Research Assistant

ABOUT VILLAGEREACH

VillageReach transforms health care delivery to reach everyone. We are driven by a vision of a world where each person has the health care needed to thrive. VillageReach’s goal is to reduce inequities in access to quality primary health care for 350 million people by 2030. We work with governments, the private sector, partners and communities to build responsive primary health care systems that deliver health products, information and services to the most under-reached. As a locally driven and globally connected organization, VillageReach has offices in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Kenya, Malawi, Mozambique and the United States. 

Summary

VillageReach invites qualified candidates to apply for the position of Research Assistant on the Research, Evidence, and Learning Team, to support our Pacific Northwest Health Equity Program. This program supports rural and urban local health departments across the region to strengthen their programs and services to improve health equity and better meet the needs of their communities.

Specifically, this Research Assistant position will provide support to a remote course that VillageReach is conducting for WA State local health department staff from February-July 2024. The course will be focused on public health program design and evaluation. Ideal candidates will bebased in Washington State,enrolled in a graduate-level program, and able to support for 6 months – and potentially beyond. The Research Assistant will report to a Manager on the Research, Evidence, and Learning Team.

We are interested in candidates who are representative of the diverse populations we support across Washington State. We strongly encourage candidates of all backgrounds and identities to apply. This is an immediate hire and therefore resumes will be reviewed on a rolling basis until January 15.

Description

Research Assistantsare paid staff that typically work part-time (15-20 hours per week) during graduate school. This Research Assistant willwork closely with the Pacific Northwest Health Equity Program to support work with local health departments across the PNW region in both rural and urban locations. The PNW Health Equity Program works in many different health areas such as immunization, preparedness, communicable disease and infection prevention, epidemiology, communications, and community health.

Specifically, this Research Assistant position will provide support to a remote course that VillageReach is conducting for WA State local health department staff from February-July 2024. Essential Duties and Responsibilities include the following. Other duties, responsibilities, and activities may change or be assigned at any time.

• Providing support in preparing course materials related to public health program design
• Coordinating slide submissions from different presenters; creating, editing and formatting slides; identifying and sharing course resources with participants
• Developing and facilitating interactive activities during synchronous online sessions
• Communicating and coordinating with course participants and guest speakers
• Tracking assignment submissions from course participants and following up as needed; developing feedback surveys and reviewing results; acting as a resource for course participants
• Sending out Teams/Zoom and meeting invites; providing technical assistance during Teams/Zoom calls
• Setting up and updating online course management system (e.g. SharePoint, Google Classroom, etc.) to store and share course materials
• Taking notes during sessions; sharing notes and action items after calls
• The Research Assistant may also support other PNW Health Equity Projects as time allows such as health assessments and program evaluations. Support needs may include:

• Literature reviews and landscape analyses
• Qualitative data collection (surveys, interviews, etc.) and analysis
• Quantitative data analysis and visualization
• Slide development, report writing and copyediting
• Contributing to business development such as identifying funding opportunities, grant proposal writing and reviewing

Competencies:

VillageReach has ten (10) Organizational Competencies that describe how we work together and get things done that are grouped into three strategic areas of Achieving Great Results, Setting Direction and, Bringing Others With you. For a full description, please download our Organizational Competency document.

Achieving Great Results:

Risk Taking and Innovation

• Key Behaviors: Comfort with ambiguity, curiosity, adaptability, unconstrained and undeterred creativity, resourcefulness.
• Business Judgement
• Key Behaviors: Getting to root causes, understanding environment, navigating complexity and ambiguity, entrepreneurial energy.

Building Strong Teams

• Key Behaviors: Trust in Subject Matter Experts (SME’s); radical candor to resolve conflict, hold each other accountable as colleagues, focused on results, commitment to mission.

Setting Direction:

Compelling Communication

• Key Behaviors: Clear and evidence-based communication, audience adaptability, curious listener. 
• Resilient Self Leadership
• Key Behaviors: Self-aware, plan how one shows up, emotionally intelligent, use one’s own agency and takes accountability.

Stewardship and Personal Alignment

• Key Behaviors: Take ownership, display ethical conduct, effective at resource management, alignment of personal objectives with organizational goals and mission, focus on continuous improvement and sustainability.

Bringing Others with You:

Influencing Leadership

• Key Behaviors: Cultivate trust, influences to make change, navigate the matrix structure.

Radical Partnership

• Key Behaviors: Share information and credit, address conflict, increase impact through collaboration, political and contextual awareness.

Cultivates a Growth Mindset

• Key Behaviors: Seek out diverse input, demonstrate flexibility in thinking and curiosity, embrace challenges, demonstrate persistence, seek learning opportunities.

Cultural Intelligence and Inclusion

• Key Behaviors: Continuous learning and ally-ship across cultural lines, challenge prejudice and bias, modeled in one’s own behavior.

Requirements

To perform this job successfully, an individual must be able to perform each essential duty satisfactorily. The requirements listed below are representative of the knowledge, skill and/or ability required. Reasonable accommodation may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform the essential functions.

Supervisory Responsibilities:

This position has no supervisory responsibilities

Education & Experience:

• Current graduate-level student studying public health, social work, epidemiology, public administration, or another relevant field, required.
• Understanding of health inequities with ability to apply an equity lens and anti-racism principles to all work, required.
• Demonstrated understanding and/or lived experience related to health challenges in rural, under-resourced, and low-income contexts in Washington State, preferred.
• Established cultural humility in partnering with racial, cultural and linguistically diverse groups, preferred.

Other Qualifications:

• Proficient in Microsoft Office Suite (Teams, Word, PowerPoint, Outlook, Excel), Zoom and comfortable in a fast-paced technical environment.
• Fluency in English required. Fluency in another language spoken in Washington State – particularly Spanish – is a plus.
• Self-motivated, highly detail oriented and able to keep track of multiple competing deadlines and priorities.
• Skillful written and verbal communication abilities and ability to synthesize and deliver information to diverse audiences in a clear and concise way.
• Comfortable taking on a role that will evolve/change based on emerging needs. Ability and desire to learn new skills and technical areas quickly while on the job.
• Ability to collect, analyze, and present quantitative and qualitative data from interviews and surveys, preferred. Experience using data analytics and visualization software a plus (PowerBI, R, Stata, AtlasTI, etc.).

Environment and Physical Demands:

VillageReach employees typically work in a shared, open environment with task and conference rooms accessible to employees for privacy and meetings. The noise level in the work environment is usually quiet. Due to the time zone differences across our USA, Kenya and Country Offices and location of other global staff, we have established core collaboration hours between 6am Pacific Time and 18:00 South Africa Time (GMT+1) Monday through Thursday. All staff, regardless of location are expected to be available between these hours. During Daylight Savings Time, this allows for 12 hours per week (3 hours/day) of collaboration time and during Standard Time, 8 hours (2 hours/day). We do not hold cross-office meetings on Friday.

This position requires prolonged periods of sitting at a desk and working on a computer. Must be able to lift up to 15 pounds at times.

COMMITMENT TO DIVERSITY & INCLUSION:

VillageReach is an Equal Employment Opportunity Employer committed to workforce diversity. We believe that diverse, equitably weighted perspectives foster an organizational capacity to create novel solutions that improve health in the most under-reached and hard-to-reach areas. To align our values, innovations and impact, VillageReach is committed to recruiting and retaining a diverse global workforce.

APPLICATION INFORMATION:

This is an immediate hire and therefore resumes will be reviewed on a rolling basis until January 15. To apply, please submit your resume and a cover letter plus responses to three short-answer questions to our online portal: http://www.villagereach.org/join-us/.  In your cover letter, please address (1)Why you are interested in this position, (2)What is one reason you think you’d be a good fit for this position and, (3)What is one strength you would bring to this position?

Hiring Process:

The hiring process will include the following steps:

1. Review submitted applications
2. Conduct 20-30 minute screening interviews for shortlisted candidates
3. Conduct skills and value-based interviews for 3-5 candidates.
4. Request that top candidates submit a practical assessment (designed to take no more than two hours to complete). Sometimes the assignment will occur before the interview.
5. Conduct final interview if necessary
6. Request references 
7. Make offer 
8. Conduct background check

Only shortlisted candidates will be contacted, but candidates who proceed to step 2 will be notified if they are not chosen for step 3.

Safeguarding:

VillageReach is committed to promoting the welfare of children, young people, adults, and beneficiaries with whom it engages. We expect everyone working with us to share this commitment through our code of conduct.All offers of employment will be subject to satisfactory references and appropriate screening checks, which may include criminal records. VillageReach participates in the Misconduct Disclosure Scheme and, in line with this Scheme, we will request information from job applicants’ previous employers about any findings of sexual exploitation, sexual abuse, and/or sexual harassment during employment, or incidents under investigation when the applicant left employment. By applying, the job applicant confirms his/her understanding of these recruitment procedures.

Benefits

Compensation & Benefits:

VillageReach has an established compensation structure that is based on the relevant market and internally transparent. The range for Research Assistant positions is $21/hour. We hire people into the established range based on one’s experience and education and considering internal equity. We do not inquire about salary history. Please refer to our compensation overview on our website for more information and for more information on employee benefits.