Child Protection Officer

Secours Islamique France (SIF) founded in 1991 is an international Non-Governmental solidarity Organization acting in the fields of humanitarian and development aid, in France and worldwide. Working in the field for over 20 years, Secours Islamique France is now active in more than twenty countries, mainly in three sectors: water and sanitation, food security, and childhood.

Teams of employees and volunteers working for Secours Islamique France also play an active role in France, fighting against exclusion and insecurity by various means. Alongside its operational aid activities, Secours Islamique France has developed an ability to advocate in order to bear witness and to alert the international community about the living conditions of the most vulnerable. SIF is dedicated to alleviating the suffering of the poorest of the poor in France and around the world, while respecting cultural diversity without making any distinction based on origins, political affiliations, gender or beliefs, and without expecting anything in return. It intervenes where humanitarian and social needs require emergency mobilization of relief efforts as well as the implementation of development programs and advocacy actions. SIF is present in Pakistan since 2010 and currently working in three districts (Tharparkar in Sindh, Peshawar & FATA in KP and Islamabad/Rawalpindi in Punjab).

SIF integrates its Aqiqa activities with its child wellbeing project forvulnerable children in child centers in Rawalpindi and Islamabad. The child wellbeing project aims to improve nutritional status and mental well-being of the children in child centers.

SIF is also implementing orphan sponsorship project activities for vulnerable children in Rawalpindi and Islamabad. Vulnerable orphan children are supported through sponsorship support-quarterly cash payments and support for livelihood generation activities for parent/guardian of the orphan child as well as out-age or 18+ years orphans.

The Child Protection Officer ensures the consistency and implementation of child welfare projects. S/he manages the project team to achieve the expected results, in coordination with the relevant departments:

-       Supervises all the operations related to his/her activities;

-       Coordinates the implementation of the project within his/her team, as well as with the Programme Coordinator and the Head of Mission;

-       Manages his/her program budget and logistics;

-       Contributes to the elaboration of the mission’s operational strategy under the supervision of country program coordinator.

The Child Protection Officer is part of the SIF-Pakistan team and will be under the line management of the Country Program Coordinator. S/he will be in contact with other SIF members to harmonize and to share tools as well as lessons learnt

ACTIVITY IMPLEMENTATION & PROGRAM DEVELOPMENT

• Develop SIF capacity in the field of child protection.
• Conduction of situation analysis and needs assessments for child centers and orphan sponsorship beneficiaries.
• Integrate seasonal project activities with child protection and orphan sponsorship interventions where possible.
• Contribute in writing proposals, concept notes for donors related to child protection and orphan sponsorship.
• Work closely with country program officer on annual plan of action (POA) and contribute in devising seasonal and child welfare projects under the supervision of country program coordinator.
• Set strategies and operational measures to effectively respond to the needs identified.
• Prioritize child protection and orphan sponsorship activities issues and define alternatives initiatives.
• Provide guidance and direction for effective planning, implementation, and monitoring of agreed plans of project budgets.
• Work closely with inter-departmental functions for program management to ensure timely coordination and compliance aroundvarious stages in the Project Cycle Management.
• Coordinate regularly with Base Manager and Country Program coordinator for ensuring the timely implementation.
• Work closely with project teams for developing and reviewing operational SOPs for different child protection and orphan sponsorship activities.
• Identify potential partnerships to implement programs and training, make recommendations on how to fill gaps.
• Set up and lead coordination with government authorities and partners working on child protection and orphan sponsorship projects.
• Closely work with partners to implement child protection specific initiatives.

MONITORING                            

• Develop forms and records to document seasonal and child wellbeing program activities and measure their impact.
• Archive all the data including activity reports, assessments, completion reports,pictures, IEC material etc for child wellbeing project and orphan sponsorship activities.
• Update project PMPs andreports on the activities.
• Make frequent field visits to project areas to monitor implementation of activities in communities and child centers.
• Identify opportunities and constraints to adjust collectively the activity implementation if needed
• Develop monitoring and reporting mechanisms at different level, e.g. formal data collection for advocacy, qualitative measures for program development, information for donor reports.
• Set up new tools for monitoring and evaluation in close coordination with the MEAL unit.
• Hold planning and progress review meetings with government counterparts and other relevant child protection partners.
• Develop training programmes and assist in capacity building of staff and partners on implementing child protection programs.

TEAM COORDINATION

• Ensure daily coordination of all relevant staff.
• Ensure the needed capacity building of his/her team, with resources available internally.
• Ensure a good communication – coordination – information level of each member of his/her team through weekly and monthly coordination meetings and report to the Country Program Coordinator.
• Ensure feedback mechanism between different departments and his/her staff, and towards them about issues rose in the field.
• Ensure conflict resolution (personal and professional) within his/her team and inform the Country Program Coordinator.

REPORTING

S/he will report directly to Program Coordinator:

• Provide regular reporting on his/her activities and weekly updates – numbers of beneficiaries and households visited segregated by age, gender, needs and vulnerability to the Country Program Coordinator and/orHead of Mission upon his/her solicitation.
• Centralize all information gathered in the field and consolidate quantitative and qualitative internal monthly activity reports.
• Prepare intermediary and final narrative Reports into SIF reporting format as per reporting needs.
• Update orphans database as per HQ reporting requirements.
• Supervise quality data entry and reporting to ensure all reporting needs for donors and SIF are met for orphan sponsorship beneficiaries.

LOGISTICS

• Participate in the elaboration of the projects’ procurement plans, according to the thresholds and procurement processes.
• Support the management of local contracts for goods and suppliers for the activities.
• Plan movements and needs for vehicles for his/her program.
• Work closely with the logistics team through follow up on project related procurements, processing and submission of approvedpurchase requests and support to country logistics manager for developing derogations for child protection and orphan sponsorship projectactivities  related procurements

BUDGET FOLLOW UP

• Serve as the Project Budget Holder and oversee effective financial management of the programme’s grant/s and activities, with the support of the Country Program Coordinator.

• Monitor and plan the budget expenditures based on the budget follow-up of his/her program.

REPRESENTATION

• Liaise with other institutions and organizations working on child protection to synergize efforts to implement actions.
• Represent SIF in working groups (Child protection, child rights movement) at national level in Islamabad.
• Represent SIF in meetings with government officials and other actors, advocate and promote child protection program goals and objectives, and communicate with major partners on policies.
• Represent SIF vis-à-vis local authorities in the area of intervention for all issues linked to the child protection program, in coordination with the Country Program Coordinator and/orHead of mission.

 QUALIFICATIONS

Person qualifications

·         University degree in Social sciences,project management or any other relevant field. Minimum 7-10years of experience in development sector, with 5-7 years of experience of workingon child protection andfood security, livelihoods projects.

·         Experience in project cycle management and proposal writing.

·         Demonstrated Results-Based Management and leadership skills, including monitoring and reporting, managing budgets, as well as database management.

·         Excellent written and oral communication skills.

·         Experience of extensive coordination with stakeholders.

·         Expertise on IT skills.

·         Expertise on child protection will be preferred.

·         Experience in consultation and liaison with government and non-governmental officials.

·         Strong organizational and work planning skills, with ability to prioritize multiple tasks in a high volume work environment with tight deadlines.

·         Ability to plan activities and to set clearly defined objectives and high levels of quality/ productivity for self, own team or department.

·         Experience in proactively identifying issues and proven problem solving skills.

·         Excellent command of English (speaking and writing) and French speaking is a plus.

·         Confident and proficient in the use of MS Office, especially Excel and Word.

KNOWLEDGE / SKILLS / EXPERIENCE

Ethic and professional practice

·         Respect and promote SIF values and mandate, and report to the line manager any non-respect of SIF’s policies amongst the teams or partners.

·         Address needs and requests in a professional way.

·         Always interact with children in presence of their parents or caregivers.

·         Always respect beneficiaries’ confidentiality.

·         Always respect a refusal of treatment.

·         Report any incident or act that causes harm to beneficiaries or to others.

·         Aware of child protection/safeguarding concept

SOFT SKILLS

• Excellent interpersonal and conflict-resolution skills.
• Strong analytical skills.

• Able to establish and maintain effective working relations with people of different cultural backgrounds.

• Strong cross-cultural communication skills;
• Rigorous and polite.