Job Details

The Opportunity
Save the Children is the world’s leading independent organization for children, working in 117 countries with more than 25,000 staff. In April 2020, Save the Children launched the Center for Utilizing Behavioral Insights for Children (CUBIC) in Asia. CUBIC is the first “nudge unit” in the world to focus specifically on the most marginalized children’s rights and welfare. Our goal is to apply behavioral science in order to reach more children and have an even greater impact on their lives.
In 2020/21, SC Philippines and CUBIC utilized a small amount of Sponsorship funding to adapt Tips by Text, a text messaging program created by Stanford University, to help parents learn and conduct easy activities with children 3-5 years old to support early literacy and numeracy skills development and apply positive parenting techniques. Together we ran a 40-week randomized control trial including three arms and 1800+ families to test whether the text messages had an impact on children’s learning and development. One treatment arm included only text messages, while the second treatment arm included text messages plus a short bi-monthly call from a parent/caregiver coach. We then evaluated children’s development via a new phone-based remote learning assessment tool.
Several issues limited the pilot. Many parents could not remember receiving the 3 messages each week, either due to lack of engagement or because they actually didn’t receive them, due to mobile coverage issues. Limited access to phones and phone-sharing behaviors also introduced unforeseen complications. The timing of the intervention was not suitable for many caregivers and some parents thought the SMS was a mobile scam. Further to these intrinsic design issues, COVID-19 limited monitoring of engagement and led to the dilution of messages as more were added to support parents at this time. The fact that schools were also closed and assigned tasks to parents may have given the control group similar inputs from those received from the treated group.
For this reason, Save the Children Philippines in collaboration with CUBIC, decided to try an innovation of this project with the following difference. Focusing more on newborn and tackling Direct-Infant Talking DIT for newborns, adding a light and clear enrollment at health facilities that avoid confusion. The intervention will be based on the most recent findings on ECD information and texting intervention studies, in particular on a study in Ghana that focus on informing mother on the importance of IDS, and the work of Tips by Text carried out by Loeb and coauthors.
Save the Children’s Center for Utilizing Behavioral Insights for Children (CUBIC) is collaborating with Save the Children Philippines to identify structural, informational, and behavioral barriers that influence parents’ engagement in talking to their children and engaging more in 1:1 activity since the first days of life. We decided to run a short version of our program (4-6 weeks and around 200 people), conduct qualitative work, and re-design the final intervention that will be delivered in December.
 
Key Responsibilities
For this project, we are looking for a Graduate Research Assistant that will support the project lead in the work of preparation and coordination of the fieldwork and keep the relationship with the consultant on the ground. 
The Volunteer will be integrated into the 12-person CUBIC team and will have the opportunity to get involved in participating in the rest of CUBIC activities.  The expectation for the Volunteer is that s/he would primarily contribute to:

1. Support in the drafting of survey tools
2. Conduct power calculation
3. Conduct or support a literature review
4. Support data analysis with data cleaning and high-frequency data checks
5. Support with other tasks for the research protocol
6. Support implementation design 
7. Realize a simple presentation for a non-expert's audience

 
Time Requirements
Part time role – appropriate for someone with at least some data experience. Perfect position for someone that wants to acquire experience conducting research and being part of a project that will go from research protocol to end line in 9 months. The project will primarily focus on the academic side of the research but will offer a very interesting view of the difficulties and realizing intervention on the ground when connected with a research experiment.
The commitment is for around 18h a week for a minimum of 6 months. There is going to be some flexibility toward the right candidate, but some flexibility is also expected given the stage of the research project. 
Conditions
The Volunteer would be engaged on a voluntary basis (non-paid) and would sign a volunteer contract with Save the Children. The working schedule would be determined by the Volunteer; however, attendance during regular team calls and calls with our country partner teams would be important.
 
The Organisation
We employ approximately 25,000 people across the globe and work on the ground in over 100 countries to help children affected by crises, or those that need better healthcare, education and child protection. We also campaign and advocate at the highest levels to realise the right of children and to ensure their voices are heard. 
We are working towards three breakthroughs in how the world treats children by 2030:

• No child dies from preventable causes before their 5th birthday 
• All children learn from a quality basic education and that,
• Violence against children is no longer tolerated 

We know that great people make a great organization, and that our employees play a crucial role in helping us achieve our ambitions for children. We value our people and offer a meaningful and rewarding career, along with a collaborative and inclusive workplace where ambition, creativity, and integrity are highly valued. 
 
Application Information
Please apply using a cover letter and up-to-date CV as a single document. A copy of the full role profile can be found at www.savethechildren.net/careers
Closing Date for Application: 27 August 2023
We need to keep children safe so our selection process, which includes rigorous background checks, reflects our commitment to the protection of children from abuse.
 
All employees are expected to carry out their duties in accordance with our global anti-harassment policy.