Ombuds Board (f/m/d)

Location: Global (virtual, remote)

Duration: limited until December 2026

Type of contract: Board appointment (pro bono)

Mission:

To realise SOS Children’s Villages’ commitment to establishing an Ombuds system for children and others affected by abuse, SOS Children’s Villages International is implementing an Ombuds Office across all member associations and the General Secretariate that is independent from SOS Children’s Villages International. The Ombuds Office is comprised of: National Ombuds; Regional Ombuds; Global Ombuds; Representatives: Staff and Children and Young People; and an Ombuds Office Coordinator. All roles and qualities are informed by children and young people. The Ombuds Office is selected by and accountable to the Ombuds Board.

SOS Children’s Villages’ Leadership Selection Committee is now recruiting an Ombuds Board (supervisory committee) comprised of three professionals, with one of the following profiles:

1. An ombuds professional with at least 10 years’ international experience as an Ombuds OR
2. A child rights expert with at least eight years’ legal and policy experience OR
3. A social service worker with at least eight years’ frontline social work or psychosocial experience in alternative care or family strengthening

Board members must be available at least 40 hours per year, respond to requests in a timely manner, and make a good effort to meet with other members who may be in other time zones.

Main activities of the Ombuds Board:

• Screening and selecting the Global Ombuds
• Overseeing the Global Ombuds’ onboarding, training, and performance
• Annually evaluating the SOS Ombuds Office against a set of objectives and Key Performance Indicators
• Advising the SOS Global Ombuds as needed and/or upon request
• Meeting with Global Ombuds every quarter during scale-up to monitor progress, and with the Global and Regional Ombuds every year, for Ombuds Office review and planning. After significant scale-up progress, meeting every six months with the Global Ombuds and annually with Global and Regional Ombuds.
• Receiving and considering written input from the SOS Children’s Villages CEO and Programme Audit Committee regarding the effectiveness of the Ombuds structure
• Responding to any concerns and retaliation against the SOS Ombuds Office
• Taking disciplinary measures against the Global Ombuds due to issues related to character; professionalism; conflict of interest; lack of impartiality and confidentiality; corruption or efficiency. These measures will be guided by the Global Ombuds contract, legal instruments, and SOS Code of Conduct.
• Approving SOS Ombuds annual reports, which include themes identified from Inquirers, recommendations for SOS Children’s Villages, and a summary of outcomes of Inquiries.

We offer

• The opportunity to make a significant, positive contribution to innovating child safeguarding
• The opportunity to be part of developing an ombudsperson approach for, and informed by, children and young people across the globe.

What We Stand For: **

SOS Children’s Villages is committed to creating and maintaining a caring and protective environment, which promotes its core values, and prevents and addresses child abuse and exploitation. We strongly condemn all forms of child abuse and exploitation, be it within or outside of our organization, and always respond to any case of proven, alleged or attempted abuse within our sphere of influence according to its nature. Efforts ensure that mechanisms are in place to raise awareness, aid prevention, encourage reporting and ease response. They range from human resource development actions such as training and counselling to measures such as suspension, dismissal, and legal action

SOS Children’s Villages is committed to creating and maintaining a safe working environment for our staff, the children and young people and the communities that we work for. The organization prohibits harassment, exploitation and abuses by or of any employee, supervisor, manager, child, young people, community, contractor, applicant, or other individual with whom SOS Children’s Villages employees come into contact by virtue of their work. All employees are expected to carry out their duties in accordance with our prevention and protection against Sexual Harassment, Exploitation and Abuse policy.

In addition, SOS Children’s Villages apply a zero tolerance concerning any fraud situation. The organization does not charge a fee at any stage of the recruitment process.