Title: Research and Evaluation Analyst
Reports to: Director, Knowledge Mobilization and Program Development
Position time: 4 days per week, permanent
Location: Toronto
Application deadline: January 16, 2014 (extended)
THE ORGANIZATION
Kids Help Phone is a Canadian and world leader, known for our expertise in providing vital, innovative counselling services to children and youth. Since 1989 we have offered children, teens and young adults in Canada a critical lifeline of hope and support, through our free, anonymous and confidential service. Our professional counsellors support the mental health and well-being of young people ages five to 20, in urban, rural, and remote communities, by providing one-on-one counselling, information and resources online and by phone. Our internationally recognized, award-winning websites are considered a model of child-focused interactive design, and offer online counselling forums and engaging, therapeutic games, tools and information to encourage resilience and self-care. A community-based national charity, Kids Help Phone receives no core government funding and relies on community and corporate support to keep our essential service available. We’re there for the 6.5 million young people in Canada, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, in English and in French.
THE OPPORTUNITY
The Research and Evaluation Analyst will research, design, implement, and manage service and organizational evaluations that allow Kids Help Phone to better understand the effectiveness of services provided. As well, this role is responsible for communicating evaluation results to a wide range of internal and external stakeholders. The incumbent will also be responsible for assisting in program improvements based on evaluation findings. Finally, the Analyst will be responsible for looking at youth trends in mental health and well-being and reporting back to help support the work of Kids Help Phone’s professional counsellors.
RESPONSIBILITIES
Duties of this position involve the development and implementation of evaluation projects, from conceptualization, logic model development, design, selection of methodologies, implementation, data gathering and analysis, to reporting, dissemination and developing program improvement measures. These projects will include evaluating Kids Help Phone’s core services as well as specific programs and projects undertaken by the organization.
As well, the incumbent will develop policies and procedures for evaluation research, including ethics in gathering, storing, using, reporting on, and granting external access to client data, and conduct literature reviews, environmental scans and key informant interviews related to child helpline service provision and program evaluation research.
An important part of this position is to ensure that professional standards of ethics in research involving humans, minors and vulnerable populations, based on acceptable and recognized social science and regulatory Association/College standards are upheld in all evaluation work.
Key functions include collecting and interpreting evaluation data to optimize our core services and new programs and initiatives, building organizational capacity to evaluate, communicating results to a range of stakeholders through reports and briefing materials, and working with internal teams to clarify evaluation findings and the expectations of the sector.
This individual will work with the Major and Annual Gifts (MAG) team as they develop the evaluation/work plan components of new grants and assist them to monitor the progress of funded programs and projects, ensuring appropriate measures are being gathered and reported on. The position will also involve working with other teams to assist with content for stewardship reports for supporters and reviewing language and messaging related to program impacts, ensuring that pertinent information is available to share with the broader organization.
We are seeking an individual who can represent Kids Help Phone with external partners, experts within the child helpline and community social services sectors, committees and working groups related to service evaluation or research. This person will also promote a culture of evaluative reflection and learning among staff and volunteers, which may include developing and presenting trainings.
Part of this role also involves supporting a strategy to assess opportunities to take part in research, monitoring the use of evaluative measures by other youth-serving and/or counselling organizations and sharing with fundraising teams, any external information that would be useful to refining and strengthening Kids Help Phone’s case for support.
CANDIDATE REQUIREMENTS
We seek a very skilled candidate with graduate-level education in a relevant discipline (i.e. psychology or social work) and five (5) years of experience in community –based research and evaluation projects as well as three (3) years of experience in the youth-serving, mental health or social service sectors and professional writing experience.
This position requires an in-depth knowledge of standards in social service program evaluation design (i.e. outcome evaluation, logic models and theories of change) with strong working knowledge of counselling theories and frameworks relevant to Kids Help Phone, specifically, crisis intervention, Solution Focused Brief Therapy (SFBT) and Narrative Therapy.
The candidate must possess exceptional critical thinking and analytical skills and demonstrate the ability to synthesize complex information and translate it into materials that are accessible to a range of stakeholders.
Sound knowledge of current public policy and mental health issues focusing on children, youth and their families in Canada and strong computer skills, including strong grounding in Microsoft Office Suite particularly Excel, SPSS and NVivo (or other qualitative data analysis programs) are essential to success in this position.
THE APPLICATION PROCESS
If you are inspired by our cause and are ready to contribute to a dynamic organization dedicated to improving the mental health and well-being of 6.5 million young people throughout Canada who have access to our professional service, please forward your resume and cover letter in one document to [email protected] by January 8, 2014 quoting Research and Evaluation Analyst, in the subject line.
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