Child Protection Officer

Job Title: Child Protection Officer

Sector: Child Protection

Employment Category: Fixed Term

Employment Type: Full-Time

Location: Dnipro, Ukraine

Job Description

Duty station: Dnipro

Key Working Relationships

Position Reports to: CP Senior Officer, Ukraine

Position directly supervises: N/A

Internal collaborations within IRC: Women’s Protection and Empowerment team; Protection team; Economic Recovery and Development team; Health team.

External collaborations to IRC: CP actors, organizations and agencies

The main role of the Child Protection (CP) Officer will be to supervise psychosocial activities and / or child protection case management services to children in need. She /he will demonstrate technical capability to make sure the program is holistic, upholding according to standards, procedures and principles of Child Protection. She/he will coordinate the various services available in the different field sites.

Program Implementation And Quality

Proactively identifying child protection trends that need to be addressed through child protection programing, ensuring that best practice, CP guidelines and approaches are being followed, specifically:

• Identify gaps in service provision to identified and registered children, with a special attention to UASC and proactively refer and advocate for those gaps to the CP Senior Officer and CP Manager
• Seek technical guidance and support from the CP Senior Officer on activity development, implementation and available resources
• Reinforce adherence to the CPiE minimum standards, case management guidelines and SPHERE standards throughout all CP activities, and ensuring confidentiality, informed consent/assent and the best interest of the child.

Psychosocial support (PSS) / Case Management (CM) activities: With support from the Senior Officer and according to detailed work plans, supervise psychosocial, recreational / child protection case management services for children. Activities will be conducted in accordance with the IRC developed activities for children on which the Officer will be trained and supervised, specifically:

• Where children who are participating in psychosocial activities are identified as being in need of additional case management support, the Officer will ensure that appropriate referrals are made to the Child Protection Case Management Focal Point
• Where children who are participating in case management services are identified as being in need of additional psychosocial support, the Officer will ensure that appropriate referrals are made to the Child Protection PSS Focal Point
• Supervision of PSS / CM activities: ensure competent, accountable practice of CP community mobilisers / case workers; ensure CP community mobiliser / case workers are continually updating their knowledge and skills and applying them to their daily work; ensuring the emotional and psychological wellbeing of case management / community mobilizer team
• Community Based Child Protection, the Officer will work with Child Protection Committees and/or Child Protection Community Mobilizers to develop and implement their assessments, safety maps and action plans

Administration and reporting: Lead CP program reporting (through direct implementation and support partners), including:

• Prepare and submit weekly activity work plans in a timely manner to agreed-upon deadlines
• Prepare brief daily report on activities conducted and submit weekly to the CP Senior Officer
• Complete all relevant tools for activities conducted
• Contribute to monthly reports, including information on community engagement activities, community consultations, and progress made

Coordination & representation: Engage with organizations and actors on identifying concerns and strategies that reduce risks faced by at-risk children and their families, collaboratively develop actions to address concerns. And where requested by supervisor, actively take part in coordination meetings relevant to CP.

Other: Support program quality by ensuring all activities are carried out in accordance with IRC policies and delivering duties as assigned by the supervisor to enable and develop IRC programs. Perform any other tasks as requested by his/her supervisor to ensure the smooth running of the program.

Requirements

• Language: Fluent in Ukrainian and Russian, advanced skills in English
• Bachelor of Arts or Science in Social Work, Human Rights, Social Science, Public Health, Humanities or other related field, desirable
• Minimum of 2-3 year experience of implementing child protection programs, preferable in social work, psychosocial programming or education, in humanitarian or development settings
• Previous experience in implementing psychosocial supportprogramming for children and demonstrated understanding of working with children, particularly vulnerable children
• Ability to keep records and write simple and basic reports of activities would be an added advantage
• Comfortable speaking about sensitive topics in an honest, professional, and thoughtful manner
• Demonstrated understanding of and ability to maintain confidentiality and respect for clients/beneficiaries
• Positive and professional attitude, including ability to work well in a team setting
• High degree of flexibility and strong ability to organize work, meet deadlines, maintain composure, prioritize work under pressure, coordinate multiple tasks and maintain attention to detail
• Support distributions of risk reduction items (inc. PSS kits) and follow on monitoring
• Computer literate, including Microsoft Word and Excel