Ummeed - Associate Director - Public Health

Context:

Sri (name changed for confidentiality reasons), who lives with her family in a village in Maharashtra, was unable to lift her left hand and had limited communication at 11 months of age. At the local hospital, she was given calcium tablets. Her mother was concerned about her developmental progress, but the rest of the family felt that massaging would be sufficient to help her recover.

There are over 50 million children with or at risk of disabilities in India, and support/ services for them are largely non-existent. Conditions such as autism, learning disabilities, cerebral palsy, and language delays are understood by a small minority of our population - this includes professionals such as doctors, therapists, and teachers. Thus, children like Sri fall through the cracks all the time because the healthcare system does not diagnose them in time.

In Sri's case, where doctors failed, a Community Health Worker (CHW) trained by Ummeed identified that Sri had developmental delays in motor and communication domains. The CHW educated the family on how to support Sri's development and also referred them to the local District Early Intervention Center (DEIC) for specialized guidance. Sri's family became her strength as they prioritized her needs to support her development. Sri now walks independently and enjoys playing ball with her family, who are now looking forward to her going to school with other children her age.

About Ummeed:

Ummeed Child Development Center (www.ummeed.org) was founded in 2001 by Dr. Vibha Krishnamurthy, a developmental pediatrician, an Ashoka Fellow, and resource person to government and international organizations such as the World Health Organization (WHO). Ummeed's vision is to help children with and at risk of developmental disabilities reach their full potential and be included in society.

Over the last 23 years, Ummeed has provided direct services to 15,000+ children and families, trained over 8500 unique professionals (community workers, as well as doctors, therapists, and teachers) across India, and indirectly influenced the lives of over 0.45 million children and families with or at risk of developmental disabilities. Besides direct clinical services, and training and capacity building, Ummeed's two other verticals of work have included research (to generate evidence of our work) and awareness building (to sensitize people to the cause and shift attitudes).

Ummeed sees child development, delays and disabilities as a continuum and since 2009, has been advocating for Early Childhood Development (ECD) programs to be inclusive of children with developmental delays and disabilities (which they are currently not). Towards this, Ummeed has itself run inclusive ECD programs in partnership with community-based organizations and some government systems (to show what they can look like), and has been advocating for this shift through publications, agencies such as the World Health Organization (WHO) and other fora. More recently, Ummeed has come across opportunities to expand this work into state-level government partnerships.

About the position:

Ummeed is looking for an Associate Director - Public Health to play a pivotal role in advancing its strategic objective of collaborating with government systems to promote inclusive early childhood development (ECD), early identification, and timely intervention for children with or at risk of developmental disabilities. This role will contribute to the broader goal of making inclusive ECD more accessible to vulnerable populations in our country and establishing a certified cadre of disability interventionists across India, focusing on both community-level and center-based disability interventions.

We seek a professional with a master's degree in public health or relevant public health certification work experience, with up to 10 to 15 years of experience in settings such as government agencies, nonprofit organizations, hospitals, or primary healthcare units. We are looking for someone who is excited by this mission and with the willingness for significant travel to rural and underserved areas to enable the same.

Some base expectations from this role:

- Collaborate with the early childhood development leadership team to implement existing programs in select geographies at the geographic level. Work with them to identify facilitators and barriers to state-level institutionalization for long term sustainability of the impact of these programs

- Establish and maintain relationships with senior leaders in relevant government bodies and partner organizations, working with them to build support and buy-in for suggested interventions towards sustaining and enhancing disability services in both current and new geographies

- Establish and maintain relationships with Ummeed's established internal ECD team and with other teams in the organization to ensure collaborative approaches to intervention and impact multidisciplinary teams

- Employ project/ program management strategies for planning, risk mitigation, budgeting, monitoring, evaluation, and other actionable recommendations to efficiently oversee, operate, and manage ongoing programs, in partnership with existing teams and functions

- Support and build skills in relevant team members in preparing project implementation plans, budgeting processes, project/ program management, risk mitigation, and impact measurement. Initiate and lead processes for continuous reflection and learning to course correct/improve project activities when required

- Support the design, implementation, and evaluation of additional/ future programs aimed at enhancing early childhood development outcomes in other states and regions, as and when needed

- Be part of and support funder conversations

Why Ummeed?

Ummeed is unique in the social sector, not just because of the influence it has been able to create, but also because of its work culture and ethos, that includes:

- A challenging but flexible work environment that offers opportunities for growth and creating impact at scale

- A leadership that invests in its people, giving them the freedom to explore, innovate, learn, while responsibly delivering on committed outcomes

- A strong culture of respecting diversity, being inclusive and committed to serving children with disabilities and their families

- An opportunity to work in collaboration with a diverse group of highly passionate, motivated and talented individuals