Save the Children is the leading independent organization for children in need, with programs in over 120 countries. We save children’s lives. We fight for their rights. We help them fulfil their potential. Save the Children is working in Nigeria because one in five children in Nigeria dies before their fifth birthday. About 40% of children miss out on school and have to work to survive while nearly 2 million children have lost one or both parents to an AIDS-related disease.
We are recruiting to fill the position below:
Job Title: Senior Child Protection Technical Advisor
Location: Abuja, Nigeria
Grade: 2
Contract Length: 2 Years
Employee Status: Fixed Term
Team / Programme: Programme Development & Quality
Child Safeguarding
- Level 3: The post holder will have contact with children and / or young people either frequently (e.g. once a week or more) or intensively (e.g. four days in one month or more or overnight) because they work country programs; or are visiting country programs; or because they are responsible for implementing the police checking / vetting process staff.
Role Purpose
- The Senior Child Protection Technical Advisor will use their in-depth contextual understanding, technical expertise, and relationship building skills to define and deliver our strategic ambition for Child Protection in Nigeria.
- The role will lead strategy development and the technical design and implementation of high quality programmes that deliver change for children in both emergency and development programming.
- The role supports national advocacy and influencing, while driving strategic partnerships for new business development. It supports the design and implementation of monitoring and evaluation systems to demonstrate impact, while sharing learning across our programmes, teams and partners.
- The role will work closely operations colleagues and with partners in Nigeria, building their capacity and building ownership and agency of local organisations.
- This role includes a focus on external representation on priority issues including ending all forms of violence, abuse, neglect and exploitation of children in all settings, and the strengthening of an effective and sustainable child protection system.
Scope of Role:
- Reports to: Director - Programme Development & Quality
- Staff reporting to this post: no direct reports but expected to provide coaching and mentoring support to operational and other technical colleagues and local partners
- Budget Responsibilities: Limited
Role Dimensions:
- The role is expected to foster relationships with a wide range of internal and external stakeholders including Save the Children members, the Country Office Programme Development & Quality team, advocacy colleagues, Regional Advisors, technical counterparts in other organisation, donors, academia etc. The role is also expected to engage with internal technical working groups and communities of practice.
Context :
- Humanitarian / Humanitarian and development
- Scope: Nigeria- countrywide
- Primary Technical area: Child Protection
- Primary Sub technical area: Prevention and Response to Violence against children
- Secondary Sub technical area: Child Protection Systems
Key Areas of Accountability
Technical Leadership:
- Provide technical leadership for Child Protection for the Country Office, and set the strategic approach in relation to the wider country strategy
- Build capacity of national staff and partners in key technical approaches related to Child Protection.
Ensuring Programme Quality (Design & Implementation):
- Work closely with new business development colleagues to identify and pursue funding opportunities that allow for both integration into broader programmes and standalone child protection projects; engage with technical partners, donors and colleagues across Save the Children
- Lead the technical scoping, planning, and design and proposal writing for child protection during new programme development, and ensure that we design and deliver high quality integrated child protection programmes for children, building on global best practice. Ensure that gender, disability and resilience considerations are reflected in our programme design and implementation.
- Work with Child Rights Governance colleagues to ensure that a rights-based approach is reflected in our programme design and implementation (in line with our child rights programming approach), with a strong focus on child participation
- Promote a Child Protection Systems Strengthening approach as the overarching framework, that supports working in collaboration and partnership with governments and local partners and working towards impact, scale and sustainability.
- Provide oversight and guidance to the programme implementation teams to ensure that thematic programme components are technically sound, implementation methods are consistent with national and global strategies, acknowledged good practice (e.g. Save the Children Common Approaches); and are likely to achieve scale, as well as equitable and sustainable results.
- Promote and monitor integrated programming in a way that increases overall impact of child protection programmes at the community level.
- Work with Monitoring, Evaluation, Accountability & Learning (MEAL) teams to carry out gender and power analysis, and conduct quality monitoring against international standards through participatory methodologies that promote gender equality and social justice (including child-friendly and gender sensitive / transformative methodologies);.
- Contribute towards the creation of an organisational learning culture that promotes the use of disaggregated data, evidence and analysis (including gender and power analysis) and understands its link to quality and accountable programming; Contribute to strengthening the use of equality-focused programme principles and good practice across themes and sectors.
- Undertake field visits to project sites; work with implementation teams to understand impacts, operational challenges, and continuously identify opportunities for learning and improvement.
- Contribute to organisational learning on child protection, ensuring that learning from our programmes is shared across the Country Office and our partners, as well as with colleagues in the wider regional and global child protection community in Save the Children. Contribute to strengthening the use of Child Protection competencies within training and learning initiatives in the sector.
- Support Humanitarian colleagues to develop emergency preparedness plans, and conduct sectoral assessments (including gender analysis and disability situation analysis using SC assessment processes and tools) and to design and deliver emergency response and recovery programmes. Ensure synergies between humanitarian Child Protection teams, data and programme design.
- Monitor trends in order to ensure early action; and lead technical design and implementation and technical coordination of humanitarian responses.
Networking & External Engagement:
- In alignment with Country Office strategy and leadership, engage in strategic positioning with donors, partners and government in-country, and ensure that Save the Children is a partner of choice in Child Protection.
- Ensure that Save the Children is influencing and learning from others through national technical coordination and networking bodies such as child protection clusters and working groups.
- Strengthen civil society engagement in national dialogues and policy processes to end violence against children through working closely with advocacy and child rights governance colleagues. Ensure that the diverse voices of children, girls and boys are equitably heard and represented in our child protection work.
- Represent the program to National and Local government representatives, donors, partner agencies, etc. as required.
- Ensure the quality, clarity and consistency of technical components of internal and external reports (e.g. programme reports, sit-reps, internal updates), working closely with awards, programme implementation and communications colleagues as needed.
- Leverage and liaise with technical colleagues from across Save the Children, including technical working groups and centres of excellence, ensuring that learning from the Country Office is shared with others and global lessons brought back.
Behaviours (Values in Practice)
Accountability:
- Holds self-accountable for making decisions, managing resources efficiently, achieving and role modelling Save the Children values
- Holds their team and partners accountable to deliver on their responsibilities - giving them the freedom to deliver in accordance with the context, providing the necessary development to improve performance and applying appropriate consequences when results are not achieved.
Ambition:
- Sets ambitious and challenging goals for themselves and their team, takes responsibility for their own professional development and encourages their team to do the same
- Widely shares Save the Children’s vision, and engages and motivates others
- Future orientated, thinks strategically and on a national and global scale.
Collaboration:
- Builds and maintains effective relationships, with their team, colleagues, technical advisors and working groups, Members and external partners and supporters
- Values diversity, sees it as a source of competitive strength
- Approachable, good listener, easy to talk to.
Creativity:
- Develops and encourages new and innovative solutions
- Willing to take disciplined risks.
Integrity:
- Honest, encourages openness and transparency; demonstrates highest levels of integrity
- The post holder must commit to work in an international agency that promotes diversity, equity and inclusion and fights racism, gender inequality and discrimination in all forms; and to model positive behaviours that demonstrate a commitment to equality and respect to all colleagues, partners and communities.
Additional Job Responsibilities:
- The duties and responsibilities as set out above are not exhaustive and the role holder may be required to carry out additional duties within reasonableness of their level of skills and experience.
Equal Opportunities:
- The role holder is required to carry out the duties in accordance with the SCI Equal Opportunities and Diversity policies and procedures.
Child Safeguarding:
- We need to keep children safe so our selection process, which includes rigorous background checks, reflects our commitment to the protection of children from abuse.
Safeguarding our Staff:
- The post holder is required to carry out the duties in accordance with the SCI anti-harassment policy
Health and Safety:
- The role holder is required to carry out the duties in accordance with SCI Health and Safety policies and procedures.
Qualifications
- Master's degree in Social Work, Child Protection or related field, or equivalent experience
- Social Work, Child Protection, Child Welfare or related qualification
Experience and Skills
- At least 5 years’ experience of leading the design and implementation of humanitarian and development programmes in Child Protection
- Understanding of the Child Protection sector in Nigeria
- Familiar with child protection systems, social work with children and families, case management, positive parenting, community-level child protection and integration of child protection with education and other sectors. Track record in successful business development / fundraising.
- Demonstrated program design, monitoring and evaluation skills, including designing pathways to sustainable impact at scale.
- Experience of strategy development and planning
- Experience of context, capacity and policy analysis, and influencing and advocacy at regional/international level in order to hold duty bearers to account to realise children’s rights.
- Skilled at networking, representation and partnership development in order promote learning, strengthen civil society and mobilise resources.
- Able to generate and use data and evidence to innovate, deliver, learn and share what works and what doesn’t work for children
- Experience of promoting quality and impact through at least one cross-cutting area: gender equality and inclusion, adaptive and safer programming; child rights; disability; migration and displacement.
- Experience of supporting humanitarian preparedness, response and recovery
- Significant experience in training, capacity building, and mentoring
- Fluent in English and high level of English writing skills.
Key Competencies
Technical competencies:
- Promotes optimum levels of child development
- Works to strengthen the components and linkages within the child protection system
- Prevents violence abuse exploitation and neglect of children
- Responds effectively and appropriately to violence, abuse, exploitation and neglect of children
Generic Competencies:
- Being the Voice of Children: Promotes evidence-based policy and public engagement that includes the voices of children and their communities
- Advancing Equality & Inclusion: Displays a commitment to ensuring everything we do considers the most deprived and marginalised children
- Building & Strengthening Partnerships: Promotes working with diverse partners as critical to delivery
- Child Rights: Promotes the rights of children in own work and in work with colleagues and peers
