Specialist, Inclusive Health At Special Olympics

Description

Special Olympics Inc. (SOI) is an international NGO serving over 5 million people with intellectual disabilities (ID) in 193 countries. While best known for sports opportunities, SOI offers a vast array of health interventions and collects and maintains the largest database in the world on the health of people with intellectual disabilities. Our health interventions include Healthy Athletes (health care assessments and care coordination), Healthy Communities (community-based health promotion and disease prevention programming and partnerships), Young Athletes (early childhood intervention), Health Messengers (training and activating people with intellectual disabilities to be health advocates), training of health professionals (reach of more than 130,000 since 2016), and inclusive health (partnerships and advocacy to help health systems include people with ID).

This position will contribute to work to make health-related services, programming, and policies more inclusive of people with ID and promote the leadership of people with ID.

Reporting to the Senior Manager for Global Inclusive Health Advocacy, this position will contribute to efforts to promote inclusive health in 1-2 global regions. This work will fall into 4 key areas—technical assistance, partnership development and stewardship, consultant and contractor coordination/management, and athlete engagement—in addition to supporting broader team activities.

This position may be home-based in any of the following locations, where SOI is registered as an employer:

Austria; Belgium; Bulgaria; Canada; China (Shanghai, Beijing); Egypt; Germany; Ghana; Ireland; Netherlands; Panama; Portugal; South Africa; South Korea; Spain; Sweden; United States of America.

Responsibilities

Inclusive health technical assistance

• Review monthly, mid-year, and final reports from Special Olympics Programs to analyze progress against metrics and identify technical assistance needs.
• Respond to identified technical assistance needs through support or development of plans, processes, resources, and partnerships (depending on experience).
• Support the compilation of reports, presentations and proposals related to inclusive health.
• Coordinate events such as workshops, trainings, webinars, and summits, including planning, participant engagement, agenda development, execution, and evaluation.
• Provide oversight to relevant consultants.

Partnership development and stewardship

• Conduct scoping research regarding prospective partnership opportunities.
• Lead/support the development and implementation of a partnership strategy, including the development of research and resources that may be needed to make the case to a prospective partner or deepen engagement.

Consultant and contractor coordination/management

• Coordinate procurement, contract, and payment processes for policy/advocacy-related consultants and contractors.
• Experience permitting, coordinate substantive/deliverables-related engagement of policy/advocacy-related consultants and contractors.

Athlete engagement

• Manage/support management of requests for activation of Health Messengers (Special Olympics athletes who have been trained to serve as a health and wellness leader, educator, advocate and role model) in accordance with established protocols.
• Support tracking of Health Messenger data and activations.
• Support Health Messenger consultants, especially the coordination of their monthly check-in (agenda development, scheduling, logistics).

Qualifications

Required

• A relevant university degree (e.g., public health, health sciences, public policy/public administration)
• 2-5 years of professional experience (lower levels of experience will correspond to a Specialist, higher levels of experience for a Manager title)
• Expertise or experience related to Brazil, Canada, the Caribbean, Central Asia, or Asia Pacific
• Strong interpersonal skills and a proven ability to nurture relationships and partnerships with individuals and organizations
• Excellent written and oral communication skills in English, including ability to communicate effectively with a culturally and professionally diverse range of stakeholders
• Strong team player and collaborator with acute attention to detail and excellent organizational and time management skills
• Proficiency in Microsoft Office suite of programs
• Legally authorized to work in for any employer in country where intended to be based
• Ability to work effectively as a member of a collaborative global team, including ability and willingness to work hours overlapping with core team members based in Central European Time and Central African Time, as well as regular commitments in US Eastern Time

Preferred

• Professional working proficiency in languages corresponding to countries/regions that are strategic for Special Olympics (listed above); for example, Russian or Portuguese
• Sound understanding of/experience working in/with at least one health system
• Relevant post-university degree
• Familiarity with Smartsheet
• Experience working with people with intellectual disabilities
• Ability to travel internationally, if required

Special Olympics provides equal employment opportunities to all employees and applicants for employment and prohibits discrimination and harassment of any type without regard to race, color, religion, age, sex, national origin, disability status, genetics, protected veteran status, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, or any other characteristic protected by federal, state or local laws.

This policy applies to all terms and conditions of employment, including recruiting, hiring, placement, promotion, termination, layoff, recall, transfer, leaves of absence, compensation and training.