Regional Safeguarding and Protection Advisor

With 75 years of experience, our focus is on helping the most vulnerable children overcome poverty and experience fullness of life. We help children of all backgrounds, even in the most dangerous places, inspired by our Christian faith.

Come join our 31,000+ staff working in nearly 100 countries and share the joy of transforming vulnerable children’s life stories!

Employee Contract Type:

Job Description:

Job Title: Regional Safeguarding and Protection Advisor - MEER

PURPOSE OF THE POSITION

The purpose of the role is to empower Middle East and Eastern Europe Field Offices to fulfil World Vision International’s Safeguarding and Gender Equality, Disability and Social Inclusion (GEDSI) policies and to ensure delivery of quality and sustainable programmes and projects, in adherence to international humanitarian benchmarks and commitments in Safeguarding, PSEAH and gender equity.

The role has two core dimensions:

• A business partner to national and field offices for implementing WVI Safeguarding Management Policy, including PSEA efforts and adherence to international community’s best practices and expectations for keeping children and adult project participants safe from exploitation and abuse.
• A business partner to support GEDSI Policy implementation across the region, with emphasis on GEDSI and protection strategy, GEDSI-responsive grants designs, staff and partners capacity strengthening, GEDSI-responsive storytelling and organizational GEDSI audits/self-assessments.

KEY RESPONSIBILITIES

A. Regional Safeguarding and Protection Advisor’s primary function is to enable the Field Office’s (FOs) Safeguarding Focal Points to be successful in their roles. They also ensure that the Regional Office is safe for children and adult project participants.

1. Regional Leadership in Safeguarding

• Actively support building a culture of safeguarding, where staff are informed and empowered to discuss key issues, report, and take action on safeguarding violations, making World Vision a safe place for all, everywhere we operate
• Build Safeguarding capacity among Field Offices Safeguarding focal points and ensure they facilitate general and function-specific refreshers locally every two years
• Build collaborative working relationships with Field Safeguarding Focal Points and other relevant staff in Field Offices
• Support and lead thinking on safeguarding risks and protection issues across the region, including appropriate prevention, programming, and response methodology 
• Present to Regional and Field Senior Leaders on safeguarding compliance gaps, incident trends, and emerging risk when necessary
• Influence, network and collaborate with regional level networks, coalitions, clusters, NGOs or UN Agencies among other relevant safeguarding peers
• Support FOs to ensure safeguarding is properly resourced across Field Offices and programmes; advocate for increased resources as needed 
• Advise programme/project designs, including grants, on matters related to safeguarding and PSEAH upon request

2. Child and Adult Safeguarding Policy Implementation

• Support full compliance with the WVI Child and Adult Safeguarding Policy in the Regional and Field Offices
• Support FOs to develop contextualised national safeguarding policies that meet or exceed the standards in the WVI Child and Adult Safeguarding Management Policy 
• Support FOs to provide accessible complaints and response mechanisms in all communities where WV works, in line with the Programme Accountability Framework (PAF) 
• Support FOs to develop awareness-raising materials that inform children and communities about the behaviour they can expect from WV employees or affiliates 
• Roll out the Child and Adult Safeguarding Policy to all RO staff and affiliates, including the obligation for all WV staff to immediately report known or suspected child/adult beneficiary Safeguarding violations within 24 hours for a Level 2 or Level 3 incident; Promote the same at the FO level 
• Guide development of safeguarding incident preparedness plans (SIPP) for FOs and their RO, including referral plans for child and adult victims of sexual and other abuse, and plan to report incidents to local police and other duty bearers or regulators 
• Advise Regional P&C, Communications, Advocacy, Security and other relevant teams on their safeguarding responsibilities in alignment with the Child and Adult Safeguarding Policy (ie. Criminal background checks, visitor preparations, prevention of harm in communications, minimum requirements for affiliates, complaints mechanisms, etc.) 

• Support FOs to understand and properly complete their annual safeguarding self-assessment (ie. Safeguarding Update Report) including orientation to the questionnaire, one-on-one support as needed, reviewing every FO update report before GC submission, and following-up with scores 

• Support FOs to complete their Safeguarding Action Plan based upon their responses on the safeguarding self-assessment and overall report score; support areas where significant change is needed in the FO according to the Action Plan 

• Lead a working group to complete the annual safeguarding self-assessment for the Regional Office and collect associated documents, which will form part of the RO’s Safeguarding Action Plan 

• Lead the working group to develop a Safeguarding Action Plan for the RO based on results and feedback from the Safeguarding Update Report process 

 3. Safeguarding Capacity Building and Awareness Raising 

• Ensure safeguarding capacity building has been coordinated for RO staff and affiliates (eCampus basic safeguarding course – can be delivered online or through face-to-face; WVI Integrated Safeguarding Unit can provide the PowerPoints) 

• Coordinate a one-time training for all RO staff, interns, volunteers, and Board/Advisory Council members on the new Child and Adult Safeguarding Policy (eCampus course is sufficient) 

• Ensure the RO is conducting safeguarding orientation that reflects the new Child and Adult Safeguarding Policy (eCampus is sufficient) with all new staff, interns, volunteers, and Board/Advisory Council members upon hire  

• Ensure with P&C that all RO staff are receiving refresher training in safeguarding at least once every two years (if using the eCampus course, collaborate with the WVI Safeguarding Unit) 

• Ensure that P&C, Sponsorship, Communications/Marketing, Security, and Child Protection are aware that they should have in-depth safeguarding training/courses/coaching that target their specific safeguarding responsibilities (in addition to safeguarding orientation, e.g. Communications – consent and photo gathering requirements) 

• Ensure RO partners are safe for children and adult beneficiaries by using the WVI Partner Safeguarding Assessment Tool to assess and strengthen a partner’s safeguarding systems (Note: Partners must sign acknowledgement and adhere to WVI’s Child and Adult Safeguarding Policy, if their policy does not prove rigorous enough by the standards set out in WVI’s Partner Safeguarding Assessment tool.) 

4. Safeguarding Incident Management 

• Support FO responses to Level 1 child protection community-level incidents according to FO’s local Safeguarding Incident Preparedness Plan  

• Support the response of Level 2 and Level 3 safeguarding incidents including investigations and reports, with accountability to the Global Centre’s WVI Integrated Safeguarding Unit, according to global protocols and local Safeguarding Incident Preparedness Plan (including but not limited to participating in global incident management calls, following-up on FO incident management, reviewing investigation TORs and reports, and supporting the FO to complete all agreed-upon actions within 90 days when that timeframe is feasible) 

• Promote confidentiality of information regarding safeguarding incidents 

• Promote 'survivor-centred' approaches to incident management 
• Coordinate care for and support to staff working on difficult child protection and safeguarding issues 

B. Regional Safeguarding and Protection Advisor’s primary purpose is to lead GEDSI and protection initiatives within the region and guide field offices in quality implementation of the WVI’s GEDSI Management Policy.

1. Build GEDSI capacity across Field Offices:

• Ensure all field staff, partners and volunteers receive gender equality, protection and social inclusion refresher training at least once every two years.
• Oversee and continuously improve the capacity building strategy and resources for WV field staff and affiliates related to gender equality and any locally defined factors of social inclusion.
• Lead field staff to develop meaningful partnerships with local women’s organizations and organizations of people with disabilities.

2. Champion GEDSI integration in the field office’s programming across development, nexus and humanitarian contexts:

• Guide Field Offices in GEDSI policy contextualization, roll out and progress reporting.
• Empower Field level GEDSI specialists to ensure all programmes and projects are based on gender and disability analysis.
• Guide field teams to collect and analyze data by gender, age, and disability, using inclusive approaches to data collection.
• Support Field focal points with the contextualization of programming tools, models and approaches based on formative GEDSI and Protection risk assessments.
• Lead field teams to include and report on GEDSI-related indicators, using WV’s GEDSI domains of change.
• Work with the regional resource acquisition and external engagement teams for effective positioning with donors, peers and thought leaders.
• Advocate and ensure there is adequate budget for GEDSI and protection at a field level.

3. Build GEDSI evidence base:

• Develop and socialize a regional GEDSI research and learning agenda.

• Initiate and oversee GEDSI-related research that contributes to external positioning, thought leadership, and program quality.
• Capture and share learnings through GEDSI community of practice and with external stakeholders and audiences.

4. Build strategic partnerships and networks by influencing, networking and collaborating with national and regional NGOs, donor agencies, UN agencies, clusters, thematic working groups, and peers working on GEDSI.

5. Initiate and promote gender-inclusive organizational practices through the GEDSI self-assessment/self-audit and action planning across the field and regional offices. This may also incorporate training on Unconscious Bias, accessible workspaces, etc.

KNOWLEDGE, SKILLS AND EXPERIENCE

Required Education, training, license, registration, and/or Certification

• Bachelor’s or master’s degree in law, social work, gender studies, development studies, or other relevant field
• Technical skills:  direct programming or management experience in child protection, prevention of sexual exploitation and abuse (PSEA), gender-based violence (GBV) or safeguarding 
• Experience: 2 years’ + experience in overseeing child protection, PSEA, GBV, or safeguarding work 

• Understanding of institutional donors and INGO GEDSI frameworks, emerging models, policies and/or programming
• Excellent project management, partnering and communications skills
• Demonstrated willingness to be flexible and versatile in a changing work environment while maintaining effectiveness and efficiency
• Ability to motivate and develop staff
• Strong relationship building/network capacity, excellent communication skills, spiritual maturity in Christian faith, ability to influence, innovative, and proactive personality

Required Professional Experience

• Five years of direct programming or management experience in gender and protection, prevention of sexual exploitation and abuse (PSEA), gender-based violence (GBV) or safeguarding in an international NGO
• Experience in supporting GESI responsive and transformative designs and related mainstreaming strategies and activities across various sectors

• Experience leading GESI analysis (specifically gender and disability analysis) to inform design and to support GESI-Responsive monitoring and evaluation
• Experience leading or supporting Organisational GESI Self-Assessments or GESI Audits
• Experience in capacity building and staff empowerment

Required Language(s): Fluency in spoken and written English.

Required travel and/or work environment accommodations: The position requires ability and willingness to travel domestically and internationally up to 20% of the time.  

World Vision is a Christian humanitarian organization with a mission centred on following Jesus Christ in service to the world´s most vulnerable children. Therefore, in all locations to the fullest extent legally permissible, the successful applicant will affirm our core documents, observe conduct compatible with Christian principles, serve at a high level of professional ethics and strive to act in accordance with cultural sensitivities. Furthermore, regular attendance with team and office devotions, chapel and prayer gatherings are expected in line with policies in the World Vision host location and its departments.

Applicant Types Accepted: