JOB TITLE: Social Support Officer (x2)

POSITION SUMMARY:

Location: Ho Chi Minh City and Hanoi
Contract Type: Local, Full Time (100% FTE)
Duration: One year (with possibility of extension based on performance)
Application deadline: 22 November 2019

BACKGROUND:

Friends for International Tuberculosis Relief (FIT) is a registered non-profit organization working in the field of tuberculosis (TB) prevention and care service delivery, technical assistance, advocacy and research. FIT was founded in 2012 and consists of TB activists as well as former patients. Our members reside all over the world ranging from Germany to Vietnam, Australia and the U.S., where they do their part in raising awareness and fighting the disease. Past and current partners include the Global Health & Education Trust, Otsuka, Stop TB Partnership, RESULTS Australia, HCMC Public Health Association, Vietnam National TB Control Program, Johnson & Johnson and the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme.

In collaboration with the National TB Control Program (NTP) and other local and international partners, we are building a comprehensive Search-Treat-Prevent TB program across three cities in Viet Nam (Ho Chi Minh City, Hai Phone and Hoi An). Overall TB treatment success rates are very high in Viet Nam (over 90% success), but specific geographic regions (Ho Chi Minh City [80%]) and patient populations have substantially lower treatment success rates (retreatment [77%], people co-infected with HIV [78%], MDR-TB [75%]). Other key populations also likely suffer from lower treatment success rates, but disaggregated outcome data are not available.

As part of the Treat component of our comprehensive strategy, FIT is providing social support to people with TB and conducting mixed methods research on the provision of this support in both Ho Chi Minh City and Hanoi.

We are fast growing organization and require at least two officers to help build this team. We are looking for someone who is self-motivated, highly contentious, passionate about helping the poorest TB patients and willing to travel across the city to meet patients at locations convenient to them.

For additional information please refer to our website at www.tbhelp.org

PRIMARY RESPONSIBILITIES:

For Social Health Insurance (SHI) enrollment:

• Contact TB patients without health insurance and set appointments;
• Directly assist TB patients with enrollment onto SHI, including filling out paperwork for them and delivering insurance registration documents to the local People’s Committee;
• Document completion of insurance enrollment.

For provision of social support:

• Follow procedures to receive cash from FIT’s finance team;
• Schedule delivery of social support;
• Develop training materials about this component of the project;
• Distribute materials and/or social support the patient’s home or the local District TB Unit;
• Provide treatment adherence counselling to patients.

For qualitative interviews:

• Have familiarity and experience with interview techniques;
• Follow all research protocols and SOPs;
• Obtain informed consent from participants;
• Assist with conducting focus group discussions, in depth interviews and key informant interviews;
• Distribute interview stipends to participants and complete all documentation of this process.

For patient costing surveys:

• Learn the methodology of the patient costing surveys (PCS);
• Read about the methodology used for prior patient costing surveys and the calculation of catastrophic costs in Viet Nam and other countries;
• Conduct PCSs with TB patients, with properly signed informed consent;
• Enter data from patient costing surveys into a WHO approved data collection tool.

Other general tasks:

• Develop presentations about study implementation;
• Participate in summarizing research outputs and implementation experience for publication;
• Document implementation in detail;
• Other activities requested by FIT management.

KNOWLEDGE AND SKILLS REQUIREMENT:

• Comfortable interacting directly with TB patients in the early stages of their treatment
• Detail oriented
• Familiar with TB and/or HIV counselling
• Experience working with Microsoft Word and Excel
• Knowledge of electronic data entry is preferred
• Strong verbal and written communications skills required
• Ability to work well in a team setting
• Ability to balance numerous tasks simultaneously and meet tight deadlines
• Possesses a social science background with exposure to quality of life measurements, health economics and disability-adjusted life year (DALY) calculations is preferred but not required

MANDATORY REQUIREMENTS:

• A bachelor’s degree in nursing, social work, preventative medicine, public health, statistics, economics or related discipline
• At least 2 years of experience implementing public health or poverty alleviation projects
• Willingness to travel throughout all districts in the city of employment
• Driver’s license and motorbike are required

LANGUAGE REQUIREMENTS:

• Fluency in Vietnamese
• Intermediate written and spoken English is required

APPLICATIONS SHOULD INCLUDE:

• A cover letter written in English
• A detailed Curriculum Vitae
• Two employment references (Name, Phone Number, Email Address) - (we will only contact the references after having consultation and permission from you).

SEND APPLICATIONS:

• By e-mail to [email protected] addressed to Ms. Rachel Forse.
• Subject: “Application for Social Support Officer”.
• No later than 22 November 2019.

All applications will be carefully considered, but only short-listed applicants will be contacted for an interview.

FIT is an equal opportunity employer.

Organization: FIT
Location: Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh
Application deadline: 2019-11-22
Send application to: [email protected]