Community Outreach Specialist

Maternal and Child Health (MCH) Community Outreach Specialist

The Maternal and Child Health Division’s (MCH) Community Engagement and Systems Building team serves to connect families, organizations, and providers locally and statewide. This mission is accomplished by building and strengthening systems that serve Hoosiers throughout their lifespan.

Current initiatives include:

• My Healthy Baby, a system that identifies women early in their pregnancies and connects them with an OB navigator – a home visitor who provides personalized guidance and support to women during pregnancy and at least the first 6 to 12 months after the baby's birth.
• The MOMS Helpline, a program that helps reduce Indiana’s infant mortality rate with dedicated communication specialists that provide valuable pregnancy information, referrals, and accessible resources to pregnant women and families with babies.
• Help Me Grow is a system model that works to promote cross-sector collaboration in order to build efficient and effective early childhood systems that mitigate the impact of adversity and support protective factors among families, so that all children can grow, develop, and thrive to their full potential.

MCH seeks to grow its reach of these initiatives across the state and be more fully connected to families, providers, and social service organizations.

Purpose of Position/Summary:

The purpose of this position is to represent the Maternal and Child Health Division’s (MCH) Systems Building and Community Engagement Team (SBCE) in the community, to build relationships with a wide variety of local and state-wide partners, and to promote MCH projects and programs. Specifically, this position will focus on serving as the liaison between the community, families and the MCH system.

The Outreach and Education Specialist will support the awareness and visibility of My Healthy Baby (MHB), MOMS Helpline (MHL), and Help Me Grow (HMG) to the state. This position will fulfill this purpose by (1) representing MCH at numerous community events and meetings (2) engaging providers and families in the MCH system and (3) providing information, support, and connections to training opportunities to professionals statewide.

Essential Duties/Responsibilities:

• Be knowledgeable of community service programs and resources, behavioral health care, specialized children services, and education/training opportunities.
• Promote and support MOMS Helpline, Help Me Grow, and My Healthy Baby by attending conferences, expos, community events, and other networking opportunities that bring awareness to the program initiatives.
• Communicate effectively with families in the community and agency partners to ensure all needs are met, linking them to the MHB, Help Me Grow, and MOMs Helpline systems.
• Network with organizations and exhibitors at all conferences, expos, and health fair events.
• Participate in community committees within your assigned county block (as well as assist colleagues as needed).
• Participate in the development of Help Me Grow and other state activities.
• Work across the MCH Division with outreach efforts.
• Establish partnerships with social service agencies, including, but not limited to, WIC, hospitals, Healthy Families, Child Care Resource and Referral, Head Start, Early Head Start, NICUs, childcare providers and other providers within the Maternal and Child Health population.
• Identify Point of Contacts to community resources and maintain updated contact information in Excel spreadsheet
• Prepare and distribute MCH informational and promotional materials to providers that serve the MCH population throughout the state upon receiving requests from providers.
• Assist in preparing and updating presentations to deliver to community organizations.
• Assist or act as a substitute for the Community Outreach and Education Supervisor in work group meetings and/or monthly meetings that increase awareness of MHL, HMG, and MHB.
• Contribute to maintaining the Liv Pregnancy App by researching and assisting with publishing content that promotes and enhances maternal and child health

Events:

Seek and identify resource events, conferences in which all three systems will benefit from exhibiting.

· Assist in maintaining an updated spreadsheet of all distributed promotional items

Marketing

· Research and recommend ideas for any marketing initiatives.

· Assist with the development of creative program material (i.e. promotional items).

· Help coordinate all the artwork and creative process from the design phase to print phase.

· Collaborative with Office of Public Affairs (OPA) to maintain a positive rapport regarding feedback and suggestions about the artwork and design process.

Job Requirements:

• Minimum of Bachelor’s degree in any field of study related to human services, social services or early childhood education.
• Experience and interest in working with children and families.
• Valid Indiana Driver’s License and ability to travel throughout the state of Indiana.
• Maintain a flexible daily schedule and be available during non-traditional work hours and days.
• Willing to work evenings, and weekends.
• Remote position requires ALL TRAVEL to events, expos, conferences, etc.
• Minimum one year of coordinating experience and outreach efforts.
• Proficiency in Microsoft Office (Word, Excel, PowerPoint) and Outlook.
• Excellent organization and communication skills.
• Exemplary customer service skills in dealing with the public.
• Proven leadership ability and experience working in the community with social service agencies.
• Knowledge of community programs and resources available throughout the State.
• Knowledge of Indiana Medicaid health insurance policies.
• Ability to work as a team member and take direction, as well as the ability to take responsibility and make decisions.
• Excellent office skills and computer knowledge.
• Able to read, write and speak English. Able to communicate professionally verbally and in writing.
• Ability to comprehend oral and written directions, express ideas clearly and convey information.
• Able to handle multiple tasks and projects with limited direct supervision.
• Must be motivated to independently initiate and perform job duties.
• Must be able to assist in other duties, tasks, and projects as assigned by the Community Outreach and Education Supervisor.

Difficulty of Work:

This position requires significant attention to detail, the ability to work with internal and external partners, knowledge of MOMS Helpline, Help Me Grow, and My Healthy Baby performance objectives and interpretation of those objectives within a life course framework. The Outreach and Education Specialist must also be able to resolve problems, logically develop ideas, interpret policy, and have superb oral and written communication skills.

Personal Work Relationships:

The Outreach and Education Specialist maintains cooperative relationships with internal and external partners for daily problem solving and interpretation of regulations and policies; and must have the ability to work with a diverse group of employees, not only in function, but also in skill level.

Physical Effort:

Position requires the ability to sit for long periods and extensive use of computers. Travel is required to all community events and agency quarterly meetings. Some heavy lifting required when setting up and breaking down for exhibitions/events.