Essential skills required for a healthy baby program coordinator

Skills Inventory

The Department of Wilson has just launched a new program called "Partners for a Healthy Baby." Since the program is a newly launched program, the organization intends to select a skilled and experienced staff who will be in charge of running the program. Essentially, a skilled and efficient staff is very critical for effective management of a program. Presently, the Department of Wilson is looking for a "Program Coordinator for a Healthy Baby" who will effectively facilitating and coordinating a Healthy Baby program that the Department has just launched.

Objective of this paper is to carry out the inventory skills for a Program Coordinator. The paper uses critical thinking analysis to describe the essential skills associated with a new service as well as analysis on how the skills could be beneficial to the organization.

Skills Required for the Program Coordinator

The position of a Program Coordinator is very essential for the smooth running of the organization. The roles of a Program Coordinator are to organize and coordinate the general operations, planning as well as development of the program specific to the Healthy Baby. The Health Baby Program Coordinator will provide a dual role of overseeing both the facilitative and administrative functions of the program. Moreover, the program coordinator will be responsible in the annual work to achieve goals and objective of the program.

The required Baby Health Program Coordinator should possess both the education qualification and skills to carry out the jobs effectively as described below:

Successful candidate should possess the following qualifications:

Four-year degree in social study, public health, communications, education, or related field from an accredited college or university.

Have a minimum of three years of working experience that is related public health program;

Possesses inter-personal relation and good communication skills

Have knowledge of public health program delivery with effective usage of English and grammar.

Have a special training or experience in pre-natal health services

Ability to interpret, applies data, draw conclusions and make recommendations from the data.

Ability to maintain and establish relationships with medical professionals, health service providers, and social service professionals.

Ability to evaluate and establish program performances.

Having essential skills in the Microsoft Office and other basic software to develop a written document.

Several benefits the Program Coordinator will provide for the organization. First, the Program Coordinator will assist the organization to organize and coordinate the general operations as well as facilitating planning and development specific to the Health Baby program. Moreover, the Program Coordinator will assist in providing both facilitative and coordinating roles for the organizations. Additionally, the Program Coordinator will provide supervision for contracted support staff. The Coordinator will also assist the organization in developing the strategies plans in order to engage prenatal and postnatal participants.

The benefits that the Program Coordinator will deliver to the organization and the skills and requirements that the prospective program coordinator should possess require an evaluation of the skills of the current staff of the Department in order to identify which of the staff possess the skills of a Program Coordinator. The paper evaluates the current job description to ascertain whether the current staff can fill the position.

Social Work II: Duties and Responsibility

One of the duties and Responsibilities of the Social Worker II within the organization is to explain care service provision to the clients. Moreover, the Social Worker determines the needs of the organization and inform client about their eligibility. Additionally, the Social Worker II arranges for the day care placement and makes a liaison with clients. The Social Worker II also request day care service for clients. The worker also refers clients to other community agency in order to receive Crisis/Diversionary, Food Stamps, and Children

Services, Medicaid and Protective Services. (Education and Communication Task Group, 2007). When funds are limited, it is the responsibility of the Social Worker II to put the client on a waiting list, which should be maintained based on the target group priority. Moreover, the Social Work II is able to use computer systems and other hardware such as fax machine, copy machine, DOT Matrix, finger printing, telephone system, film projector, VCR/TV combination and laser printer.

This paper suggests that the organization should assign the job to an existing Child Care Social Worker. The paper suggests that position should be assigned to the Social Worker II because of the accumulated experience that the Social Worker II has already acquired within the organization. Moreover, the Social Worker II has already acquired the necessary skills that the Program Coordinator should have to carry out the job effectively. More importantly, the educational requirements of the Social Worker II and Program Coordinator are similar. For example, the Social Worker II has already acquired the working knowledge of the organizational social work principles that will assist him carrying out the new position effectively. The Social Work II has also possessed the working knowledge of private and government organization. Moreover, the educational requirement shows that the Social Worker II has Bachelor degree from an accredited college or university and one year of social service or social work experience.

The paper has identified the skills of the Social Worker matching the skills of the Project Coordinator because both categories of the job duties are interrelated. The organization will derive several benefits from converting the current staff to the post of the Program Coordinator rather than employing a new staff for the new position.

First, the cost of training of a new worker will be reduced since the organization will use the current staff for the post of the Program Coordinator. The current staff has already understood the vision and mission of the organization. Employing a new staff from an outside will incur the organization the additional training costs. Moreover, by converting the current staff to the post of a Program Coordinator will boost the work morale of the staff.

However, the program coordinator still need to undergo further training to implement the job effectively since the post will involve additional responsibilities and functions.

Conclusion

The paper carries out the skill inventory for the new position of the Program Coordinator. The paper identifies the Social Worker II as one of the best workers to fill the new position. The selection of the Social Worker II is based on his accumulated working experience coupled with the education requirements. The benefit of using the current staff is that it will lower the costs of training of the new Program Coordinator. However, the new worker still needs to undergo further training to carry out the job effectively.

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