Jordan: Child Protection and Education Coordinator

Background/IRC Summary: Founded in 1933, the International Rescue Committee is a prominent international organization working in relief, rehabilitation, protection, post-conflict development, resettlement services and advocacy for those uprooted or affected by violent conflict and oppression.

Working in coordination with the humanitarian community, IRC currently addresses the needs of war-affected Syrians from several operational bases in the region. Our activities in the region focus primarily on the supply of vital medications and medical equipment, cash and vouchers, water and sanitation, protection and education and form part of an over-arching humanitarian response in Jordan, Lebanon, Turkey, Iraq and the region that seeks to assist refugees, IDPs and war-affected Syrians survive conflict and displacement.

The IRC/Turkey team is currently providing education and child protection services to displaced Syrians in IDP camps and urban areas in Idleb, Ar Raqqa and Aleppo Governorates. The current portfolio is approximately $3.5 million USD including support to 12 Safe Healing Learning Spaces (SHLS) in IDP camps, 10 off-camp schools (including 2 through a Syrian Organization), regular child protection case management support, psychosocial support activities for children and parenting skills training.

Job Overview/Summary: The Child Protection and Education Coordinator is responsible for overseeing the implementation of all IRC's education and child protection programming in northern Syria. S/he will provide technical and managerial leadership to both the Child Protection (CP) and Education teams and ensure all activities are of a high quality and respond to assessed needs. S/he will ensure program delivery is on time and on budget, ensure business development efforts maintain and expand services based on needs, and ensure capacity building for national staff is prioritized to enable them to take on more senior management responsibilities.

The Child Protection and Education Coordinator is part of a program team including Coordinators for health, environmental health, economic recovery and development, protection and women's protection and empowerment. S/he reports to the Deputy Director of Programs. The CP and Education Coordinator will be based in Antakya, Turkey and coordinate closely with the IRC Education technical unit and the Violence Prevention and Response (VPR) Unit at the global level.

Major Responsibilities:

Program Management

• Provide strategic direction, leadership and overall technical and management support to child protection and education programs in northern Syria;
• Lead design processes that ensure new or adapted programming for the education and child protection sectors with a focus on maximizing efficiencies, impact and integrated approaches;
• Identify needs and gaps in programming and proactively suggest new activities to build the child protection and education programs' portfolio;
• Supervise and provide technical support to the Child Protection and Education Managers to implement the IRC activities to a high quality standard;
• Coordinate closely and liaise regularly with the Deputy Director of Programs, Senior Field Coordinators and Grants Coordinator to ensure quality implementation and business development and to ensure quality management and compliance to donor requirements;
• In collaboration with Managers, ensure smooth management and integration of project work plans and budgets (budget forecasting, development of spending plans and budget follow-up), timely recruitment, and accurate reporting in accordance with IRC and donor regulations;
• Ensure that child protection and education staff produces high quality inputs as part of the development and maintenance of program-specific budget management tools, including but not limited to, activity plans, Gantt charts, procurement plans, financial forecasts, and budget vs. actuals;
• Actively participate in the monthly Grant Review Meeting process;
• Provide training to program teams on IRC activities and education and child protection best practices;
• Liaise with Technical Advisors on a regular basis to ensure technical assistance is provided when needed;
• Work closely with the Education and Protection Clusters as well as the child protection sub-cluster to ensure harmonized implementation approaches;
• Ensure the implementation of existing M&E systems, provide guidance where needed to improve the effectiveness of these systems and work to ensure output and impact data are captured and used to optimize program quality and identify efficiencies;
• Ensure that all internal and external reporting requirements are met, that reports are of a high quality and are submitted on time.

Technical Quality

• Ensure that all IRC projects are implemented in a timely and professional manner, according to objectives, goals and indicators and in line with donor requirements and beneficiary needs;
• Conduct ongoing assessments to determine the education and child protection needs of the target areas;
• Supervise and provide technical support to the team in the implementation of education in emergency activities;
• Supervise and provide technical support to the team in the implementation of child protection in emergency activities, particularly regarding the implementation of case management activities and parenting skills training in accordance with international child protection standards;
• Ensure child protection and safeguarding principles are mainstreamed across sectors;
• Supervise the case management database already existing, the startup of case management in new geographic locations and ensure the respect of data security standards with a particular focus on sensitive topics (i.e. Sexual abuse, CAAFAG, etc.);
• Regularly review training materials for child protection and education activities and trainings and ensure that they are context appropriate;
• Supervise and support the procurement and distribution of materials respecting the sensitivity of Northern Syria context and according to established procedures for documentation and quality control;
• Ensure all implementation plans employ a programming approach that integrates the needs of other IRC sectors where appropriate;
• Support the development and review training materials under the capacity building project for Syrian NGOs on child protection case management; Monitor and evaluate appropriate implementation of technical projects against program objectives and IRC's Program Framework.
• Promote strong collaboration between the child protection and the education teams (referral, ensuring safety in the school, etc.)
• Work actively in collaboration with other sector such as Health, Economic Recovery and Development, Women Protection and Empowerment and Protection Rule of Law to achieve IRC relevant outcomes.

HR & Staff Capacity Building

• 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;
• Take responsibility for discussing job expectations, performance, and objectives on an informal, quarterly basis with all staff;
• Overall responsibility for staff timesheets, work plans, vacation schedules, and staff training/development activities;
• Adhere to and act in accordance with the IRC Global HR Policies and Procedures;
• Manage child protection and education staff and volunteers, develop specific capacity building plans for the department and each individual staff in order for national staff to take on increasing levels of management responsibility;
• Develop and implement remote management capacity building approaches to build the capacity of the team in Syria.

Coordination

• Play an active role in the planning and execution of the country overall and sector strategies;
• Regularly attend technical cluster meetings and support Managers to attend the coordination meetings in their respective sub-sectors and feed in IRC priorities at the Antakya and Gaziantep levels;
• Coordinate with the Deputy Director for Programs and Senior Field Coordinators to ensure field concerns and challenges are brought to relevant stakeholders for the development of improved standards and procedures.

Other

• Consistently and proactively monitor/assess the safety and security of the team; promptly reporting concerns or incidents to IRC management and liaising with community leaders and other external parties as required to maintain/enhance the security environment for IRC programs;
• Feed into the development of national, regional and global advocacy outputs as appropriate;
• Any other duties as assigned by the supervisor to enable and develop IRC programs.

Professional Standards

• All IRC staff are required to adhere to THE IRC Way Standards for Professional Conduct and the IRC country employment policies.

Job Requirements:

• Postgraduate degree in International Development, or similar relevant social science preferred;
• Minimum 5 years professional technical experience in education and child protection programming;
• Minimum 3 years international management experience, preferably in a conflict or post disaster setting;
• Solid managerial skills and experience in an international multi-cultural setting;
• Strong project planning, organizational, interpersonal, and communication skills;
• Proven experience supervising and providing case management services and support for children;
• Must be capable of applying skills and knowledge in a range of capacities, including direct implementation, advisory functions, training and the transfer of technical knowledge and management skills to others;
• Proven technical writing skills;
• Budget management experience of $2,000,000 USD+;
• Previous experience managing programs financed through OFDA, DFID, ECHO and UNICEF; experience with competitive RFA/P grants a plus;
• Competent in Windows, MS office programs, email and database experience;
• Interpersonal qualities: Works well in teams and promotes teamwork, comfortable in a multi-cultural environment, flexible and able to handle pressure with professional grace;
• Fluent in spoken and written English;
• Functional Arabic strongly preferred.

Working Environment:

The position will be based in Antakya, Turkey with travel to Gaziantep, and is an unaccompanied post. The IRC's security phase for Antakya is currently yellow. The Child Protection and Education Coordinator will live in shared housing.

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