Safeguarding Adviser

Our vision, our mission and our work are all defined by one goal ending extreme poverty, whatever it takes. We believe that no-one should have to live in fear that they won’t have a home to sleep in or enough food to feed their children.For over 50 years we have been working with the world’s poorest people towards this goal.

Today we are a team of over 4,400 highly skilled and dedicated professionals from 50 countries who share an exceptional depth and diversity of experience. We want committed, values driven staff to join our Dublin team and are currently looking for a Safeguarding Adviser to be part of our Emergency department.

We are committed to providing our staff with the skills needed to excel in their jobs. Concern offers in-house management and leadership courses and tailored organisation-wide learning opportunities both in-person and online. All employees are required to undertake training in equality, diversity and inclusion; the Code of Conduct; and safeguarding, along with any other training required for the role.

Our culture is values driven and friendly. A global engagement survey conducted in 2022, responded to by 3,577 of our staff, showed that 89% of our staff would happily recommend Concern as a great place to work and 94% are proud to tell people that they work for Concern.

Our office is located in Dublin 2 and we are currently working a hybrid model (50% remote working) and offer flexi time.

Job Location: The post holder will be based in Dublin with frequent travel overseas. Approximately 25% of the advisers time may be spent overseas each year.

The job: Concern seeks to deliver accountable and safe programming in all of its country programmes. The prevention, reporting, response, and learning from Protection and Safeguarding risks is critical to protecting the rights of Concerns programme participants, upholding the Do No Harm principle, and Concerns reputation as humanitarian actor. It is essential that Concern consistently delivers meaningful, effective, and sensitive response to Safeguarding incidents, via strong Case Management and referral to appropriate Mental Health and Psychosocial Services (MHPSS), health, legal, and other services. Such efforts are central to meeting Concerns own standards, international standards of humanitarian actors, and the fundamental requirements of the donor community, whether institutional or public.

Resultantly, Concern seeks to further its capacity and quality through the provision of strong direction, guidance, tools, and capacity strengthening for all of its countries of operation and support offices. The Safeguarding Adviser will have three principal objectives:

• Provide guidance on Safeguarding best practice, both in content, resource, and structure, to continue to develop Concerns capacity and quality in terms of Safeguarding.
• Provide technical leadership, guidance, and capacity strengthening on Safeguarding prevention and reporting to all country teams and Support Offices, ensuring strong awareness and sensitivity to Safeguarding risks and reporting channels.
• Provide strong Case Management for Safeguarding incidents, ensuring their alignment with Safeguarding principles, and that victim/survivors receive relevant information and support to access services, taking a survivor-centred approach

If you join us, this is what you will be doing:

Policy and strategy

• Support the review and communication of the Concern Code of Conduct and its associated Safeguarding policies[1] and be able to advise on and contribute to necessary revisions based on good Safeguarding practice.
• Keep abreast of relevant policy trends and good practice; ensure that Concerns policy and practice reflects these, and that this information is widely and accessibly disseminated throughout the organisation.
• Lead the development of the Safeguarding components of the Protection and Safeguarding Strategic Framework and provide technical leadership regarding Safeguarding (and Safeguarding-related) policy and strategy.
• Develop direction and guidance on the human and financial resourcing of Safeguarding at global, regional, and national level, be that through focal points, staffing, or other activities.

Global technical leadership

• Keep abreast of relevant policy trends, global needs, donor appetite, and good practice, ensuring that Concerns strategy, policy, and practice reflects these, and that this information is widely and accessibly – disseminated throughout the organisation.
• Develop and roll out technical guidance and tools to assist country-level support to victim-survivors, survivor supporters, and case participants as appropriate.
• Work with the Humanitarian Protection Adviser to ensure a strategic and systematic approach to the integration of Protection and Safeguarding risk analysis, resultant mitigating actions and adaptations, and service mapping.
• Work alongside the other Protection and Safeguarding Project Manager to ensure the integration of Safeguarding messaging, rights, risks, and reporting in CRM guidance and support.
• Develop, deliver, and review training modules for the staff of Concern and its partners at the country programme level in relation to the Concern Code of Conduct and its associated Safeguarding policies and good Safeguarding practice.
• Develop, deliver, and review training modules for Designated Safeguarding Focal Points.
• Document and share good practice and lessons to be learned about Safeguarding interventions at the country programme level.
• Lead the initiation and maintenance of communities of practice(s) and communication channels between Concern country programmes on different aspects of Safeguarding.

Country Programme technical support

• Provide support, advice, and direction in technical aspects of Safeguarding, outlining how a more informed approach to Safeguarding affects country programme design and implementation.
• Review needs assessments, risk analyses, programme proposals, reviews, and evaluations as appropriate.
• Conduct in-country and remote technical support to Safeguarding-specific assessment, design, implementation, and review of Concern country programme quality and capacity.
• Source, develop and/or deliver capacity strengthening to Concern country programmes on Safeguarding through in-person, train-the-trainer, and remote channels.
• Provide support to country programmes to develop IEC materials and sensitisation content that speaks to the rights, risks and reporting options regarding Safeguarding concerns.
• Curate and communicate high quality technical guidance, both developed within Concern and sourced from other organisations and agencies.

Case Management

Conduct and oversee Safeguarding case management as per the Case Management Procedure, ensuring their alignment with Safeguarding principles, and a survivor-centred approach that delivers access to appropriate information, services, and support, and guidance for survivor-supporters.

• Coordinate with Designated Safeguarding Focal Points and other key stakeholders in-country to ensure updated service mapping for a comprehensive array of relevant services, supporting the search for international services where necessary.
• Work with the Internal Audit and Investigation Unit to ensure that a survivor-centred approach informs all of our investigations and the outcomes of them to the extent possible, and that post-investigation follow-up is conducted, where necessary and appropriate, to victim/survivors and other key stakeholders.

Compliance

• Input into donor due diligence and quality assessments before, during, and after programme implementation as appropriate.
• Conduct reviews and audits of country programmes Safeguarding practice, both remotely and through technical support visits.
• Develop and roll-out tools to assist country programmes in carrying out Safeguarding reviews that lead to clear actions and follow-up.
• Lead the development of a Safeguarding annual report and feed into annual Safeguarding reporting.

Networking, representation, and coordination

• Establish and maintain strong links with other organisations, institutions, professional groups, networks, and cluster mechanisms to ensure the sharing of best practice, and inter-organisational learning.
• Increase Concerns networking at international and regional levels, sharing of insights and experience to raise organisational profile in relation to Safeguarding.
• Represent Concern to relevant institutes, universities, organisations, groups, and donors in areas related to Safeguarding as appropriate.
• Attend workshops or seminars on Safeguarding and wider emergency-related issues as appropriate.

Additional responsibilities

• Be available to respond quickly to emerging needs by undertaking or participating in humanitarian assessments or in supporting the establishment of programme interventions, ensuring that Safeguarding is considered in the response from the outset, including in any initial assessments of needs.
• Uphold and promote Concerns values, including our workplace equality, diversity, and inclusion values

Skills you will bring:

Essential:

• A recognised degree in a specialist technical or professional field such as social work, child rights, psychology, etc. or equivalent experience.
• Strong understanding of theoretical and practical aspects of Safeguarding, principles and standards, key sectoral issues and processes.
• 5 years experience, including significant demonstrable experience in Safeguarding and/or PSEA, ideally both in prevention and response/case management.

• Proven experience of developing and delivering training (both remote and in-person).

• Proven experience developing guides, policies, standards and quality improvement tools.
• Proven experience working in overseas/multi-cultural environments or organisations.

• Proven experience of building, coordinating and maintaining strong cooperative and professional relationships and working with managers of different departments.

• Willingness to travel to overseas programmes, potentially at short notice, to insecure areas, and for periods of several weeks at a time.
• Ability to work as part of a team.

• Excellent communications and relationship-building skills, both formally and informally.

• Sensitivity to cultural differences, and the ability to work in a wide variety of cultural contexts.

• Strong IT skills, including Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and both online grants and case management tools.

Desirable:

• Proven experience of working in non-profits, NGOs, social enterprises, and/or government institutions
• French language highly desirable, Arabic a plus
• Experience in conducting internal investigations, ideally Safeguarding
• Strong understanding of Protection programming and Accountability to Affected Populations and their implementation at programme level
• Patience & a sense of humour

The salary is from 51,402 60,475 (Grade 5) and this 2 year fixed term contract.

To apply: If this role sounds right for you, please apply with your CV and cover letter. We will respond to every applicant. Please be aware we may offer positions before the closing date.

If you have any concerns about our recruitment process and need particular assistance – for example if you have a visual impairment or are neuro-divergent – please let us know and we will do our best to accommodate you.

Concern has an organisational Code of Conduct (CCoC) with three Associated Policies; the Programme Participant Protection Policy (P4), the Child Safeguarding Policy and the Anti-Trafficking in Persons Policy accessible here. These have been developed to ensure the maximum protection of programme participants from exploitation, and to clarify the responsibilities of Concern staff, consultants, visitors to the programme and partner organisation, and the standards of behaviour expected of them. In this context, staff have a responsibility to the organisation to strive for, and maintain, the highest standards in the day-to-day conduct in their workplace in accordance with Concerns core values and mission. Any candidate offered a job with Concern Worldwide will be expected to sign the Concern Staff Code of Conduct and Associated Policies as an appendix to their contract of employment. By signing the Concern Code of Conduct, candidates acknowledge that they have understood the content of both the Concern Code of Conduct and the Associated Policies and agree to conduct themselves in accordance with the provisions of these policies. Additionally, Concern is committed to the safeguarding and protection of vulnerable adults and children in our work. We will do everything possible to ensure that only those who are suitable to work or volunteer with vulnerable adults and children are recruited by us for such roles. Subsequently, working or volunteering with Concern is subject to a range of vetting checks, including criminal background checking.

Your Personal Data

During this job application, you will provide Concern with your personal data. Concern takes its responsibilities towards this personal data very seriously and is committed to complying with all relevant data protection legislation.

Concern receives a substantial amount of funding from external donors each year. Increasingly donors are introducing requirements whereby future funding is conditional on ensuring that the name of any employee or volunteer (existing or new), does not appear on terrorism lists generated by the European Union (List of person, groups and entities to which Regulation (EC No. 2580/2001 applies), the US Government (Office of Foreign Assets Control list of specially designated Nationals and Blocked Persons) and the United Nations (Consolidated List).

Any offer of employment (either paid or voluntary) with Concern Worldwide will only be made following a successful clearance check being conducted on the applicant and such checks may be updated periodically during the course of the period of employment.

By submitting a formal application for paid or voluntary employment to Concern, you agree to Concern carrying out a clearance check as outlined above and that Concern will not proceed to recruit you should your name appear on any of the aforementioned lists

In certain circumstances, donors may request that personal data relating to employees to work on the activities that they fund be provided directly to them – so that they can perform their own counter terrorism checks. This may involve transferring some basic personal data outside the EEA. It will be a condition of your employment contract that Concern be allowed to share this information with institutional donors for these purposes.

For additional information please consult our web site or contact the Human Resource Division in our Head Office.

You have certain rights under data protection legislation. For more information on how to exercise those rights please visit www.concern.net/about/privacy

Please only apply for this position if you are satisfied with the proposed processing of your personal data as outlined above.