Locations: Vienna, Innsbruck (Austria), Dakar (Senegal), Addis Ababa (Ethiopia), Nairobi (Kenya, only remote work possible from official home address in Kenya)
Deadline: May 15, 2023
Job Description
Duration: Full-time, Unlimited
SOS Children’s Villages, founded in 1949, is the world’s largest non-governmental organization focused on supporting children and young people without parental care, or at risk of losing it.
Child neglect, abuse and abandonment is everywhere. Families are at risk of separation. Locally led, we work in more than 130 countries and territories to strengthen families who are under pressure so they can stay together. When this is not in a child or young person’s best interests, we provide quality care according to their unique needs.
Together with partners, donors, communities, children, young people and families, we enable children to grow up with the bonds they need to develop and become their strongest selves. We speak up for each child’s rights and advocate for change so all children can grow up in a supportive environment.
Mission
SOS Children’s Villages strives to create and ensure a safe environment for everyone who engages with us internally or externally. An environment that does not expose children, young people and adults to harm, sexual exploitation and abuse. It also aims to manage its financial and other assets free from fraud and corruption.
The main high-level purposes of the Safeguarding and Anti-Corruption /Asset Protection team area are:
a) to lead and champion safeguarding priorities, strategies and action plans to ensure safeguarding and Anti-Corruption and Asset Protection are mainstreamed across all parts of the Federation
b) to support management in General Secretariat and Member Associations in the implementation of policies, practices, capacity building, awareness raising and other activities for prevention of harm, sexual exploitation, abuse, fraud and corruption wherever people engage with SOS Children’s Villages
c) to run the incident management process and support management response and actions when dealing with allegations made. It does this in conjunction with the independent audit and investigations unit and collaborates on a regular basis with the SOS Children’s Villages International Ombuds Office
d) support SOS Children’s Villages management in reporting all criminal acts or concerns for children’s, young people’s and vulnerable adult’s safety, to the appropriate authorities
e) to monitor, evaluate and report on progress in delivery of strategies, outcomes and learning to Governance, Leadership and Management.
f) to participate in, share with and learn from external networks to improve internal practice and to influence sector wide thinking and initiatives and facilitates relevant knowledge management.
Our Safeguarding approach is grounded in our organisation’s values of accountability, courage, trust, and commitment and Living Our Values. Our incident management is victim and survivor centred. Child Safeguarding covers children, young people and individuals who have left the care of SOS Children’s Villages Programmes; people affected by current and past abuse are in focus.
The purpose of the position is to build and continuously strengthen the Federation’s capability in Child Safeguarding. SOS Children’s Villages interacts through its programmes with tens of thousands of children in the provision of direct alternative care or, with partners, delivering family strengthening and other child centred programmes outside SOS Childrens Villages organisations. The provision of direct alternative care means that SOS Children’s Villages has specific and elevated safeguarding risks which differentiate it from other INGOs.
Working jointly with the Head of Adult Safeguarding and as required, other Safeguarding functions under the leadership of the Global Director of Safeguarding, the Head of Child Safeguarding develops, implements and strengthens integrated strategies, policies, processes, tools, training, systems and monitoring processes with specific focus on children and youth. The incumbent works with all layers and entities across the Federation to enable them to fulfil their safeguarding responsibilities including protection of complainants, witnesses and support to survivors.
The incumbent oversees and coordinates incident management across the child safeguarding network . They report progress, outcomes and the overall incident management status for child safeguarding, and ensure further development based on lessons learnt including specific recommendations on prevention of child abuse and neglect and the safe implementation of programs. The incumbent supports the Global Director of Safeguarding in their leadership of the Federationwide network, supports the equivalent teams and individuals in the International Office Regions, GSC-run entities/programmes and as requested Member Associations. The incumbent works with SOS Children’s Villages federation legal bodies to report on, makes decisions and advances child safeguarding in cooperation with the Global Safeguarding Director.
Tasks & Responsibilities
1. Jointly championing Safeguarding
- Champions and enables mainstreaming of Safeguarding across the organisation’s staffing, functions, geographies and its programmes .
- Helps leaders (governance and management) understand and address power imbalances, especially in relation to gender, that are needed for the creation of a safe environment.
- Contributes to the development and implementation of Federation safeguarding strategies.
- Jointly builds the capacity of the safeguarding network as well as management and other staff across the Federation.
- Champions and roll-models the organisational values, behaviours and Code of Conduct.
- Works with other leaders to ensure strong integration of safeguarding principles with child rights-based, child and youth participation, programmatic, fundraising and other relevant approaches.
2. Support of management and others across the Federation to build a safe environment for children, youth and adults – with a special focus on children
- Contributes to the development of a full suite of aligned global policies, standards, processes, tools and systems for use across the Federation for Child, Youth and Adult Safeguarding with specific focus on children.
- Jointly develops awareness raising, training and other tools
- Works with staff across the Federation managing related functions e.g., Care Giving, Organisational Culture.
3. Incident Management
- Ensures that the International Office team and international Office Regions are running robust child specific, Incident Management for General Secretariat managed entities and supports Member Associations.
- Supports management in its role to ensure protection of victims and support to survivors, and in its responsibility for reporting of all criminal acts or concerns for children’s, young people’s and vulnerable adult’s safety, to the appropriate authorities
- Works with Audit and Investigations team to ensure high quality, comprehensive and aligned compliance audits and investigations.
- Ensures learning is used to improve incident management processes.
- Collaborates on a regular basis with the SOS Children’s Villages Ombuds Office in its role to protect the rights of child survivors to high quality incident management of their allegations.
4. Monitoring, evaluation, learning and reporting regarding child safeguarding. Working with the Head of Adult Safeguarding
- Reports progress on implementation of strategies and outcomes.
- Supports monitoring and evaluation of safeguarding approaches, strategies and outcomes.
- Gathers and shares learning across the Federation via management and the internal safeguarding network.
- Reporting to federation legal bodies.
- Participates in external networks to share and learn from best practice across the sector and similar organisations.
5. Management of staff and other resources
- Manages a diverse and collaborative team of Child Safeguarding experts and advisors at the international office and indirectly in regions, based in different locations and virtually connected.
- Manages budgets when delegated by the Global Director of Safeguarding.
Requirements
Essential:
- University degree or equivalent recognized professional certification (or registered professional), preferably in relevant field such as Social Sciences, Humanitarian or International Development, Psychology, Social Work, or International Law or other relevant studies combined with sound applied experience in adult social care and/or safeguarding-related field
- At least 10 years working in the safeguarding function, team or network in a complex global organization working with prevention and incident management and leading a significant numbers of staff
- A minimum of 10 years of progressive local and global relevant safeguarding experience including designing and/or implementing relevant initiatives such as training, awareness building, tools and process development, monitoring and evaluation
- Previous (leadership) experience in the design of safeguarding approaches, strategies, policy, standards, processes, systems for use across all functions, geographies and levels in a large organization or network
- Sound understanding and experience in creating, developing and implementing high quality policies, procedures and guidelines in a complex, diverse organization
- Experience in case management including conducting investigations and managing the process of resolving complex safeguarding issues, and in running incident management for an organization with a large and complex case load and in supporting other entities to do the same.
- Previous experience in leading and driving project and/or the management of strategic initiatives in related subject areas across a global organization preferably in an international NGO setting and with multiple stakeholders’ requirements
- Previous experience in designing culturally sensitive training concepts and related materials, and communications with a view of capacity building for a range of audiences
- Experience in developing and enabling the utilization of successful monitoring, evaluation, learning and knowledge management culture, processes, tools and systems
- Expert knowledge of safeguarding legislation across multiple jurisdictions
- Project management skills and stakeholder management to build alignment and implementation success
- Very good ability to influence management and staff at all levels
- Expert team management skills with the ability to lead a diverse and inclusive globally distributed team and enable every team member to reach their full potential.
- Strong ability to take difficult decisions about complex issues using judgment and experience
- Very good communication and influencing skills
- Good management skills for a small team
- Ability to maintain the highest standard and quality of work, managing stress effectively whilst prioritizing multiple tasks and competing deadlines
- Being a participant in safeguarding networks
- Excellent command of English language skills (oral and written). Fluency in French or Spanish is an asset
- Work permit in the chosen country, and willingness to relocate to the chosen location, when necessary
Desirable
- Experience working for an international childcare organization, and with direct experience in programmes, MHPSS and/or in working with participants.
- Experience in co-creation of strategy, policies, processes etc., with meaningful youth participation
- Strong and up-to-date understanding of safeguarding donor requirements (preferred)
We offer
- A diverse range of interesting tasks in a leading INGO multicultural working environment
- As a responsible employer we provide a range of training schemes and encourage educational enhancement
- A salary that will be commensurate with experience and qualifications
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 zero tolerance concerning any fraud situation. The organization does not charge a fee at any stage of the recruitment process.
How to Apply
Successful candidates will have to submit a criminal record certificate, current within the last three years. In accordance with the organisation’s child protection policy, these positions will be subject to criminal record checks.
If you are interested in this position, please submit your detailed application in English by the 15th of May, 2023 at https://careers-sos-kd.icims.com
Due to the high level of responses, SOS Children Villages can only respond to shortlisted candidates.