Senior Technical Advisor – EpiC Project

FHI 360/Philippines (www.fhi360.org) through Meeting Targets and Maintaining Epidemic Control (EpiC) project in the Philippines is seeking applications for the position of Senior Technical Advisor. EpiC is a five-year global project funded by the U.S. President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) and the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID). The project provides strategic technical assistance (TA) and direct service delivery to break through barriers to 95-95-95 and promote self-reliant management of national HIV programs by improving HIV case-finding, prevention, treatment programming and viral load (VL) suppression among key populations (KPs) and priority populations (PPs). In the Philippines, EpiC will work in Mega Manila to address critical gaps and bottlenecks in the response to HIV among KPs in the Philippines and build capacity of local, community-based KP organizations and work closely with the government of the Philippines to deliver HIV services tailored to the needs of KPs. In addition to the activities mentioned above EpiC Philippines will focus on expanding HIV case finding in the community, expansion of PrEP and treatment initiation, adherence, and retention support for people living with HIV (PLHIV), with a focus on select key population groups.

Job Description

The Senior Technical Advisor will be the technical lead for the EpiC Philippines project. Reporting to the Project Director, the Sr. Technical Advisor will oversee and coordinate prevention, care and treatment activities and community engagement activities for the EpiC project in Philippines. S/he will be the lead technical expert responsible for all activities to increase uptake and improve quality of HIV/AIDS prevention, care and treatment services, including community service provision responsibilities related to the program, including ensuring that targets set by funders are met and reported according to GoP standards and in line with donor demands. S/he will lead efforts to strengthen prevention, care and treatment with all community services, which may include building capacity of implementing partner organizations, community organizations and other stakeholders to provide standard HIV comprehensive services and set up OSS and referral network to KP friendly facilities. S/he will coordinate with Project Director to bring in new technical expertise and updated global practices. S/he will liaise with the Project Director and counterparts responsible for OSS and provide supervision on high level HIV comprehensive service provision to KPs. S/he will coordinate all technical report and submit to EpiC, FHI360 HQ, USAID and other stakeholders.

Position Description:

• Provides TA and capacity building including support for the overall design, implementation, and monitoring and evaluation of PLHIV and KP group HIV prevention, care, and treatment activities in the Philippines;
• Works with implementing partners to monitor actively and proactively adjust face-to-face and virtual recruitment strategies to increase coverage, HIV testing uptake, and case-finding among KPs populations and especially highest-risk, underserved subpopulation;
• Develops models for introduction and scale-up of community-based assisted and unassisted HIV self-testing among key populations;
• Supports community-level introduction of HIV PrEP services, index testing services, community testing services and TG specific HIV prevention and acre services for individuals at high-risk of infection in accordance with WHO guidance;
• Provides HIV care- and treatment-related technical and management support for CSO partners to strengthen case management services, ensure ART initiation and strengthen viral load suppression through innovative, evidence-based programming, including introduction of community-based ART models;
• Development of approaches to address the positive health dignity and prevention of KP living with HIV;
• Works with the Strategic Information team to monitor and evaluate the progress and impact of HIV interventions to track programmatic performance by KP cascade and to design and implement corrective actions where interventions and strategies do not deliver the anticipated outcomes;
• Supports the EpiC Philippines Project Director to ensure collaboration and coordination with the Ministry of Health, National AIDS Program, USAID and other key country stakeholders by regularly meeting and consulting with all relevant agencies to share information and to stimulate joint design, evaluation and implementation of interventions;
• Remains informed on current state-of-the-art programs in the HIV/AIDS care and treatment field with focus on KP, through the review of literature and articles, and maintains links with other international bodies which specialize in KP-focused HIV treatment and care;
• If necessary, lead or participate in the process to review, revise and update national guidelines
• Coordinate preparation, review/approvals process, and submission of materials on behalf of EpiC implementing partners for presentation at academic conferences and/or publication in peer-reviewed journals;
• Develops scopes of work, project deliverables and monitoring and evaluation indicators and targets together with the Strategic Information team for grant and contract resource and service delivery partners as required;

· Develops guidance, tools and materials related to KP programming;

• Provides technical supervision for select program staff;
• Performs other duties as assigned.

Minimum Qualifications:

• MBBS, B.Pharm, BMLS Lab. Sciences, microbiology, Biochemistry with Master’s degree in Public Health, Epidemiology, Pharmacy and other related areas with 5-7 years experience in HIV treatment and community ART experience in international development related to HIV/AIDS comprehensive services;

• MPH or similar degree with minimum of 6-7 years relevant experience in clinical care with a sound understanding of HIV/AIDS with provision of anti-retroviral therapy (ART) and Prevention (ART, HTS, ICT, PNS, Gender, Condom, STIs, TLD transitioning, etc.).

• Sound cultural understanding and sensitivity to demands of key populations and gender and sexual diversity is necessary;

• Familiarity with Filipino public health sector, NGOs and CBOs is highly desirable;

• Previous experience working with USAID or PEPFAR supported program and KP led organizations;

• Demonstrated ability to be the technical specialist and as the lead subject matter expert in, Prevention, Care, Treatment & Community Services (PCTCS)

• Demonstrated ability to perform complex data analyses and make recommendations based on findings;

• Demonstrated ability to portray complex data sets in easy to understand formats including visualizations

• Demonstrated working knowledge of Filipino health and social service information systems and monitoring and evaluation processes as it relates to data collection for performance-based reporting and use of data;

• Previous experience in building capacity for stakeholder management and supervisory role is critical;

• Demonstrated written, presentation, communication and organizational skills in English. Avanced level of Tagalog is strongly preferred.

The position will be based in Manila, Philippines and work out of the FHI 360 Country office. Preference is for Filipino national candidates.

Suitably qualified candidates openly living with HIV and/or who are representative of the key populations affected by HIV are also actively encouraged to apply.