Child Protection Technical Advisor

Child Protection Technical Advisor

Location: Any EU country

Supervisor: Director of Program Quality

Organizational Background: Heartland Alliance International (HAI) is a service-based human rights organization headquartered in Chicago whose mission is to secure the rights and well-being of marginalized people and communities. HAI envisions a world in which those whose rights have been violated are safe and empowered to actively engage in their communities and be at the forefront of social change. HAI specializes in two core program areas: trauma-informed mental health and access to justice, while taking a human rights approach and integrating a progressive gender analysis into all of its programming including its expansive HIV/AIDS work with key populations.

Summary: The Child Protection Technical Advisor will provide technical support on child protection issues to HAI programs globally. She/he will collaborate with other HAI technical advisors to carefully assess programmatic needs, further develop HAI’s child protection standards and tools, strengthen the capacity of HAI staff and local partners, improve legal protections, and expand access to a range of protection and social services for children and adolescents in the Middle East and North Africa, Sub-Saharan Africa, and Latin America.

The Child Protection Technical Advisor will work closely with the HQ Program Quality Team and in-country technical and program staff to assure that child protection interventions are fully integrated into ongoing gender-based violence, mental health, access to justice, and education programming. The Technical Advisor reports to the Director of Program Quality. This position can be based in any EU country, and will require international travel.

Tasks:

• Provide child protection technical support to country programs in coordination with other Technical Team members, and regional staff;

• Support child protection-related program development efforts (including designing, editing, or reviewing results frameworks, proposals, etc.);

• Assess staff capacity and compliance with child protection and humanitarian core standards; in line with capacity assessment, develop and implement structured trainings for staff on core child protection standards, policies, child protection/protection mainstreaming, and other best practices in service provision;

• Develop dynamic training curriculum to include dialogue, brainstorming, group discussion, and lecture, as well as guidance documents, case studies, models and other materials related to child protection for in-house trainings and other forms of internal and external dissemination;

• Provide ongoing supervision, mentorship, and monitoring to key staff to ensure the success of capacity building efforts and the quality of programming globally;

• Collaborate closely with HAI Technical Team, including Technical Advisors in Gender and Human Rights, MHPSS, M&E, Access to Justice, and HIV/AIDS on all overlapping/cross-cutting programmatic and capacity building issues

• Represent HAI in external settings with stakeholders, including coordination and donor meetings, conferences, workshops, engagement with media; provide specific support with HAI’s outreach and representation to Europe-based donors and stakeholders

• Determine gaps in current written child protection policies and procedures and develop policies in line with established needs; specifically, develop and cascade Child Safeguarding Policy for all staff members, consultants, volunteers, visitors, etc.;

• Compile a child protection principles literature review of short- and long-form documents for staff to reference as needed; organize and upload all referenced articles into HAI’s in-house research database;

• In collaboration with M&E and other staff, develop assessment and clinical tools, including child protection case management forms for HAI based on cluster-approved guidelines;

• Set up effective feedback and response mechanisms as part of HAI’s Accountability to Affected Populations (AAP) and Communicating with Communities (CWC) mandate;

Qualifications:

• Master’s degree in Psychology, Social Work, Child Protection, International Law, or related technical field;

• At least two years of professional work experience in child protection or child/adolescent mental health, preferably including international work experience in humanitarian and/or development fields, liaising with multiple stakeholders including governmental partners and other UN agencies/NGOs

• Expertise in the methods and practices outlined in UNICEF’s Minimum Standards for Child Protection in Humanitarian Action and the Child Protection Working Group’s Child Protection in Emergencies Competency Framework;

• Ability to articulate and explain child protection and humanitarian core principles and practices to a non-expert audience and ensure their understanding of those subjects, as well as ensuring that the trainees are competent in implementing those principles and practices;

• Experience assessing implementing staff’s adherence to child protection standards and conducting child protection training, coaching, and mentoring using participatory and practical methodologies;

• Ability to assess the needs of participants during the training experience and modify application of themes as appropriate;

Languages:

• Fluent in English

• Spanish, French, Arabic and/or Kurdish a plus.

US Based:

https://chu.tbe.taleo.net/chu01/ats/careers/requisition.jsp?org=HEARTLANDALLIANCE&cws=1&rid=5899

Non US Based:https://chu.tbe.taleo.net/chu01/ats/careers/requisition.jsp?org=HEARTLANDALLIANCE&cws=38&rid=5899