United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland: Director of Emergency Health Programmes

Over the past 80 years, the International Rescue Committee (IRC) has developed unparalleled expertise in responding to emergencies and helping uprooted communities to rebuild. Founded in 1933 at the request of Albert Einstein, the IRC offers lifesaving care and life-changing assistance to refugees forced to flee from war or disaster.

The International Rescue Committee UK is part of the IRC global network, which has its headquarters in New York and London. The IRC is on the ground in more than 40 countries, providing emergency relief, relocating refugees and rebuilding lives in the wake of disaster. Through 22 regional offices in cities across the United States, the IRC also helps refugees resettle in the US and become self-sufficient.

The IRC is committed to a culture of bold leadership, innovation in all aspects of our work, creative partnerships and, most crucially, accountability to those we serve. The IRC is a tireless advocate for the most vulnerable.

IRC-UK

Our European headquarters, IRC-UK, were established in London in 1997 to support the organisation’s global activities and particularly to diversify its donor base and be able to better advocate with European policy-makers on behalf of the people we serve. Since its establishment IRC-UK has grown rapidly and is now acknowledged for its high quality project management, technical expertise in governance and rights and economic recovery, and innovative thinking on early recovery and gender based violence. The IRC also has offices in Brussels and Geneva.

IRC-UK comprises approximately 70 staff across five departments.

The Purpose of the Role

In the coming five years the IRC will invest substantially to transform its global capacity to respond to large scale emergencies; the majority of this investment will be made to assure the immediate delivery of critical health, nutrition and water and sanitation services to communities affected by conflict and natural disaster. The IRC is seeking an industry leader to design and manage this transformative process so as to ensure the IRC blazes trails both operationally in quality emergency health programming and through the issuance of best practice policy.

The Director of Emergency Health will provide global strategic and operational leadership to the IRC’s emergency health programming. The Director of Emergency Health will lead a team of experienced emergency response professionals in the areas of primary health care, reproductive health, nutrition, and water and sanitation. In addition to operationalizing IRC’s five year strategic commitment to emergency health at the HQ level, the Director of Emergency Health programs will also be called upon to coordinate teams of emergency health experts into large scale acute emergencies to assure the provision of immediate, scaled and quality health programs.

Major Responsibilities:

Strategy

· Develop and manage the implementation of a strategy and related operational plan to transform the IRC’s emergency health capacity, in line with broader organizational plans.

· Provide regular updates throughout the life span of the operational plan, making evidence based recommendations wherever course corrections are required.

Human resource management

· Provide guidance and supervision to a team of 8-10 emergency response professionals in different health areas, including primary health care, reproductive health, nutrition, and water and sanitation; recruit and orient new staff, discuss job expectations, set objectives and provide appropriate and timely feedback regarding performance of direct reports, including timely implementation of the annual staff performance management system.

· Clearly define the training needs of direct reports and ensure they are able to access training and professional development resources appropriate to their skill gaps/needs.

· Maintain open and professional relations with team members, encouraging them to collaborate effectively with other Emergency Unit and country staff, promoting a strong team spirit and providing oversight and guidance to enable staff to successfully perform in their positions.

· Lead and coordinate, in collaboration with relevant members of the EPRU, strong health and WASH internal and external roster that ensure a 72 hour response capacity.

· Lead with commitment, integrity and accountability to the “IRC Way” – Global Standards for Professional Conduct

Emergency Health Systems

· Lead the development and implementation of standard IRC Emergency Health Systems that will guide all functional programming in emergencies.

· Lead, in collaboration with the IRC’s Global Supply Chain team, the process of establishing pre-positioned pharmaceuticals and medical equipment whether physical in a central warehouse, or virtual through pre-agreed vendor agreements.

· Guide the development of training materials for the IRC’s global emergency roster and partner family.

Emergency deployment

· Deploy to emergencies within 72 hours as requested by the Director of the EPRU, in consultation with the Senior Health Director

· Within each deployment, assist with set up, develop a health strategy, lead expat and local recruitment, and help initiate programs

· Within each deployment, develop proposals for funding

· Deploy for up to 2 months as needed

Representation and fund-raising

· Represent the IRC at meetings related to public health or emergency response

· Communicate the aims, approaches, and results of the IRC’s emergency health team to other teams and departments within the IRC.

· Work with Health Unit and EPRU colleagues, as well as members of other departments, to raise core funding for IRC’s work in health and other emergency sectors

Key Working Relationships:

· Position Reports to: S/he is a member of the Health Unit, and will report to the Senior Director, Health Unit.

· Indirect Reporting: S/he will maintain a close collaborative working relationship with the Director, Emergency Preparedness and Response Unit, as well as colleagues from the wider Emergency Unit.

PERSON SPECIFICATION

Essential

· Significant progressive experience in emergency health response including the coordination of responses to large scale acute emergencies.

· Experience of organisational emergency preparedness and institutional capacity building.

· Significant demonstrable experience of leading humanitarian emergency health teams in a wide range of contexts.

· Wide ranging experience of relevant technical areas including primary health care, reproductive health, nutrition, water and sanitation, health education, child health, hygiene promotion, HIV, tropical medicine, infectious disease control, vaccination programmes, community health, health system strengthening.

· Excellent understanding of international health organizations (eg: WHO).

· Experience of working within the Cluster coordination framework in emergency response.

· Strong experience of representing an organization at high level external meetings.

· Extensive knowledge of best practice policy in relation to the implementation of health programmes and activities.

· Experience of developing health related training programmes.

· Clinical degree in medicine or nursing and Masters qualification in public health or equivalent experience.

· Experience of, and demonstrated capacity to, develop and implement a global health strategy and related operational plan including mechanisms and measures to ensure ongoing research, evaluation, learning and improvement.

· Excellent people management skills including the demonstrated capacity to lead, motivate, develop and engage a remote, multi-cultural and multi-disciplinary team.

· Collaborative and supportive management style.

· Strong communication skills including the ability to communicate clearly, concisely and effectively with internal and external contacts.

· Experience of resource management including working with finance colleagues to ensure sound financial monitoring and budget management as well as working with logistics colleagues to ensure smooth processes to establish pre-position medical stocks. Able to travel 35% of the time, including short notice emergency deployments requiring departure within 72 hours of notification to travel, for deployments of up to 2 months at a time.

Desirable

· Fluent in English and language skills in French or Arabic would be an advantage.

To Apply

Please send a CV (two pages maximum) and cover page (two pages maximum) to: applications@rescue-uk.org

Please state clearly in your cover letter:

· Your reasons for applying

· How you meet the person specification specified in the job description

· Where you saw the job advertised

· Current salary

The closing date is: 10am (UK time) on Monday 21^st December 2015.

In order to minimise administrative costs, IRC-UK will only contact short-listed candidates. .���: o<;�)Z3�