Nutrition Nurse

**Work Arrangement:**

**Job Description**

**Main Purpose of the Job:**

To support the Integrated Nutrition & Health and MHPSS response to reduce excess child morbidity and mortality in highly risky provinces of Afghanistan. She will be responsible for delivering high-quality nutrition service to the client with an integrated approach with Health and MHPSS.

**Responsibilities:**

**Staff Coordination**

\- Maintain open and professional relations with team members, promoting a strong team spirit and providing guidance to enable staff to successfully perform in their positions.
\- Provide nutrition support and mentorship to other mobile clinic staff, providing on-the-job training where needed.

\- Ensure non-disclosure of any information whatsoever about practices and IRC activities to any other person or organization without permission, except in the normal performance of the service.
\- Consistently and proactively monitor/assess the safety and security of the team; promptly report concerns or incidents to IRC management and liaise with community leaders and other external parties as required to maintain/enhance the security environment for IRC programs.

**Main Responsibilities**

**Objective 1: Provide Treatment services for acute malnourish Under 5 children and PLW.**

\- Perform screening & promotion to all U5 children who are visiting HFs/MNTs services.
\- Classification of all U5 children in categories of well-nourished and Acute Malnutrition (SAM & MAM).
\- Enrolment of all acute malnourished children to OPD SAM/MAM programs.
\- Provide nutritional treatment to enrolled malnourished children according to IMAM treatment protocols.
\- Perform history taking and physical & medical examination including childhood illness of beneficiaries during admission time as well during follow-up visits.
\- Perform appetite tests for each admitted patient during admission time and decide on the provision of treatment services or refer to higher treatment services.
\- Perform anthropometric measurements during follow-up visits.
\- Ensure nutritional follow-up of the beneficiaries.
\- Prescribe routine medication to admitted patients during admission time according to the approved treatment protocol.
\- Identify those beneficiaries who do not respond to the treatment and manage their follow-up.

\- *Refer severely acutely malnourished beneficiaries with medical complications to higher health centers (IPD – SAM or Podiatric ward) for advanced treatment.*
\- *Ensure medical examination at discharge time and validate the discharge upon the status of the beneficiaries.*
\- *Check if all the procedures are completed before discharge (anthropometric measurements, medical and nutritional treatment, systematic treatment, and health and nutrition education to caretakers).*
\- *Check that the criteria of discharge are met and act according to the approved treatment guidelines.*
\- *Record all the necessary information on the existing reporting tools (registration book and card for each beneficiary etc...)*
\- *Provide health and nutrition education to the caregivers on breastfeeding, complementary feeding, hygiene, care of pregnant and lactating women, and prevention of illness.*

**Objective 2: Prepare all the material /Reporting tools and documentation.**

\- *Before leaving the office ensure all the material is ready and active (relevant equipment, registers, nutritional supplies, medicines…).*
\- *Keep all items in the field very well and after the field visit, clean and prepare the use in the coming day.*
\- *Update all reporting tools daily.*
\- *Keep and maintain a good filing system for all documents.*
\- *Prepared the reports (Daily, Weekly, and monthly) according to the standard reporting tools.*
\- *Assist line supervisor in performing other duties assigned by the organization.*

**Objective 3: Support the counselor on Infant Young Child Feeding (IYCF) counseling:**

\- *Promote breastfeeding skills by spreading relevant 1000 days of life messages to mothers and caretakers.*
\- *Provide Key IYCF messages to the mothers and caretakers during the performing of GMP to under 2 years of children.*
\- *Organize group sessions on basic/key messages on 1000 days of life to caretakers who are visiting HFs.*
\- *Refer patients to proper services based on needs (having complications).*
\- *Support the conduction of nutrition and health education sessions for clients.*
\- *Record all the necessary information on the existing reporting tools.*

**Qualifications**

**Education:** Graduate medical nurse from a recognized institute.

**Years of Experience:** At least 2 to 3 years experiences in the field of health and nutrition

**Skills:**

\- Previous experiences working in health nutrition activities (OPD, TFU, paediatric unit….)
\- Good organization, planning, and reporting skills are necessary.
\- Ability to manage the working environment according to local culture.
\- High flexibility in deployment, possible with Mahram
\- Knowledge of the intervention area is a plus.
\- Develops and promotes effective collaboration within and across units to achieve shared goals and optimize results.
\- Must be a team player with excellent interpersonal skills and the ability to work under pressure in a stressful environment, displaying patience, compassion, and diplomacy.
\- Ability to be innovative, flexible, adaptive, and willing to work out of hours, sometimes throughout the night.
\- Ability to live in challenging conditions and ability to work under difficult, high-pressure situations.
\- Ability to lead, train, supervise, and facilitate other nursing staff and community health workers in their respective tasks.

**Technical Competency:**

\- Communication and reporting skills
\- Fluency in Pashto, Dari, and English
\- Computer skills (including MS Word, Excel, Access, and Internet) are an advantage.
\- Ability to work closely, professionally, and constructively with all others regardless of nationality, ethnicity, gender, religion, race, tribe, or cultural background.