Senior Social Protection Adviser

£46,750 – £55,000

Permanent

Farringdon, London with international travel up to 20% annually

The job of a Save the Children’s UK Senior Social Protection Adviser is strategic and rewarding.

• Do you have practical and conceptual understanding of social protection in a range of settings, including how it can be leveraged to enhance progress in child outcomes across health, education and child protection?
• Do you have experience of providing effective and high-quality technical advice to large-scale, high profile social protection programmes, ensuring delivery of results?
• Are you motivated by our vision of creating a world where every child doesn’t just survive, but thrives, and can go on to change the world?

If the answers to these questions are yes, we would love to hear from you!

About Us

We are Save the Children. Together we fight for children every single day so that they can make their mark on the world and build a better future.

We stand side by side with children in the toughest places to be a child. We do whatever it takes to make sure they survive, get protection when they’re in danger, and have the chance to learn.

The Save the Children UK Programme Policy and Quality (PPQ) Department’s ambition is to ensure Save the Children’s programmes are innovative, evidence-based, replicable and high-quality. The department is responsible for leading the thematic development of SCUK programmes, across Hunger and Livelihoods, Health, Education and Child Protection to achieve breakthroughs in the potential for children to survive, learn and be protected. Our social protection work is a part of our Hunger Reduction and Livelihoods portfolio but also engages cross-thematically and with numerous global teams to achieve outcomes across our strategic breakthroughs to achieve child outcomes.

Job Purpose

In this rare and extremely rewarding position you will play a key strategic role in leading the work of Save the Children UK and the wider Save the Children movement on child-sensitive social protection (CSSP) in low- and middle-income countries. The ultimate goal of this area of our work is to help secure increased coverage of effective government social protection programmes that benefit children and their caregivers, such as child and family grants integrated with complementary services, to protect children and their families from monetary poverty and other deprivations, helping realise every child’s right to social protection as set out in Article 26 of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.

You will be responsible for providing leadership of a shared strategic vision to guide the work of Save the Children UK in the area of CSSP and contribute to the global movement’s approach in this area also, expanding our footprint and engagement in CSSP globally.

A key part of this will involve working alongside, mentoring and supporting colleagues in a number of countries that are implementing social protection pilots, developing high quality evidence, building local partnerships with civil society, and providing technical assistance and advocating to governments. Through this you will contribute to building the evidence base of effective approaches through involvement in rigorous evaluations of our programmes and operational research, and work to influence government policies to deliver measurable improvements in child outcomes.

You will also be responsible for further developing our programme portfolio by helping identify and secure new funded opportunities to advance our work in child sensitive social protection. In doing this you will need to be able to understand and articulate the role social protection can play in a wide range of areas, including: improving nutritional outcomes; improving educational attainment; and helping people adapt to the risks posed by climate change and large scale shocks. You will also need to understand the role social protection can play in building a longer-term solution to the needs of people in fragile and conflict affected settings, including the stronger coordination and coherence that needs to be made with humanitarian cash and voucher assistance.

In doing the above you will work closely with a Social Protection Advisor which you will line manage, supporting them to develop new funded work that expands the social protection portfolio and to provide high quality technical assistance to colleagues across the Save the Children movement. You will also work closely with other social protection colleagues throughout the movement, as well as colleagues from various other thematic areas and partnership departments.

Main Accountabilities

Strategic leadership

• Provide technical and strategic leadership to advance Save the Children UK’s engagement in CSSP, collaborating with colleagues across Save the Children UK to share evidence and lessons that highlight the vital importance of CSSP as a long-term solution to child poverty.
• Collaborate with other thematic teams (e.g. nutrition, education, food security and livelihoods, humanitarian cash and voucher advisors) to ensure coherence and effectiveness of social protection and to further strengthen cross-thematic links
• Provide leadership to the CSSP sub-team within the Hunger Reduction and Livelihoods Team, facilitating the development of an ambitious but realistic workplan for yourself and the Social Protection Advisor.
• Co-lead Save the Children’s movement-wide approach and strategy on CSSP to help strengthen the quality of our work globally and manage sustainable growth in the number of countries where we support and engage with government on CSSP.
• Support country offices to develop realistic but ambitious strategic plans for engaging in CSSP.

Support to programme development & delivery

• Provide high quality technical support to the design and implementation of new and existing CSSP work (e.g. pilot programmes, assessments and studies, technical assistance to government), ensuring they are based on gender-sensitive needs assessments and are in line with Save the Children’s Theory of Change, strategies, and international best practices.
• Contribute to the development of programme advocacy strategies and support the delivery of strategic advocacy to government, donors, and other key stakeholders in social protection.
• Support the effective design and implementation of programme monitoring, evaluation, accountability and learning (MEAL) to demonstrate outcomes and incorporate learning into ongoing programme design and implementation.

Management, coaching and capacity-building

• Assist country offices to select and recruit technical staff and provide technical support to technical staff in country offices.
• Provide leadership to the Social Protection Advisor, helping them to deliver high quality outputs as part of the agreed team workplan.
• Support the Social Protection Advisor to build a portfolio of CSSP work enabling them to provide cost recovery for their role through grant funding.
• Provide leadership for the development of global technical capacity within Save the Children on CSSP.

Evidence and learning

• Promote the sharing of best practice, global tools and learning about CSSP work across the Save the Children movement.
• Facilitate the incorporation of findings from monitoring, evaluation and learning and broader global evidence related to social protection into work on CSSP.
• Develop and document effective approaches to advance CSSP based on available evidence and design.

External networking & representation

• Produce high-quality “knowledge products” that demonstrate what works, including lessons from our work, and raising our profile among donors and development partners.
• Nurture and advance a select number of key strategic partnerships on social protection

Person Profile

Experience, Skills and Knowledge

• An internationally recognised qualification at post-graduate level or equivalent in social policy, (development) economics, development studies or a related field.
• A thorough practical and conceptual understanding of social protection in a range of settings, including how it can be leveraged to enhance progress in child outcomes across health, education and child protection.
• A proven ability to provide effective, timely and high-quality technical advice to large-scale, high profile social protection programmes, ensuring delivery of results.
• A strong track record and evidence of successful development and delivery of high-value proposals with strong MEAL approaches and budgets.
• Strong verbal and written communication skills, including demonstrated capacity for influencing high level decision-makers (e.g. government and donors).
• Strong analytical and conceptual skills and the ability to think and plan strategically at a senior level that engages and motivates colleagues.
• Excellent leadership skills with a proven ability to work with colleagues to set a strategic vision, inspire others to support and deliver the vision and secure cross-team/theme engagement for delivery.
• Demonstrable people management and advisory skills, including the ability to guide and influence from a distance, building shared objectives, motivation, and professional development.
• Proven ability to develop strong external networks including developing effective working relationships with senior stakeholders in government agencies, international organisations, donors, academics, and opinion-leaders, including influencing skills.
• A willingness and ability to travel up to 20% of time including at short notice, occasionally to remote and insecure location.

Remote Working:

The majority of SCUK employees are currently working remotely within the UK. Commencing April 2022 we will transition to predominantly remote of working (i.e. a mixture of remote/home and occasional office-based working).

We are happy to discuss flexible working options at interview**.**

Commitment to Diversity & Inclusion:

Save the Children UK is committed to diversity and equality of opportunity in all aspects of our work both external and internal. We strive to be an inclusive employer and particularly encourage applications from under-represented groups such as returning parents or carers who are re-entering work after a career break, people who are LGBT+, from Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic backgrounds, with a disability, impairment, learning difference or long-term condition, with caring responsibilities, from different nations and regions, and from less advantaged socioeconomic backgrounds.

To see our full statement please visit this link: https://jobs.savethechildren.org.uk/our-policies/diversity/