Catholic Relief Services, along with UNICEF and other key partners such as national government is implementing advanced care reforms to promote safe, nurturing family care for children, including strengthening families, family reunification and preventing child-family separation, which can have harmful, long-term consequences, development of alternative family-based care, and influencing others to build momentum towards a tipping point of change for children. Specifically, CRS will advance care reform by promoting three key pillars of care reform in collaboration with DCS, National Council for Children Services, and UNICEF to promote parental care, strengthen child protection practitioners, and implement a data management system for care reforms.
Reporting to the Health Sector lead, the Advancing Care Reforms, Senior Project Officer will work closely with the Directorate of Children’s Services (DCS) at the national and county levels in ensuring key national care reforms are implemented in Kisumu County. She/he will support activities that strengthen child protection practitioners’ capacity to support the reintegration of children from residential care to family and community-based care in collaboration with the DCS through On-the-job training and Supportive supervision. She/he will support strengthened family-based care options that provide a safe and nurturing environment for children under their care. This will mainly target existing and newly vetted foster parents and Kafaalah caregivers to provide safe and nurturing care through Positive Parenting Training; Psychosocial support services in places of worship and government health facilities, and Family strengthening intervention linkages. She/he will also support the County to ensure that Caregivers of children with disability, allied child protection practitioners, and interreligious networks play an active role in preventing separation for children. To achieve this, She/he will lead the implementation of the Social Cohesion for Disability Inclusion approach to reduce stigma and discrimination through community sensitization to foster knowledge and attitudinal change and support for caregivers to access basic child services.
