Hispanic Child Policy Project Director

Overview

Children First ambitiously works to remove the obstacles in the way of a great childhood for every child. We think big, creating new programs or systems at scale that offer children what they need, especially children of color and those growing in families with limited financial means. For instance, when working class families could not afford health insurance for their children, we led the grassroots campaign to create the PA Children’s Health Insurance Program that now makes it possible for nearly every child to be insured. Locally, we galvanized Philadelphians to support the sweetened beverage tax that gives 5,000 children free access to great pre-k programs.  

We are looking to add a leader to our team to work within the Hispanic community to create a shared vision for making the lives of Hispanic children better and uniting behind game changing policies that ensure Philadelphia’s Hispanic children are prepared for a lifetime of success. While the project we are undertaking is expected to take one year to complete, it will make a lasting contribution to the lives of these children.

Why you do this

The Hispanic Child Policy Project Director will lead a 12-month community input, data gathering and planning project to construct a preliminary policy and advocacy agenda focused on big system changes that improve the lives of Hispanic children. This is a unique opportunity if you are passionate about our children’s future, experienced in policy and advocacy, and adept at leading teams to get results for these children and pave the way for years of sustained and powerful advocacy to achieve the vision and system changes outline in the agenda.

Candidate profile

The right candidate is a leader with strong strategic thinking skills able to design and lead a 12-month community input, data gathering and planning project to construct a preliminary policy and advocacy agenda and proposed structure for supporting the agenda all aimed at moving Philadelphia closer to meeting the needs of Hispanic children in Philadelphia. We are looking for a leader with keen start-up instincts with a tested set of technical and interpersonal skills that can unify stakeholders. 

Professional Characteristics

• Engagement Process Management – Create and facilitate effective processes that identify and recruit key stakeholders, engage individuals in deliberations, track engagement, and pro-actively build sub-networks among those engaged.Writing/Presentation Development that Promotes Collaboration – Use technical writing and information presentation skills to create documents that support collaboration and decision-making including clear meeting agendas, meeting summaries, decision-making memos, and briefing documents that effectively present data, context and solutions. 
• Strategic Judgement and Action – Understand and manage the nuances associated with unifying disparate stakeholders for the purpose of policy and advocacy, be nimble and respond to needs of those with particular interests, identify and optimize opportunities associated with particularly stakeholder interests or resources, and pro-actively solve substantive conflicts using effective collaboration/mediation techniques.
• Start-up Instincts – Be a risk taker that is comfortable with launching ambiguous processes/ goals, and via effective and thoughtful processes achieve clarity with respect to purpose, goals, objectives, structure and accountability mechanisms.
• Managing Group Processes to Make Decisions – Experience designing effective meeting processes that gather useful data and enable a broad cross section of individuals to reach agreement on processes, problems and solutions.
• Patience and Persistence – Eagerness to spend time in one-to-one conversations with stakeholders to build engagement in policy/advocacy discussions, experience making effective cases for engagement and for policies, capacity to crystalize key points so that engagement is productive and leads to action.

Responsibilities

• Outreach and Engagement - Engage a broad cross section of Hispanic grasstops and emerging leaders and community residents in ongoing discussions about the data in the Pa’lante report with the goal of gathering qualitative data that comports or differs from the known data, identify areas where additional research is needed to inform effective policy solutions. 
• Promotion - Inform reporters, columnists and other key media stakeholders about the findings in the Pa’Lante report and work with them to create highly visible venues to increase public discussion of the report findings and need for action. Key outlets include Spanish speaking media, traditional media outlets and social media influencers.
• Relationship Development and Management - Build and maintain ongoing connections with peer organizations, individuals and collaborations conducting research about the Hispanic communities in Philadelphia and those examining the needs of children to discuss areas where more research is needed to either better understand challenges and/or inform policy solutions with the goal of meeting the full range of needs of Hispanic children. 
• Organization Building - Develop a proposed structure(s) for consideration among key stakeholders for guiding and advising the processes and approaches for steps 1-3 and manage the operation of the agreed to structure.
• Project Planning - Create and manage a 12-month timeline that supports the relationship management, information sharing and decision-making processes necessary to reach agreement on a preliminary policy agenda and organizational structure to launch the agenda.