Emergency Response Team Protection Coordinator (Child Protection)

The International Rescue Committee (IRC) responds to the world's worst humanitarian crises, helping to restore health, safety, education, economic wellbeing, and power to people devastated by conflict and disaster. Founded in 1933 at the call of Albert Einstein, the IRC is one of the world's largest international humanitarian non-governmental organizations (INGO), at work in more than 40 countries and 29 U.S. cities helping people to survive, reclaim control of their future and strengthen their communities. A force for humanity, IRC employees deliver lasting impact by restoring safety, dignity and hope to millions. If you're a solutions-driven, passionate change-maker, come join us in positively impacting the lives of millions of people world-wide for a better future.

FLUENCY IN WRITTEN & SPOKEN FRENCH & ENGLISH REQUIRED.

Job Overview:

Responding to the world’s worst humanitarian crises in a great variety of roles, the International Rescue Committee’s staff is a force for humanity and hope. If you are skilled and passionate, we would like to add your energy to ours. Through its Emergency Unit (EmU), the IRC is one of the world’s largest humanitarian agencies leading rapid emergency responses that provide life-saving assistance, early recovery, and stabilization support to people affected by conflict, displacement, natural disasters, and complex emergencies across multiple contexts worldwide. We are committed to innovation, agility, and strong partnerships to deliver timely and effective humanitarian action.

Active in public health, education in emergencies, livelihoods, women's empowerment, youth development, and protection and promotion of rights, we assist people from harm to home. The IRC recognizes that people affected by crisis and the actors closest to them are best placed, have the right, and should have the power and resources to respond and drive lasting change. We commit to increasing the share of funding channeled to local actors in emergencies, asking “Why not partner?’ whenever we plan programming, and partner as equals.

The Violence Prevention and Response in Emergencies (VPRIE) team sits jointly within IRC's Emergency Unit (EmU) and IRC’s Protection Unit. With few predictable, effective protection providers in emergencies, major gaps remain in delivering life-saving and life-sustaining VPR interventions at scale. VPRIE programming in acute emergencies spans integrated protection, Child Protection (CP), Women's Protection and Empowerment (WPE)/Gender-Based Violence (GBV), and Protection Rule of Law (PROL), focusing on four core service offerings: Social Work in Emergencies, Focused MHPSS Interventions, Responsive Information Services in Emergencies, and Community Risk Mitigation and Access. These complementary, mutually reinforcing interventions address the most urgent protection threats facing emergency-affected communities in all their diversity.

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Scope of Work

The Emergency Response Team (ERT) is a specialized group within the Emergency Unit (EmU), deployed to support existing country programs in emergency response or to launch new programs in crisis zones. The team's core responsibility is to rapidly and effectively design, develop, and manage the IRC's on-site humanitarian response to meet the immediate needs of the affected population, while also transferring responsibilities and knowledge to long-term staff to ensure continuity of IRC programming and operations.

All ERT staff must be prepared to deploy to the site of an emergency within 72 hours of notification and should expect to spend up to 65% of their time in the field, in either an emergency or roving capacity.

The ERT Protection Coordinator (Child Protection) will be responsible for starting up and leading integrated protection and/or child protection programming in acute emergency responses. This may include rapid assessment, program start-up, strategy development, proposal development, technical oversight, staff recruitment and management, budget management, grants compliance and local partner relations. When not deployed, the ERT Protection Coordinator will contribute to IRC's strategic objectives and technical workstreams for CP and violence prevention and response in emergencies. A successful candidate will demonstrate a track record of working independently in fast-paced environments and applying creative, flexible design to protection programming in acute emergency contexts.

Major Responsibilities:

Emergency Responses:

Context Evaluation

• Following the onset of an emergency, identify areas with greatest impact, highest needs, and emerging safety protection risks for diverse populations (integrated protection, CP, WPE / GBV, PROL), including specific protection risks for young children, adolescents, and families, and care arrangements
• Conduct stakeholder analysis: continually review existing actor mapping with a view to identifying key actors and establishing partnerships with focused on the delivery of protection services
• Design and conduct multisector needs assessments

Program design and management

• Provide strategic direction, leadership and overall technical management of IRC’s protection response aligned to the response strategy and emergency safety outcomes, while ensuring high program quality and alignment with IRC’s standards and approaches
• Lead and directly contribute to the start-up, implementation and coordination of emergency protection programming, including (depending on the context): emergency case management; support to Unaccompanied and Separated Children (UASC), including Family Tracing and Reunification (FTR) and alternative care; cash for protection; rapid group MHPSS interventions; emergency safety and wellbeing sessions; two-way, responsive information services; community-based protection and risk mitigation; group cash transfers for community-led protection actions; and safe, inclusive programming and protection mainstreaming.
• In collaboration with partners, develop a VPRIE strategy to respond to identified protection risks and needs, outlining a problem statement, response modalities, activity sequencing, and required resources
• In collaboration with response leadership and technical coordinators, input into the design of an overall emergency response strategy, including partnerships so that the IRC is working in ways that are complementary to and in support of partners and child protection actors
• Participate in cross-departmental collaboration and coordination with other sector colleagues to ensure that linkages between programs are made and programs gain from protection best practice
• Ensure – through program design and practice, team capacity and behavior – that clients, including young children, adolescents, and caregivers, participate in the design and implementation of IRC programs, and that their access to services and programs is meaningful and safe
• Develop and/or adapt technical tools and approaches, and deliver creative solutions to mitigate challenges in the operating context, to facilitate response start-up and day to day implementation
• Support emergency protection staff to implement and monitor work plans ensuring that activities reflect the commitments IRC made to the donor and the community
• Oversee IRC’s relationship with partners, ensuring co-design, regular exchange, and project performance monitoring to achieve program objectives
• Design and implement appropriate monitoring and evaluation (M&E) systems ensuring consistent reporting and analysis of results to improve program effectiveness and quality
• Provide a comprehensive handover to successor, including ensuring transfer of all related documentation, program data and staff performance information

Grant and financial management

• Manage emergency grant/program implementation including recruitment and training, work plan development, procurement and inventory planning, budget management, and M&E plans
• Develop high quality technical proposals and reports with relevant program staff in line with IRC and donor requirements
• Collaborate with IRC grants and finance staff to finalize proposals and respond to any requests for additional information

Staff management

• Recruit, onboard, and supervise emergency protection staff, and provide ongoing training and targeted capacity building, including technical guidance, on the job coaching and supervision, and capacity development plans on technical and managerial skills
• Comply with and ensure that new protection staff understand the IRC Code of Conduct and policies related to Protection from Sexual Exploitation and Abuse and Child Safeguarding. This includes ensuring that staff and communities have knowledge of and safe, confidential access to reporting mechanisms and support services
• Maintain open and professional relations with team members, promoting a strong team spirit and providing oversight and guidance to enable staff to successfully perform in their positions

Coordination and representation

• Actively develop and maintain effective working relationships with key actors, including donors, government actors, UN agencies, international and local NGOs, and other relevant actors
• Regularly attend emergency protection coordination and task force meetings, at appropriate levels to feed in IRC priorities from the field
• Ensure protection concerns and challenges are brought to relevant fora to advocate for standards and procedures that systematize how protection programming is implemented and coordinated at the field level

Technical support and guidance

When not deployed, the ERT Protection Coordinator (CP) will:

• Contribute to IRC’s strategic priorities for violence prevention and response in emergencies, and lead on CP-specific ambitions, including: refining emergency CP program models, toolkits, and technical guidance; supporting emergency preparedness and readiness; contributing to integrated and multi-sectoral program design, etc.
• Provide technical support, coaching, and backstopping to CP-centered emergency responses in countries with existing IRC programming, as needed
• Participate in cross-departmental collaboration and coordination with WPE, PROL, Education / ECD, and other sector colleagues to ensure that linkages between programs are made and programs gain from protection best practice
• Represent acute emergency approaches and priorities within IRC’s global CP team, including liaising and coordinating with CP TAs and Global Practice Lead, contributing to IRC’s global CP ambitions and representation as needed
• Contribute to delivery of IRC’s Emergency and Humanitarian Action strategic action plan and commitments to partnerships, safeguarding, and Diversity, Equality, and Inclusion (DEI)

Job Requirements:

• Post-graduate degree in social work, psychology, international humanitarian law, other related field, or equivalent work experience
• At least five years’ experience working in the field of Protection, Child Protection, or WPE / GBV programming at the Coordinator level or above required, with proven track record managing multi-donor portfolios in acute emergency response, program and project start-up
• Experience working with IRC and an understanding of IRC’s systems and processes is strongly preferred
• Familiarity with key donor regulations such as UNHCR, FCDO, BPRM and ECHO
• Experience in working with and coordinating with the UN, donors, INGOs and other humanitarian actors
• Demonstrated experience in staff supervision, capacity building, project design and budget management
• Proven leadership of multi-disciplinary, cross-cultural teams, with strong mentoring, coaching, motivational, and team-building skills.
• Demonstrated commitment to inclusion and fair treatment of staff, and ability to identify and address barriers to inclusion for marginalized groups in emergency response.
• Proven communication, writing and editing skills, including the ability to effectively write and edit grant proposals and reports.
• Flexible work attitude: Be flexible and yet focused & reliable in an environment of limited resources and changing demands. Ability to work well, promote teamwork, be comfortable in a multi-cultural environment.
• Good digital literacy: Facility with MS Word, Excel, and email/internet software.
• Fluency in English and French. Ability to additionally Spanish and/or Arabic strongly preferred. Excellent oral and written communication skills.

Professional Standards: All International Rescue Committee workers must adhere to the core values and principles outlined in IRC Way - Standards for Professional Conduct. Our Standards are Integrity, Service, Equality and Accountability. In accordance with these values, the IRC operates and enforces policies on Safeguarding, Conflicts of Interest, Fiscal Integrity, and Reporting Wrongdoing and Protection from Retaliation. IRC is committed to take all necessary preventive measures and create an environment where people feel safe, and to take all necessary actions and corrective measures when harm occurs. IRC builds teams of professionals who promote critical reflection, power sharing, debate, and objectivity to deliver the best possible services to our clients.

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Equal Opportunity Employer: IRC is an Equal Opportunity Employer. IRC considers all applicants on the basis of merit without regard to race, sex, color, national origin, religion, sexual orientation, age, marital status, veteran status, disability or any other characteristic protected by applicable law.