LOCATION:  Pettis County, Sedalia, Missouri, and serves the following counties: Pettis, Benton, Morgan, Moniteau, Saline and Carroll in the Central Missouri Region. 

POSITION RESPONSIBILITIES: The Nutrition and Health Education Specialist provides nutrition, health, food safety and physical activity promotion education with the following responsibilities:  

Program Development and Delivery 

·    Plan, deliver, coordinate and report adult educational programs in nutrition and health subject-matter areas (nutrition, health, food safety, food resource management, physical activity promotion) to Missouri citizens that result in individual, family and community impacts. A majority of programs delivered will be from a named program list. 

·    Possess group facilitation capabilities, public speaking abilities, knowledge of adult teaching/learning processes, distance learning techniques, Internet use, and meeting coordination are skills needed to ensure high audience satisfaction and learning. 

·    Provide information dissemination to groups as well as individuals in the nutrition and health subject-matter that result in individual, family and community impact.  

·    Demonstrate a commitment to diversity and inclusiveness in the work environment and in educational programming to meet the needs of all potential stakeholders and clients, including racial/ethnic minorities, underserved audiences, women and people with disabilities. 

Relationships and Communication 

·    Ability to develop coalitions and foster multi-disciplinary teamwork among colleagues, individuals, and organizations to enhance the learning environment within the community and state. This includes the growing Hispanic population.

·    Ability to work effectively within the higher education environment, with the general population, partner organizations, culturally diverse audiences and county extension councils. 

·    Able to communicate and promote the value and measurable impacts of extension education to key stakeholders, councils and targeted decision makers.  

·    Ability to develop and cultivate external funding sources to enhance local programs. 

·    Demonstrated ability in written and oral communication, organizational skills, interpersonal and public relations.  

·    Receives programmatic leadership from the Human Environmental Sciences program director.

Professional Expectations  

·    Remain up to date professionally on nutrition, health, physical activity and /or food safety research/techniques; engage in professional development; identify local program needs; and understand demographic trends. 

·    Develop and execute an annual work plan aligned with local, regional and state objectives of the Human Environmental Sciences program, in cooperation with regional director, program director, and colleagues. 

·    Ability to travel and to work flexible hours, including some evenings and weekends, to fulfill assigned responsibilities.  

OTHER RESPONSIBILITIES 

After a period of orientation, the successful candidate may serve as a county program director, carrying out programming, resource management and extension council relations’ duties.  This requires providing leadership to the development, implementation, and evaluation of extension programs in the county program plan through involving faculty, clientele, extension councils, advisory committees, community agencies, organizations and other citizens.  Also required is representation of the University of Missouri to county extension councils, county governments and other agencies in determining fiscal needs and securing and managing resources to carry out county extension programs.   

The specialist is expected to receive training and teach the “Focus on Kids” program to divorcing parents. See these websites for more information: http://missourifamilies.org/fok/ and http://extension.missouri.edu/cooper/fok/index.shtml 

QUALIFICATIONS 

·    An earned master's degree in nutrition, dietetics, health, exercise physiology, food science or related area with appropriate coursework exhibited is required.   

·    Professional experience in applying and transferring research-based knowledge in nutrition, health, food science, and physical activity promotion to audiences of all age groups. Experience in the providing educational programs is preferred. Bilingual Spanish/English speaking and cultural competency skills and experience desirable. 

ACCOUNTABILITY 

The nutrition and health education specialist is accountable to the regional director.