to strengthen national systems that protect vulnerable children, support families, and improve early childhood development through locally led and sustainable approaches. The project will improve outcomes for vulnerable children by strengthening child protection systems, supporting families and caregivers, advancing integrated early childhood health and development, and reducing reliance on residential care.

Job Summary:

The staff acts as the subject matter expert, providing technical advice, guidance, and support to provide family strengthening through a protective factors framework, while supporting alternative family-based care and the transition of residential care. The staff will also use the Nurturing Care Framework to design, layer, and sequence activities that support young children’s health, nutrition, responsive caregiving, early learning, safety and security, and caregiver well-being, while strengthening practical linkages to services that help families provide nurturing care. The staff will also contribute to improving policies, practices, service quality, and sustainable system change through collaboration with government, civil society, faith-based, and community stakeholders.

Roles and Key Responsibilities

• Provide technical guidance on family-based case management, family strengthening, prevention of child-family separation, reintegration, alternative care, and family-based care pathways.
• Apply a protective factors model that strengthens parental resilience, social connections, concrete supports in times of need, caregiver knowledge of parenting and child development, children’s social and emotional competence, and nurturing caregiver-child relationships.
• Ensure approaches reflect safeguarding principles, disability inclusion, trauma-informed practice, country context, and relevant transitioning residential care guidance.
• Support strong assessment, case planning, referral, follow-up, documentation, and case closure practices for families at risk of separation, reintegrating families, kinship care families, foster care families, and other alternative care arrangements. Help teams understand the minimum family strengthening packages and specialized pathways that connect households to practical supports before risks escalate as per SDCS FS SOP.
• Provide technical guidance on iECD approaches grounded in the Nurturing Care Framework, including health, nutrition, responsive caregiving, early learning, safety and security, and caregiver well-being.
• Provide expertise on iECD systems, policies, standards, service packages, curricula, implementation guidance, and quality assurance mechanisms, as relevant to the country’s proposed work plan.
• Provide expertise on childcare facilities and ECDE centers quality improvement, including safe and stimulating environments, child-centered learning, caregiver capacity, safeguarding, supervision, and continuous quality improvement. And on community-based ECD and caregiver support approaches that strengthen responsive caregiving, early learning, child protection, violence prevention, and family capacity to provide nurturing care.
• Provide expertise on early identification and referral for children with developmental delays, disabilities, nutrition concerns, protection risks, caregiver stress, or other vulnerabilities, based on relevant country platforms and referral networks.
• Coordinate with the global technical counterpart and relevant technical advisors, and liaise with resource partners and consultants as appropriate, to ensure ECD activities draw on specialized expertise in areas such as positive parenting, nutrition, policy development, daycare/childcare quality, MHPSS-informed ECD, or disability inclusion.
• Build capacity to apply residential care transition guidance, alternative care standards, reintegration practice, and family-based care pathways in day-to-day implementation.
• Align family strengthening with child protection, alternative care, ECD, health, nutrition, social protection, disability inclusion, violence prevention, parenting, and referrals to HES/SILC where appropriate.
• Work closely with the parenting resource partner to ensure parenting content and delivery approaches are context appropriate and responsive to the needs of specific household types.
• Tailor parenting and caregiver support for caregivers of children with disabilities, families at risk of separation, reintegrating families, kinship care families, foster care families, and other alternative care families.
• Develop, adapt, or update ECD competencies, training curricula, job aids, coaching tools, supervision tools, and practical guidance for health, social service, education, community, daycare/ECDE, faith-based, and project actors.
• Document lessons from relevant ECD workstreams, such as IECD policy operationalization, childcare facilities/ECDE quality improvement, care group delivery, family strengthening models, workforce strengthening, specialized reintegration pathways, parenting adaptations, referral linkages, and approaches that help children remain safely in family care.
• Provide inputs to milestone reports, donor updates, briefs, learning products, and project communications on family strengthening, protective factors, parenting adaptations, case management, reintegration, and family-based care.
• Participate in relevant working groups, networks, and fora related to family strengthening, case management, parenting, alternative care, reintegration, and residential care transition.
• Support partner staff, government counterparts, caregivers, and community stakeholders to share learning and practical implementation experience in relevant fora.

Required/Desired Foreign Language: Abilityto clearly communicate in written and spoken English and Kiswahili. Knowledge of the local language of the county is an added advantage.

Travel Required: The Staff will be expected to travel 70% of the time within the project areas of operation as needed.

Supervisory Responsibilities: None

Key Working Relationships:

• Internal: Anticipated project staff, Health, Education and Social Services Unit, and CRS Kenya MEAL Unit
• External: Local Implementing Partners, GOK, interfaith networks, faith-based organizations, Careleavers, relevant private sector entities, local communities, beneficiaries, donors and other stakeholders.

Basic Qualifications:

• Bachelor’s degree in a related field required.
• Minimum of eight years of work experience required in departmental-specific area of specialization.
• Previous experience managing multiple projects in a single department
• Previous experience in managing departmental projects.
• Experience working with government, civil society, faith-based, or community actors.
• Experience applying technical knowledge in the relevant area of specialization including via standards, evidence, and guidance to program implementation.
• Experience with facilitation, coaching, training, and capacity strengthening skills.
• Experience collaborating across technical areas and contributing to integrated project implementation.
• Experience using program data and learning to identify gaps, manage risks, improve quality, and inform adaptation.

Preferred Qualifications:

• Experience working with partners, participatory action planning, and community engagement.
• Staff supervision experience.
• Experience monitoring projects and collecting relevant data.
• Experience with child protection, family strengthening, family-based care, social service systems, and/or early childhood development programs and the associated monitoring, information management, reporting, and learning requirements.
• Experience with government-led monitoring and information systems and experience identifying practical approaches to strengthen system functionality, institutional capacity, data quality, and data use in low-resource settings.

Knowledge, Skills and Abilities:

• Analysis and problem-solving skills with ability to make sound judgments.
• Good relationship management skills and the ability to work closely with local partners.
• Proactive, results-oriented and service-oriented mindset.
• Attention to detail, accuracy and timeliness in executing assigned responsibilities.
• Strong understanding of child protection, family strengthening, family-based care, social service systems, and/or early childhood development programs and the associated monitoring, information management, reporting, and learning requirements.
• Demonstrated understanding of government-led monitoring and information systems and experience identifying practical approaches to strengthen system functionality, institutional capacity, data quality, and data use in low-resource settings.
• Ability to effectively use MS Windows and MS Office packages (Excel, Word, PowerPoint).

Competencies (for all CRS Staff):

Agency competencies clarify expected behaviors and attitudes for all staff. When demonstrated, they create an engaging workplace, help staff achieve their best, and help CRS achieve agency goals. 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.

• Personal Accountability – Consistently takes responsibility for one’s own actions.
• Acts with Integrity - Consistently models values aligned with CRS Guiding Principles and mission. Is considered honest.
• Builds and Maintains Trust - Shows consistency between words and actions.
• Collaborates with Others – Works effectively in intercultural and diverse teams.
• Open to Learn – Seeks out experiences that may change perspective or provide an opportunity to learn new things.

Agency Leadership Competencies:

• Lead Change – Continually looks for ways to improve the agency through a culture of agility, openness, and innovation.
• Develops and Recognizes Others – Builds the capacity of staff to reach their full potential and enhance team and agency performance.
• Strategic Mindset – Understands role in translating, communicating, and implementing agency strategy and team priorities.

Core Values:

• Child-focused. Children always come first in our work. We place the rights and needs of children, and their safety, protection, and well-being at the center of everything we do.
• Accountable. We take responsibility for our actions when carrying out our programs, exercising great care in the use of our resources and seeking to deploy them to maximum effect, always considering the consequences and impact on children.
• Transformative. We support change to create a positive and sustainable difference to the lives of children, and transformation that brings lasting benefits.
• Inclusive. We aim to ensure access to opportunities for everyone. We endeavor to operate in open and honest ways in both our internal and external relationships, developing and delivering flexible approaches that address the needs of all. We involve young people both in matters that affect them and in our advocacy activities

MEAL Competencies:

• Track portfolio and project MEAL requirements – both CRS MEAL Policies and Procedures (MPP) and donor requirements.
• Work with MEAL staff and partner staff to implement the MPP and donor MEAL requirements applicable to your projects.
• Complete the annual MEAL procedure self-assessment for your project and develop an action plan to advance MEAL practice.
• Ability to use MEAL data for program improvement, adaptation, and learning.

Disclaimer: This job description is not an exhaustive list of the skills, effort, duties, and responsibilities associated with the position.

What we offer:

CRS offers a comprehensive benefits package and the opportunity to work in a collaborative, mission-driven culture that is committed to improving the lives of the poor throughout the world. CRS' talent acquisition procedures reflect our commitment to protecting men, women, boys, and girls from abuse, exploitation, and harm.

All qualified candidates are encouraged to apply for this position, especially those from marginalized and people with disabilities backgrounds

Data Protection/Disclaimer:

Catholic Relief Services is committed to ensuring the security and protection of the personal information that we process, and to provide a compliant and consistent approach to data protection.

Recruitment Disclaimer:

We wish to notify that CRS does not demand or charge any fee/charges from the aspiring candidates for considering their candidature, or at any time during the recruitment process, nor have we authorized any individual, agency or firm to recruit candidates for us. Any person seeking employment with CRS needs to be cautious and not trust any agency or individual claiming to be our representative and charging fees for providing/securing employment with us.

By applying for 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 behaviour related to the above safeguarding-related topics.

Catholic Relief Services is the official international humanitarian agency of the Catholic community in the United States. Catholic Relief Services works to save, protect, and transform lives in need in more than 100 countries, without regard to race, religion or nationality. Catholic Relief Services’ relief and development work is accomplished through programs of emergency response, HIV, health, agriculture, education, microfinance, and peacebuilding. We welcome as a part of our staff people of all faiths and secular traditions who share our values and our commitment to serving those in need. CRS’ processes and policies reflect our commitment to safeguarding children and vulnerable adults from abuse and exploitation.

CRS welcomes candidates from the countries and regions in which we work. In the event the successful candidate is an expatriate, the anticipated duration of the assignment is informed by a term limit, based on the type and level of the job and the needs of the agency.

CRS is committed to safeguarding program participants, community members, staff and volunteers from all forms of exploitation and abuse. The successful candidate is expected to sign and adhere to CRS´ Code of Conduct.

CRS talent acquisition procedures reflect our commitment to safeguarding the rights and dignity of all people - especially children and vulnerable adults - to live free from abuse and harm.

Disclaimer: This job description is not an exhaustive list of the skill, effort, duties, and responsibilities associated with the position.

CRS is an Equal Opportunity Employer.