United States of America: Technical Advisor for Implementation Science & Learning

Pathfinder Overview

Pathfinder International is a global leader in sexual and reproductive health and rights. We place sexual and reproductive health at the center of all that we do—believing that it is not only a fundamental human right, but is critical for expanding life opportunities for women, families, communities, and nations, and paving the way for transformations in environmental stewardship, decreases in population pressures, and innovations in poverty reduction. Pathfinder provides women, men, and adolescents with a range of quality health services—from contraception and maternal care to HIV prevention and AIDS care and treatment. Pathfinder strives to strengthen access to contraception, ensure availability of safe abortion services and post-abortion care, advocate for sound sexual and reproductive health policies, and, through all of our work, improve the rights and lives of the people we serve.

Program Overview

The Technical Advisor for Implementation Science & Learning (ISL) will sit within the Implementation Learning Team at Pathfinder headquarters. This team supports Pathfinder’s developing emphasis on using Implementation Science for collaborative, intentional critical thinking about our interventions’ implementation for the purpose of real-time adaptation and performance improvement, to best benefit the people and health systems we aim to serve. ISL at Pathfinder focuses on ongoing, creative learning through routine capture, systematic use of program data and insights, and sharing of knowledge about what works, what does not, and how and why key interventions perform as they do in varied contexts. ISL builds on and is closely linked to performance monitoring, data capture, and data use within Pathfinder, and is designed to work in a cyclical manner—in a first cycle, questions are derived from emergent phenomena during implementation (what is happening? How and why is this happening?), data are gathered and analyzed as part of implementation, and adaptations are designed in response; once adaptations are implemented, learning cycles evolve to track this adaptation and its implementation. In this way, ISL at Pathfinder occurs in a corkscrew effect, learning in an evolving and connected manner over the project lifecycle, and feeding performance optimization as it grows.
The ISL Team works closely with counterparts at headquarters and throughout Pathfinder’s 25+ country offices to embed Implementation Science, program learning, knowledge exchange, and knowledge management as part of ongoing performance monitoring and project management in a rigorous yet streamlined way. Our aim is to support dynamic, highly adaptive, evidence-based implementation through execution of non-burdensome inquiries that support management and decision-making for scale-up.

Position Purpose

Pathfinder is seeking curious, creative, dynamic, and highly collaborative candidates for this position, which aims to advance our learning and quality improvement agenda as part of Pathfinder project implementation. This position achieves this goal primarily through 1) Provision of technical assistance to Pathfinder projects through co-development and co-execution of inquiries in line with Pathfinder’s ISL framework and continuum of evidence, 2) Transferring capacity for ISL through collaborative development of an organizational internal clearinghouse for learning including lessons from ISL efforts, findings, and related tools to “do” ISL in implementing projects, 3) Ongoing development and/or refinement of tools & guidance in line with evolving lessons from projects’ ISL efforts, 4) Representation of Pathfinder technical thought leadership in the field of Implementation Science and Learning at relevant external events, technical working groups, and conferences, and 5) Attracting new resources and funds to Pathfinder for ISL through participation in proposal development, and cultivation of relevant external partnerships (academic and otherwise)

Across these focus areas, this Technical Advisor will work within project(s) and with counterparts organization-wide to enable Pathfinder staff and local partners to employ Implementation Science in their projects, optimizing intervention performance and advancing understanding of how to implement key SRHR interventions amidst complexity at- scale. Ideal candidates will have familiarity with and experience in Implementation Science, Implementation Research, Health Systems Research, Quality Improvement, Adaptive Management, and mixed methods and participatory research; as well as experience with implementation of complex interventions in limited resource settings and working within them to execute learning agendas.

Key Responsibilities

• Provides technical assistance to new and current Pathfinder projects regarding ISL. Supports development and execution of project-specific ISL inquiries through:
  • Collaboration with headquarters and in-country counterparts to generate and prioritize appropriate ISL questions; identify appropriate methods; co-develop protocols and instruments; analyze data; and document and disseminate findings, as appropriate.
  • Collaborative development and tracking of project(s) ISL plan(s) with relevant counterparts, including Knowledge Exchange/Knowledge Management strategies and range of approaches to embed ISL in real-time project management processes;
  • Co-facilitation with Knowledge Management staff structured learning sessions with in-country counterparts to improve, refine, adapt, course correct, or scale up interventions or approaches based on findings.
  • Supporting dissemination of ISL findings for cross-organizational learning
• Contributes to organization-wide efforts to advance ISL skills through learning platforms and tools development
  • Collaborates with country- and HQ-based counterparts to refine tools and develop a central repository of resources to support data use and ISL in project management and performance improvement efforts
  • Pro-actively dialogues and connects with ISL projects and teams across countries to support integration of ISL as a core part of management and implementation for performance improvement.
• Contributes to organizational positioning as a leader in SRHR
  • At relevant regional and international technical meetings, represents ISL inquiries and findings, as well as improves Pathfinder’s approach to ISL as a key component of programming;
  • Supports integration of ISL findings and approaches into Pathfinder technical publications in collaboration with Technical Advisors for Program Documentation.
  • Writes at least one peer reviewed article every 1-2 years.
• Attracting new resources and funds to Pathfinder for ISL
  • Supports integration of ISL into new projects’ design, by drafting M&E and Learning Plans
  • Conducts outreach and cultivates relationships with relevant external partners and academic institutions

Basic Requirements

• Master degree or relevant experience – more than five years - in Public Health, Health Education or related field such as the Social Sciences, medical anthropology;
• Minimum of seven years related public health / family planning or international development-related work experience; minimum of 3-4 years working in developing countries required.
• Experience with mixed methods research, implementation science research, participatory rapid appraisal, action learning as well as other programmatic learning approaches (e.g. Action Reviews, process documentation, timeline mapping, others)
• Familiarity with trends in the field of Implementation Science and its key concepts, frameworks, and methodologies
• Experience with dynamic workshop and meeting facilitation—preference will be placed with candidates who can demonstrate experience developing and conducting participatory workshops aimed at bringing energy and creative curiosity to the topic at-hand.
• Familiarity with principles of Knowledge Management
• Knowledge of reproductive health, family planning and HIV/AIDS issues, programs and projects;
• Commitment to the mission, vision and values of Pathfinder International;
• Ability to write clearly, and edit written materials;
• Excellent organizational skills with an emphasis on being thorough, detail-oriented, with ability to multi-task and work under tight time-lines;
• Ability to work effectively in a highly collaborative team;
• Fluent in written and spoken English;
• Ability to travel internationally up to 30%;
• Excellent computer skills to include proficiency with Microsoft Office products.

Preferred Qualifications

• Ideal candidates will reflect the characteristics of ISL at Pathfinder—collaborative, energizing, pro-active, and dynamic
• Experience living (as well as working) in developing countries preferred
• Fluency in Portuguese, French, Hindi or other language, preferred

http://www.pathfinder.org/about-us/join-our-team/