West and Central Africa Region: Senior Regional Child Protection Technical Advisor

TITLE: Senior Regional Child Protection Technical Advisor, WCA

TEAM/PROGRAMME: Programme Development and Quality West and Central Africa Regional Office

LOCATION: Any country where SCI is legally registered and can hire expatriate

GRADE: National/International

CONTRACT LENGTH: 2 years extendable

CHILD SAFEGUARDING: 

Level 3:  the post holder will have contact with children and/or young people either frequently (e.g. once a week or more) or intensively (e.g. four days in one month or more or overnight) because they work country programs; or are visiting country programs; or because they are responsible for implementing the police checking/vetting process staff.

ROLE PURPOSE:

The Senior Regional Child Protection Technical Advisor will use in-depth contextual understanding, technical expertise, and relationship building skills to provide a critical link between the Save the Children’s global and country level technical work, strengthening our technical offer at the regional level. The role will contribute to building capacity and fostering networks across country office technical experts. The role supports regional advocacy and influencing and contributes to strategic partnerships for new business development.  It provides input into the design and implementation of monitoring and evaluation systems to demonstrate impact, while sharing learning across country offices, and ensuring quality of our programmes. The role provides support to the sourcing of technical assistance for country office in both emergency and development programming. This role includes a strong focus on internal coordination and external representation on priority issues including integrated and nexus child protection programming and advocacy (humanitarian and development), including programming related to migration and displacement, and strengthening child protection systems. 

In the event of a major humanitarian emergency, the role holder will be expected to work outside the normal role profile and be able to vary working hours accordingly.

SCOPE OF ROLE:

Reports to: Regional Programme Quality & Development Director, with a dotted line into the Child Protection global technical team.

Staff reporting to this post: 

• Direct reporting (3): Regional Child protection specialist, Child protection Help desk, Mental Health and Psychosocial support advisor. 
• Technical support line to (9) Child Protection Experts in Country Offices.

Budget Responsibilities: None

Role Dimensions: The role is expected to foster relationships with a wide range of internal and external stakeholders including Save the Children members, the SCI central Programme Quality & Impact team, advocacy colleagues, Regional Advisors in other sectors, technical counterparts in other organisation, donors etc. In particular it is expected to maintain close contact with and accountability to the regional office and the Global Head of Child Protection Programs in the global thematic Child Protection team.

Context : Humanitarian / Humanitarian and development

Scope: Regional  

Primary Technical area: Child Protection

Primary Sub technical area: Prevention and response to violence against children

Secondary Sub technical area: Strengthening Child Protection systems, Migration and Displacement

Award funded: 50% to 60%

KEY AREAS OF ACCOUNTABILITY:

A. Strategy & Technical Leadership:

• Overall thought leadership of Child Protection in the West and Central Africa Region.
• Develop and monitor the implementation of a Regional Child Protection Strategy in consultation with other TAs in Child Protection, and country offices. 
• Capacity build, mentor and build networks across Country Office Child Protection technical experts in the region; identify top talents, capacity gaps and facilitate opportunities and systems for learning
• Facilitate cross-Country Office learning between Child Protection technical experts in the region; identify creative ways to build capacity, share learning, best practices and collectively address challenges
• Bridge the Global-County divide by supporting technical experts to understand and 
• contextualise global guidance, learning and evidence whilst also supporting CO technical experts to join discussions and forums, to contribute to global guidance, learning and evidence to ensure that learning from the region informs our global evidence and strategic direction in Child Protection. 

B. Programme Quality in Design & Implementation: 

• Support Country Offices with the design, proposal development and donor engagement for key strategic programmes and opportunities; and support Country Offices to develop concepts that can be ‘pitched’ to donors. Support Country Offices in their implementation and monitoring of key strategic programmes, to ensure high quality delivery, monitoring and evaluation. Ensure that gender, disability and resilience considerations are reflected in our programme design and implementation. 
• Promote a Child Protection Systems Strengthening approach as the overarching framework, that supports working in collaboration and partnership with governments and regional bodies, working towards impact, scale and sustainability.
• Oversee the design, implementation & monitoring of regional Child Protection programmes; ensure that sectoral and internal technical best practice (including Save the Children’s Common Approaches) is applied in collaboration with relevant Country Office technical colleagues. 
• Support to CO implementation and monitoring of regional/multi-country programmes, to ensure high quality delivery, monitoring (including Quality benchmarks) and evaluation 
• Explore innovative opportunities and trends which could be applied in Child Protection programming in the region and support country offices to pilot, and document, new or updated tools and guidance, especially with a focus on gender, disability, and resilience. 
• Work with Child Rights Governance colleagues to ensure that a rights based approach is reflected in our programme design and implementation (in line with our child rights programming approach), with a strong focus on child participation.
• Respond to requests for technical expertise from Country Offices in the region where possible/appropriate through Save the Children’s flexible Technical Expertise systems (e.g. Global Humanitarian Surge Platform; TE Request platform), and identify support from others for key regional technical needs.
• Support Emergency preparedness, recovery, and where appropriate response, including country office capability building for humanitarian response, emergency preparedness planning.

C. Evidence & Organisational Learning: 

• Providing support for quality benchmark development and monitoring and supporting high-quality evaluations and research at CO level.
• Drive oversight of participation in technical working groups & communities of practice on behalf of movement, leading regional groups where appropriate, promoting innovation and collaboration.
• Driving regional and multi-country child protection research agendas; drawing together evidence of impact and facilitating cross-CO learning, including common approach research and learning agendas.
• Ensure that CO and regional lessons and operational realities contribute to global level technical thought leadership, advocacy, Common Approaches & standard setting. 

D. External Engagement: 

• In collaboration with regional New Business Development, contribute to regional strategic partnerships; identify partners and donors to strengthen our Child Protection portfolio in the region and position ourselves as a thought leader in child protection to potential donors.
• In collaboration with Advocacy and Child Rights Governance colleagues, influence key regional stakeholders and policymakers to ensure they reflect the needs of children in the countries where we work. Through collaborative regional partnerships, including representation on regional child protection clusters, working groups and technical fora.

E. Develop the capacity of, mentor and hold Team accountable for:

• Role modelling and leading the way on the values and ways of working within the Save the Children context and approaches
• Ensure appropriate staffing of CP team, and engagement of additional technical support when needed to deliver quality project design and delivery.
• Ensure that all CP staff understand and are able to perform their role in delivering first-class, quality programs for children in both development and emergency contexts through effective onboarding and clear workplans.
• Manage individual and team performance using principles of leadership agility and Save the Children’s performance management system.
• Ensure that staff proactively build and maintain technical, managerial and leadership skills, including competencies in child rights programming, child safeguarding and Common Approaches, providing coaching opportunities when needed.

BEHAVIOURS (Values in Practice): 

Accountability:

• holds self-accountable for making decisions, managing resources efficiently, achieving and role modelling Save the Children values
• holds Child Protection colleagues and partners in the region accountable to deliver on their responsibilities - giving them the freedom to deliver in accordance with the context, providing the necessary professional development to improve performance and applying appropriate consequences when results are not achieved.

Ambition:

• sets ambitious and challenging goals for themselves and for Child Protection programming in the region, takes responsibility for their own professional development and encourages Technical Experts in the region to do the same
• widely shares the vision for Save the Children, engages and motivates others
• future orientated, thinks strategically and on a global scale.

Collaboration:

• builds and maintains effective relationships, with their team, colleagues, technical advisors and working groups, Members and external partners and supporters
• values diversity, sees it as a source of competitive strength
• approachable, good listener, easy to talk to.

Creativity:

• develops and encourages new and innovative solutions
• willing to take disciplined risks.

Integrity:

• honest, encourages openness and transparency; demonstrates highest levels of integrity
• The post holder must commit to work in an international agency that respects racial diversity and fights racism in all forms; and to model positive behaviours and respect to all colleagues, partners, and communities. 

QUALIFICATIONS: 

• Master’s degree in social work, Psychology, Child and Youth Development or other relevant social science degrees, or equivalent experience 
• Professional qualification in Social Work, child protection, child welfare or related area 
• Demonstrated program design, monitoring and evaluation skills;
• Demonstrated advocacy experience, preferably at regional and international levels;
• Ability to promote partnerships and mobilize resources/fundraise for program implementation;
• Strategic thinking and capacity to work effectively with a range of actors across Save the Children;
• Ability to fluently work in French and English

EXPERIENCE AND SKILLS: 

• At least 7 years’ experience of working internationally in Child Protection in emergency or development settings
• Understanding of the Child Protection sector in West and Central Africa
• Familiar with child protection systems, with social work and the role of the social service workforce at all levels, with approaches such as case management, positive parenting programmes, community level child protection and with integration of child protection with education and other sectors. 
• Significant experience in training, capacity building, and mentoring
• Experience of the regional context, capacity and policy analysis, and influencing and advocacy at regional/international level in order to hold duty bearers to account to realise children’s rights.
• Skilled at networking, representation and partnership development in order promote learning, strengthen civil society and mobilise resources. 
• Able to generate and use data and evidence to innovate, deliver, learn and share what works and what doesn’t work for children
• Experience of promoting quality and impact through at least one cross-cutting area: gender equality and inclusion, adaptive and safer programming; child rights; disability; migration and displacement. 
• Demonstrated program design, monitoring and evaluation skills, including designing pathways to sustainable impact at scale.   
• Experience of supporting humanitarian preparedness, response and recovery
• Track record in successful business development/fundraising and donor engagement with regional donors as relevant and other donors, such as OAK Foundation, Optimus, EU, DFID, SIDA, and / or USAID
• Experience of strategy development and planning 
• Fluent in French and English including a high level of writing skills. 

Desirable: 

• High-level leadership and coordination skills; providing others with a clear direction. Ability to motivate and empower others; 
• Ability to create and encourage a climate of team-working and collaboration in a multi-cultural environment;
• Capacity to analyse and integrate diverse and complex quantitative and qualitative data from a wide range of sources for use in knowledge management, communications and evidence-based advocacy;
• Capacity to quickly build rapport with individuals and groups. Skills to actively nurture good relationships with people across all organizational levels, external partners and other regional stakeholders;
• Ability to negotiate effectively by creatively exploring a range of possibilities to achieve aims;
• Ability to work independently and under pressure, to deal with conflict situations and to apply problem solving skills

KEY COMPETENCIES: 

Technical Competencies:

• Promotes optimum levels of child development             
• Works to strengthen the components and linkages within the child protection system              
• Prevents violence abuse exploitation and neglect of children              
• Responds effectively and appropriately to violence, abuse, exploitation and neglect of children

Generic Competencies:

• Being the Voice of Children: Utilises being part of a global movement to promote change in the policy and public sphere on child related issues
• Advancing Equality & Inclusion: Drives an enabling environment for gender equality and inclusion, and prioritising the most deprived and marginalised children
• Builds & Strengthens Partnerships: Inspires others to embrace the values and principles that underpin partnerships and the localisation agenda
• Child Rights: Promotes the rights of children in own work and in work with colleagues and peers

Additional Job Responsibilities: 

The duties and responsibilities as set out above are not exhaustive and the role holder may be required to carry out additional duties within reasonableness of their level of skills and experience.

Equal Opportunities: 

The role holder is required to carry out the duties in accordance with the SCI Equal Opportunities and Diversity policies and procedures.

Child Safeguarding: 

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.

Safeguarding our Staff: 

The post holder is required to carry out the duties in accordance with the SCI anti-harassment policy

Health and Safety: 

The role holder is required to carry out the duties in accordance with SCI Health and Safety policies and procedures.

Female candidates are strongly encouraged to apply.

ABOUT US: 

The Organization: 

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.

How to Apply: 

Please apply using a cover letter and up-to-date CV as a single document through this link: https://hcri.fa.em2.oraclecloud.com/hcmUI/CandidateExperience/en/sites/CX_1/job/1822. Please also include details of your current remuneration and salary expectations.

A copy of the full role profile can be found at www.savethechildren.net/jobs.

We need to keep children safe so our selection process reflects our commitment to the protection of children from abuse.