Technical Advisor, Education & Youth

BACKGROUND

The International Rescue Committee (IRC) helps people whose lives and livelihoods are shattered by conflict and disaster to survive, recover, and gain control of their future. Founded in 1933, the IRC works in over 40 countries. The IRC’s Resettlement, Asylum, and Integration department (RAI) operates 30+ offices across Germany, Greece, Italy, the Balkans, the United Kingdom, and the United States. RAI serves clients and communities through a diverse portfolio of programs aimed at five core outcomes: Health, Safety, Economic Wellbeing, Education and Power. RAI’s Education & Youth work seeks to ensure children and youth are supported to overcome the challenges to their well-being, learning, and development wrought by forced migration, and gain the skills and knowledge to achieve their goals. This is accomplished through collaboration with affected communities, direct programs and services, training and technical assistance with formal and non-formal education systems and providers, and formal and informal partnerships.

Job Overview:

The Technical Advisor (TA) for Education & Youth (E&Y) supports education and youth work across RAI, with a focus on the U.S. The TA sits within the Safety, Education & Wellness (SEW) team, which is a part of RAI Program Quality & Innovation (PQI) department. PQI provides thought and practice leadership and technical support that helps IRC and partners grow and sustain high quality, evidence-based, impactful, and cost-effective programs. The SEW team focuses on technical excellence in Education & Youth, Health Promotion, Mental Health and Psychosocial Well-being, Child Protection, Women’s Protection & Empowerment, and Anti-Trafficking. The TA is responsible for partnering with offices and HQ colleagues to develop, grow, and sustain education and youth work within RAI and contributing to increase cross-context learning across IRC’s global Education portfolio. The TA helps coordinate and align E&Y efforts across offices, liaises with critical stakeholders, and robustly contributes to business development. The TA provides support across a range of programming areas with a particular emphasis on language acquisition, academic, and social emotional asset development curriculum, and instruction. The TA’s central responsibility is focused on program quality, and they will spend about 80% of their time on delivering technical support, and 20% on influence, advocacy, research, coordination, and liaising with stakeholders.

Key Responsibilities:

Technical Support

• Develop, support, and maintain relationships with and between offices, teams, and external stakeholders related to Education & Youth programming; foster cross-office sharing and learning
• Adapt existing, and develop new, training and technical assistance (TTA) materials on best practices in trauma-informed, culturally and linguistically responsive child/youth, caregiver, and educator-focused interventions, including direct services for forcibly displaced children and youth targeting language acquisition, academic learning, and social emotional learning and asset development
• Deliver remote and in-person TTA to RAI offices and other agencies to enhance their use of best practices in E&Y interventions in alignment with IRC’s Outcomes to Evidence, Social Emotional Learning and Asset Development, and Gender, Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion (GEDI) frameworks, among others; support offices to adapt and contextualize IRC programs and approaches and program models to the local context
• Lead strategic initiatives to coordinate and enhance RAI pedagogical approaches, content, and tools for children and youth programming
• Facilitate and disseminate learning from E&Y interventions and their adaptation and contextualization
• Participate in efforts to improve monitoring, evaluation, and learning around E&Y program activities

Strategy, Policy and Institutional Capacity

• Participate and advise on strategic initiatives and participate on joint initiatives with other IRC technical units and departments
• Contribute to building a diverse E&Y workforce supporting recruitment and hiring of new staff including providing input on job descriptions, sitting on interview panels, and mentoring of staff
• Identify where Education & Youth efforts intersect and/or conflict with other programmatic and strategic efforts in an aim to explore where programming could create collective impact
• Educate IRC leadership about trends, political considerations and traditional sources of funding to help shape IRC’s Education & Youth approach, including strategic partnerships and alliances
• Represent IRC in academic fora, donor meetings, inter-agency working groups, and various global/regional/transnational networks to share best practices, collectively advocate, increase visibility, and establish relationships with partners working in the same sector

Business Development

• Identify and pursue financial and technical resources that can support achievement of RAI Education & Youth outcomes
• Cultivate partnerships that increase the reach and impact of Education & Youth programs
• Support business development for E&Y programming including office, regional, and network-level opportunities, including technical review of proposals, writing, creating M&E plans, providing budgetary inputs, and liaising with donors
• Provide guidance and support to programs and offices to effectively access funding and provide technical review of proposals

Assessment and Evaluation

• Coordinate tracking, compilation and analysis of key indicators and outcomes for Education & Youth programming
• Provide ongoing analysis of program activities, including supporting monitoring and evaluation of efforts to determine and adjust approaches as needed.
• Build partnerships with academic institutions and other organizations to support Education & Youth work and research projects
• Strengthen and expand partnerships to solicit and integrate feedback to continually inform efforts

Job Requirements:

• Master’s/post-graduate degree in Education or relevant field or equivalent combination of education and experience is required.

• At least five years of Education-related work experience with forcibly displaced children and youth, significant experience in curriculum design and instructional roles strongly preferred

• Expertise in pedagogical approaches to academic and social emotional learning and language acquisition instruction and tutoring for students affected by forced migration, dominant language learners, students with limited and/or interrupted formal education, and newcomers

• Expertise on best and promising practices to support the well-being of forcibly displaced children and youth within education and child/youth development programming

• Expertise in project design, proposal development and monitoring and evaluation with the ability to turn concepts and strategy into measurable action

• Outstanding capacity to understand the state and local context, portfolio, and overall programmatic needs, and coordinate the relevant technical assistance needed to make a project successful

• Experience designing and implementing training and professional development opportunities for children & youth program professionals

• A strong understanding of US context as it relates to forcibly displaced peoples, education, and child/youth development, with established relationships in the sector

• A strong understanding of intersectional gender, equity and equality, diversity and inclusion issues pertaining to education and children/youth programming and a commitment to fostering inclusion and equitable outcomes

• Experience in strategy development and working across disciplines and sectors

• Self-starter with excellent project management skills, including the proven ability to prioritize and effectively manage competing demands and complete project tasks on time

• Ability to effectively communicate and work as a team member with collaborative partners, the community, and clients in a cross-cultural, multi-disciplinary environment

• Excellent verbal and written communication skills

• Computer proficiency, including MS Office and internet applications

Language Skills: English fluency; fluency in another language relevant to RAI client populations desirable (such as, but not limited to, Dari, Pashto, Arabic, Spanish, French, Swahili, Ukrainian).

Key Working Relationships

Position Reports to: Senior Technical Advisor: Youth and Education

Position Directly Supervises: N/A

Other Internal/External Contacts:

• Internal: Regular collaboration with RAI’s Safety, Education and Wellness Technical Unit teammates, communication with other members of PQI, RAI Europe leadership, Office leaders and business development staff, Education & Youth Managers and Coordinators, CRRD Education Technical Unit
• External: Serve as IRC program representative in outside regional meetings and global meetings and academic forums with donors, non-governmental organizations, foundations, and inter-agency groups

Working Environment:**

Regular office environment. Approximately 20% travel.

The IRC and IRC workers must adhere to the values and principles outlined in IRC Way – Standards for Professional Conduct. These are Integrity, Service, and Accountability. In accordance with these values, the IRC operates and enforces policies on Beneficiary Protection from Exploitation and Abuse, Child Safeguarding, Anti Workplace Harassment, Fiscal Integrity, and Anti-Retaliation.

COVID-19 Vaccination Requirement: In accordance with IRC’s duty to provide and maintain a workplace that is free of known hazards and our commitment to safeguard the health of our employees, clients, and communities, IRC requires new hires to furnish proof of vaccination against COVID-19 to be considered for any in-office or hybrid positions. All IRC US offices require full vaccination to attend any in-office functions (e.g., meetings, trainings).

Commitment to Diversity and Inclusivity: IRC is committed to building a diverse organization and a climate of inclusivity. We strongly encourage applications from candidates who can demonstrate that they can contribute to this goal.

Equal Opportunity Employer: We are an equal opportunity employer and value diversity at our company. We do not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, color, national origin, sex, gender, gender expression, sexual orientation, age, marital status, veteran status, or disability status. We will ensure that individuals with disabilities are provided reasonable accommodation to participate in the job application or interview process, to perform essential job functions, and to receive other benefits and privileges of employment. Please contact us to request accommodation.

US Benefits: We offer a comprehensive and highly competitive set of benefits. In the US, these include: 10 sick days, 10 US holidays, 20-25 paid time off days depending on role and tenure, medical insurance starting at $120 per month, dental starting at $7 per month, and vision starting at $5 per month, FSA for healthcare and commuter costs, a 403b retirement savings plans with immediately vested matching, disability & life insurance, and an Employee Assistance Program which is available to our staff and their families to support counseling and care in times of crisis and mental health struggles.