Job opportunity - Research and Evaluation Specialist, BC Healthy Communities

Position: Research and Evaluation Specialist

Hours: 35 hours per week (1FTE)

Location: Victoria, BC

Application deadline: June 21, 2019

Desired start date: July/August

BACKGROUND BC Healthy Communities (BCHC) is a province-wide not-for-profit organization that facilitates the ongoing development of healthy, thriving and resilient communities. We provide a range of services, programs, events and resources to support communities, local governments and multi-sectoral groups to collaborate around a shared vision for a common purpose.

We are seeking to hire an Research and Evaluation Specialist to join our innovative team in our Victoria office located at TheDock: Centre for Social Impact.

POSITION OVERVIEW

As the Research and Evaluation Specialist, you play an important role in analyzing and evaluating the impact BCHC’s work has across the province. You provide evaluation guidance and oversight to the BCHC staff team and are responsible for ensuring that all evaluation activities support the evaluation framework. You lead and oversee the analysis and ‘sense-making’ of our data, and you , understand and translate evaluative data into a range of useful tools to support learning, engagement, communications and overall strengthening of our healthy communities’ offerings.

This position is based in our Victoria office and your portfolio largely consists of overseeing our provincial PlanH program as well as for the organization overall. In this role you oversee data analysis: identifying patterns and themes, and translating qualitative and quantitative data into vivid stories and informative reports. We are looking for someone who has a passion for, and experience with evaluation related to healthy communities, community development, public health, and planning.

REPSONSIBILITIES

Evaluation and Reporting

 Oversee the implementation of BCHC’s evaluation plan (strategies, tools, processes-e.g. integrate lessons learned from process data to improve how we work );

 Participate in and lead evaluation planning sessions with BCHC team members and partner/funder related committees;

Develop and refine data collection tools and methods (e.g. develop evaluation questions, community reporting templates/surveys) disseminate data into evaluative reports and updates (including qualitative and quantitative information) as per reporting and other requirements;

 Coordinate and manage data collection and specific data intake timelines for all BC Healthy Community grant programs and other deliverables;

 Analyze evaluative data, identifying patterns and emerging themes; provide overarching ‘sense-making’;

 Provide guidance and work with BCHC staff to compile data, statistics and other information from a variety of sources (event evaluations, mid-term and final reports, surveys, focus groups, case studies etc.) that support programs and initiatives;

 Develop presentations on evaluation outcomes to share at meetings and events; and

 Provide evaluation summaries and reports for staff, funders, and other.

Communications

 Work to provide key linkages between evaluation data and communications tactics for knowledge translation and broader dissemination; and

 Provide strategic thinking around data such as stories, quotes, statistics that are helpful for our communications (ie quotes for social media and our website, interesting statistics around patterns identified, etc) and for funders and other.

Research and Direct Community Support

 Provide research advise and support (i.e. conducting literature reviews on content areas, analyzing survey data) to support BCHC projects as needed;

 Acts as primary BCHC contact for PlanH grant recipients offering direct community support communities specific to evaluation (such as logic modelling, evaluation planning etc) as needed/requested.

Other

 Provides overall supports for BCHC program and project activities and initiatives as needed, works closely with the BCHC team to support strategic planning, and overall organizational learning and development.

PARTICIPATES AS A MEMBER OF A TEAM

 Attend, participate and contribute in team meetings, strategic meetings and planning sessions;

 Collaborate with staff and colleagues to achieve a coordinated approach;

 Remain current with best practices, trends and opportunities to increase efficiencies;

 Maintain a respectful, courteous and team spirit environment; and

 Other duties as required.

REQUIRED KNOWLEDGE, EXPERIENCE AND SKILLS

 Strong knowledge of, and experience with, community capacity building, community development, public health, equity, planning;

 Knowledge of BC local governments, health authorities and first nations an asset;  Strong critical thinking/analytical skills;  Ability to analyze complex scenarios, troubleshoot and make recommendations in alignment with the program and organizational vision;

 Self directed learner who is also a team player who works well in a collaborative team environment;

 High attention to detail and accuracy;

 Flexibility: able to adapt to changing timelines, deliverables, different people and work assignments;

 Excellent communication and interpersonal skills;

 Effective project/time management skills; and

 Excellent writing skills;

REQUIRED TRAINING AND EXPERTISE

 Masters level education/experience in related field (Public health, healthy communities, community development, social sciences, planning, etc);

 Minimum 3 years of related experience;

 Adept at evaluation and analysis (i.e. with developing and implementing various methodologies, logic model development, data analysis);

 Effective project and data management experience;

 Experience making evaluation practical and feasible; and

 Working knowledge and experience with NVivo, Survey Gizmo, Microsoft Excel/Office and other data analysis applications.

LIFE AT BCHC BCHC offers a progressive workplace culture that encourages leadership and learning. The benefits of working at BCHC include:  Supportive, respectful team that ‘walks-the-talk’ around personal health and sustainability;  Innovative workspace at TheDock: Centre for Social Impact in Victoria, BC;  Opportunities for professional development to improve your existing knowledge and passion for healthy communities; and  Health benefits package.

At BCHC we value diversity and we foster a workplace in which individual differences are recognized, appreciated, respected and responded to in ways that fully develop and utilize each person’s talents and strengths. We encourage applications from all qualified applicants and will take into consideration any accommodation measures required to enable candidates to be assessed in a fair and equitable manner.

Compensation within competitive range and commensurate based on experience.

APPLICATION INSTRUCTIONS

Title the subject line of your email: Research and Evaluation Specialist <First Name Last Name>

Please include your last name in the title of your cover letter/resume- ie. <Smith Cover BCHC>

Send a cover letter and resume to: Jodi Mucha at Jodi@bchealthycommunities.ca

Application Deadline: June 21, 2019 at Midnight PST.