Save the Children
TEAM/PROGRAMME: Program Quality and Development (PDQ), Middle East and Eastern Europe Regional Office
LOCATION: Home based Job , able to work in CET time zone
GRADE: 3
CONTRACT LENGTH: 12 months. Role subject to funding
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 Regional Accountability & Child Participation Adviser will work to put the children and communities we serve at the centre of our Ukraine Refugee Response through supporting the response to integrate child-friendly, gender-sensitive, inclusive, accessible and appropriate accountability systems and child participation. The post holder will play a facilitative role to support thematic technical advisers, programme implementation teams, safeguarding, MEAL and advocacy teams to integrate meaningful and ethical child participation within their work. The post holder will be expected to mentor and/or capacity build response, existing country programme and partner staff. The Accountability & Child Participation Adviser will participate in relevant Communication & Community Engagement Working Group on behalf of Save the Children (when established) to advocate for child-sensitive accountability approaches in the wider response.
This role is intended to support Save the Children’s commitments to the Core Humanitarian Standard and the Grand Bargain Participation Revolution, as well as our commitment to put child rights at the centre of what we do.
SCOPE OF ROLE
Reports to: Regional MEAL Advisor, Ukraine and Regional Refugee Response (MEEE RO)
Number of direct reports: Regional Accountability Officer and dotted lines with country / response level accountability focal points
KEY AREAS OF ACCOUNTABILITY
Leadership and strategy
Champion accountability to children and communities and child participation within the response, and support all members of the response team to understand their roles and responsibilities in this area
Support the response to develop and implement a strategy that is informed by children’s voices and promotes their rights
Ensure plans to promote accountability to affected populations (AAP) and child participation are documented in the strategy and adequately budgeted for masters budgets
Contribute to response strategy development by advising on identifying appropriate AAP and child participation approaches for different phases of the response (from the initial phase to longer term recovery efforts), recognising that approaches should evolve over time.
Champion the use of accountability data and child/community participation analysis to influence strategic decision-making and advocacy.
External engagement and partnerships
Actively participate in the Communication & Community Engagement Working Group. Share planned information campaigns, findings from AAP/CCE assessments, analysis of community feedback, or monitoring of child and community participation strategies to enable shared learning.
Advocate for the voices and perspectives of children to be considered during development on Humanitarian Needs Overviews, Humanitarian Response Plans, and similar documents.
Share learning and advice on child-sensitive accountability approaches and child participation with other members of the CCE WG
Where inter-agency or common feedback platforms/mechanisms exist or are planned, influence the development of a mechanism that is safe and accessible for children
Support the development of safe inter-agency feedback referral mechanisms, in collaboration with the safeguarding team and SMT
Engage with the Education Cluster to collaborate on child participation and accountability plans (in line with the Global Education Cluster’s focus on this area)
Identify local, national and international organisations with whom Save the Children can partner with to advance child and community participation and AAP
General implementation
Analyse, using secondary data as well as primary data where required, what accountability approaches would be relevant and appropriate. This analysis should pay attention to the situation for children and for deprived and marginalised groups. This tailored political economy analysis should consider community dynamics, social norms, cultural beliefs, superstitions and other anthropological factors that could impact programmes.
Develop a context-specific action plan to improve AAP and child participation for the Ukraine Country Office and Regional Response Teams, based on operational modalities, community preferences and global good practice. The Action Plan should have clear deliverables, indicators and timeframes to enable a timely marked improvement in performance.
Identify additional resources (human, financial, technical, etc.) needed to implement the action plan and explore options to mobilise these.
Ensure AAP and child participation are included in proposal design and proposal budgets.
Information Sharing
Analyse the SC ‘Needs Snapshot’ to identify information needs and appropriate and trusted information sharing approaches
In collaboration with child safeguarding and the communications team, lead on the development of child-friendly information sharing for the response as a whole, to ensure that children and communities are aware of Save the Children, its work and what they should expect (including expected behaviour of staff and volunteers)
Advise thematic and project teams on good practice in child-friendly information sharing
Lead on child-friendly Communicating with Communities work (for example, supporting dissemination of life-saving information), working in collaboration with other Communicating with Disaster Affected Communities Network members and the CCE Working Group
Child and community participation
Work in a facilitative manner to support technical advisers and programme implementation teams to develop plans for child and community participation across the programme cycle (needs analysis and assessment, design and planning, implementation, and M&E) for their thematic area, considering opportunities for integration between sectors where possible.
Act as the Save the Children focal point for the inter-agency children’s consultation for the response (in collaboration with Plan, World Vision and other child focused NGOs), with a focus on ensuring meaningful and ethical child participation and utilisation of findings
Support safeguarding teams to imbed child and community participation within their work, for example collaborating on participatory risk assessments
Support the advocacy and media/comms teams to integrate meaningful and ethical child participation within their initiatives, and to elevate the voices of children that arise through participatory work across the response
Support child participation in response-wide processes, such as Real Time Reviews
Explore how child-centred social accountability approaches could be incorporated within as soon as possible within the response or in protracted crises
Feedback and Reporting Mechanisms
Use analysis of the context and community preferences to design appropriate feedback and reporting channels that are accessible to children and deprived and marginalised groups, particularly those on the move in this context. Support the MEAL and safeguarding team to roll out these channels across the response intervention areas
Work with the Ukraine Country Officer and Regional Response MEAL leads to develop a Feedback Handling Standard Operating Procedure and ensure that feedback is handled in line with it, with consideration of appropriate data protection procedures. Where appropriate, support MEAL staff to establish and monitor the Feedback Database.
Analyse and present regional feedback data to help inform decision-making and improve programme quality.
Provide technical support to MEAL and Programme Implementation teams to ensure the feedback loop is closed meaningfully, in a timely manner and with quality.
Capacity building
Assess the priority skills gaps and learning needs relating to AAP and child participation within Ukraine Country Officer and Regional Response staff and partners. This should include frontline workers and volunteers and support staff such as HR, administration, security, etc., who all have a role to play in improving the accountability of Save the Children.
Design and implement a capacity building strategy (considering training, mentoring and coaching) to build the knowledge of, and commitment to, AAP and child participation approaches within Save the Children staff and partners (plus potentially staff of other agencies through CCE WG and Education Cluster).
Develop context-specific capacity building materials by contextualising global and/or national tools.
Identify opportunities to integrate AAP and child participation elements into existing training and tailor content to target the specific audiences.
Evidence and learning
Document context-specific good AAP and child participation practices, to support replication by other country offices and responses.
Support research into AAP and child participation within the response, and/or provide advice to research that will have participatory components.
General:
Ensure effective linkages with MEEE regional and global work and broader initiatives
Contribute to regional team collaboration, meetings and planning processes, internal initiatives and reporting requirements
Demonstrate leadership in relation to Save the Children policies and practice with respect to child safeguarding, bullying and harassment, code of conduct, equal opportunities and other relevant policies and procedures
KEY COMPETENCIES
Generic technical competencies:
Promotes the rights of children in own work and in work with colleagues and peers
Displays a commitment to the safe, meaningful and ethical participation of all children
Displays a commitment to ensuring everything we do considers the most deprived and marginalised children
Maintains a child rights focus when engaging in inter-agency and national response coordination
MEAL technical competencies:
Designs appropriate and inclusive accountability mechanisms for varied population groups, including children
Collaborates with safeguarding team to design accountability mechanisms that raise awareness of safeguarding messages and enable reporting of sensitive concerns
Builds the capacity of others to support meaningful accountability to children and communities
Champions the use of accountability data and community participation analysis to influence strategic decision-making and advocacy
Supports appropriate and safe child-led MEAL activities and child-led research
Manages inter-agency children’s consultations and other large-scale and complex child participation exercises
Child Rights Governance technical competencies:
Analyses emergency and fragile situations to provide a comprehensive description of the child rights context.
Ensures interventions respond to child rights priorities identified by children in affected communities.
Works in collaboration with others to support meaningful consultation with children within an emergency response.
Champions child rights and accountability to children as core operational considerations in humanitarian responses.
Ensures that programmes promote children’s voices
Supports others to optimise opportunities to amplify children’s voices in the public sphere
Provides guidance on promoting advocacy designed and conducted by children
Applies child sensitive social accountability principles in designing and implementing programmes (in recovery phase or protracted responses)
Behavioural competencies:
Leading and inspiring others: Demonstrates leadership in all our work, embodies our values, and articulates a compelling vision to inspire others to achieve our goals for children.
Applying technical and professional expertise: Applies the required technical and professional expertise to the highest standards; promotes and shares best practice within and outside the organisation.
Working effectively with others: Works collaboratively to achieve shared goals and thrives on diversity of people and perspectives; knows when to lead and when to follow and how to ensure effective cross-boundary working.
QUALIFICATIONS AND EXPERIENCE
Essential:
Masters degree in a relevant field
Experience undertaking a leadership role in accountability to affected populations and/or child participation in humanitarian contexts.
Excellent knowledge of the field of communication and community engagement and other areas around accountability to affected populations, including key sector commitments such as the Core Humanitarian Standard and Grand Bargain Participation Revolution.
Significant experience in setting up accountability systems in responses, including feedback mechanisms and information sharing processes using multi-modal approaches.
Experience in designing, managing and supporting others to implement safe, meaningful and ethical child participation in different stages of the programme and response cycle (needs analysis and assessment, design and planning, implementation, M&E and advocacy).
Understanding of how AAP supports protection from sexual exploitation and abuse (PSEA), safeguarding and safe programming.
Experience of qualitative data analysis and report writing.
A high level of written and spoken English, including an ability to write clear and well-argued reports.
Proven ability in using data and analysis to influence programmatic change.
Excellent communication and influencing skills, with a proven record of convincing senior leadership to support improvements to accountability to affected populations or child participation.
Ability to work both in an advisory and a hands-on implementation capacity
Proven capacity to supervise, train and coach/mentor national and international staff
Politically and culturally sensitive with qualities of patience, tact and diplomacy
The capacity and willingness to be extremely flexible and accommodating in difficult and sometimes insecure working circumstances.
Commitment to the aims and principles of Save the Children. In particular, a good understanding of the Save the Children mandate and child rights and an ability to ensure this continues to underpin our support
Desirable:
-Experience of working in both first-phase responses AND recovery contexts or protracted crises.
-Language skills in Ukrainan/Russian is an advantage.
-Experience working for a child rights organisation and of child rights programming.
-Experience managing large scale children’s consultations.
-Experience in context or political economy analysis in complex contexts, developing recommendations and adapting approaches in response to findings.
-Experience of working with local and national partners on the topic of AAP and/or child participation.
How to apply
Please follow this link to apply: https://www.aplitrak.com/?adid=YS50YW1iYS4yNTI5Ni4xMjE4NUBzYXZldGhlY2hpbGRyZW5hby5hcGxpdHJhay5jb20
Closing date: 9/5/2022