Child Protection (CP) Technical Advisor, Latam

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 50 countries and more than 25 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.

To achieve the vision, the IRC’s Technical Excellence (TE) provides technical assistance to IRC’s country program staff and share learnings to influence policy and practice. TE is comprised of five technical units: Economic Recovery and Development; Education; Governance; Health; and Violence Prevention and Response. There are also three supporting units: Measurement, Grant Operations and Analytics, and Program Quality Support.

The Child Protection Technical Advisor will form part of the Violence Prevention and Response Technical Unit (VPRU), which houses expertise in the field of child protection, protection and rule of law and women’s protection and empowerment. The VPRU provides dynamic, innovative support to IRC’s field offices and provides technical assistance, ensures innovation, promotes standard processes, and helps to improve data collection and analysis for protection programming within the organization. Child Protection within VPRU supports the design and implementation of child protection programs in 40 countries. The Child Protection team works to ensure that children affected by conflict and crisis are safe, can exercise their rights, and are cared for in an environment that promotes their physical, social, emotional, cognitive and economic well-being.

We work to support caregivers provide a protective environment for children. We also work to prevent the separation of children from families and support their recovery from harm through evidence-based interventions and outcomes. The IRC is at the forefront of promoting evidence-based models in the sector and to use implementation data together with evidence to develop and deliver client centered solutions for children and their families.

POSITION OVERVIEW

This role is focused IRC’s Latin America region. This is IRC’s newest region with the ambition of substantially increasing its portfolio. IRC’s Latin America Region is comprised of three population-based responses to regional crisis: 1) the Venezuela Crisis including Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador, and Peru; 2) Northern of Central America (NCA – El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras) and 3) Mexico & Cross Border (including coordination with IRC-US programming). Additionally, the Latin America region coordinates with the Emergency and Humanitarian Action Unit is responding to the current humanitarian crisis in Haiti through a partnership-based approach.

As the Child Protection Technical Advisor for Latam region, you are responsible for ensuring high quality technical assistance to Latam country programs and collaborate with relevant stakeholders to achieve high quality, high impact interventions that are informed by evidence, data, and best practice, contextually appropriate, driven by client and partner voices, and are safe, inclusive, and promote equal outcomes for clients.

Program Development & Partnerships: You will support country programs to develop technical solutions aligned to with contextual developments, regional, sectoral and global strategies to provide context-relevant, client-centered, accountable, scalable and cost-efficient programs for people impacted by crisis in the region of assignment:

• Remain abreast of their region’s contextual developments and provide strategic advice on child protection programmatic direction and portfolio development

• Provide support and guidance to country programs in the development and implementation of violence prevention and response strategies for child protection outcomes

• Substantially contribute to the development of outcome theories of change and log frames as relevant and needed

• Support the in-country technical lead in analyzing relevant information including available M&E and client responsiveness data, to prepare for design meetings/conversations

• Advise on program modalities and strategic partnership development based on evidence, scale considerations, and how we can best support, complement, and reinforce local systems

• Provide technical guidance on country and regional partnership strategies including strategic partnerships with governments, multilateral organizations, private sector and CBOs.

• Support country teams in their strategic technical dialogue and engagement with critical stakeholders (donors, peer organizations, policymakers, academia etc.)

• Advise on and/or provide hands-on support on assessments, including application and contextualization of technical standards

• Participate in project design meetings for all relevant proposals (remotely or in person)

• Review and validate design meeting decisions around technical design quality, including alignment of narratives, log-frames, and budgets, to IRC standards and outcomes

• Act as the technical entry point to gender equality and diversity inclusion in programs questions by provide guidance and orientation to country teams to relevant internal and external resources, learning and best practices

• Contribute to global program development and global engagement, particularly through ensuring national and regional experience and learning is available and utilized and support to global strategic projects, as assigned

**Implementation Support:**You will support country program staff and other key stakeholders in implementing technical interventions:

• Support country programs and other stakeholders with the identification of skillsets required for quality child protection programming including but not limited to recruitment and mentoring of technical staff

• Assess program quality and inform improvements, providing follow up support to country programs as needed

• Collaborate with country program colleagues to monitor and analyze key indicators to inform periodic review, program adaptation, and course-correction as needed

• Provide technical capacity strengthening through ongoing mentoring, coaching, and trainings with country program focal points

• Support advocacy and policy reform and implementation processes through identifying and positioning key child protection issues and solutions

• Support country teams in their strategic technical dialogue and engagement with critical stakeholders (donors, peer organizations, policymakers, academia, and connect regional technical dialogue with global initiatives

• Promote integrated outcomes for clients through collaboration across the VPR specialized areas and other sectors

• Support countries in emergency preparedness plans and response strategies, and anticipated program adaptation to respond to emergency situations pre and post emergency classifications in alignment with Regional Response Strategies.

Knowledge & Learning: You will support continuous sectoral learning and IRC technical leadership:

• Systematically conduct data analysis using the CPIMS+ and through at least 2 interventions in Latam and document learnings from program activities and sharing takeaways and opportunities

• Document learnings from program activities and sharing takeaways and opportunities

• Lead on context-relevant analysis leveraging and triangulating quantitative and qualitative data from diverse child protection global and regional sources

• Share cross-contextual learnings with country program staff across the region and with other relevant counterparts

• Collaborate with the Quality in Emergencies team and Emergencies and Humanitarian Action Unit (EHAU) counterparts to incorporate learning in design and to implement high quality programming in acute emergency situations

• Collaborate with other technical advisors within the region to promote integrated programming leadership

• Refresh the sectoral evidence-base in collaboration with global and regional staff to influence approaches

• Contribute to the delivery of VPRU strategic priorities in collaboration with the Child Protection Global Practice Lead and through active participation in the Child Protection CoP.

• Maintain currency with sectoral best practices through continual learning and development

PROFESSIONAL PROFILE

Success in this position requires an individual with expertise in designing and delivering technical assistance to Protection Rule of Law programs, and with a deep understanding of the cultural, societal, and political contexts in at least one of the regions where IRC operates.

Work Experience:

• A minimum of 6-8 years of relevant experience in implementing and/or managing Child Protection programs, with on the ground programmatic experience in a service delivery organization, NGO or comparable international agency required.

• Experience in technical tools and materials development, monitoring and evaluation, and research in relation to Child Protection

• Experience and familiarity with related donors, peer agencies and national contexts required, preferably in humanitarian, post-crisis, or climate impacted contexts.

• Demonstrated expertise in technical program design, monitoring and evaluation, with the ability to turn concepts and strategy into measurable action.

• Experience in integrated program strategy development and working across sectors or disciplines is highly desired.

Demonstrated Skills and Competencies:

• Excellent verbal and written communications skills

• Strong organizational and time-management skills; proven ability to prioritize and deliver projects on time and independently.

• Demonstrated ability to navigate a dynamic, cross-functional, global team structure in a large multi-national organization.

• Demonstrated ability to work effectively with internal and external stakeholders at all levels.

• Strong analytic problem-solving skills.

• Highly proficient in Microsoft Office suite.

• Ability to manage and work through change in a proactive and positive manner.

Education: Bachelor’s Degree in Social Work, Child Rights or a relevant field required, Master’s Degree preferred.

Language Skills: Excellent spoken and written English and Spanish is essential. Working proficiency in French or Portuguese would be an asset.

**Key Working Relationships:**This position reports to the Latam Violence Prevention and Response Lead, based in New York, United States. This position may potentially supervise occasional consultants and/or interns. Regular communication with the Child Protection Global Practice Lead (GPL) and in the region, the Women’s Protection and Empowerment (WPE) Technical Advisor, Protection and Rule of Law (ProL) Technical Advisor, other programs’ technical leads, awards management and grants management staff, and other internal stakeholders.

Working Environment: Standard office working environment. This role will require international travel up to 40% of the time. This role is based in one of the approved locations in Latin America Region. Other IRC locations may be possible.

**Standard of Professional Conduct:**The IRC and the IRC workers must adhere to the values and principles outlined in the IRC Way – our Code of Conduct. These are Integrity, Service, Accountability, and Equality.

Commitment to Gender, Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion: The IRC is committed to creating a diverse, inclusive, respectful, and safe work environment where all persons are treated fairly, with dignity and respect. The IRC expressly prohibits and will not tolerate discrimination, harassment, retaliation, or bullying of the IRC persons in any work setting. We aim to increase the representation of women, people that are from country and communities we serve, and people who identify as races and ethnicities that are under-represented in global power structures.