Child Protection Officer (RRT)

Job Description

Child Protection Officer Duty station: Kharkiv Oblast

Position Reports to: RRT Team Leader, Ukraine 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

Job Overview/Summary:

After almost a year of conflict, the operating environment in Ukraine is characterized by a protracted complex emergency and overlapping acute emergencies linked to armed conflict, displacement, restricted access to essential services, food insecurity, and extreme weather conditions. The IRC’s programs respond to both chronic and acute emergency needs. As part of an effort to swiftly respond to Ukraine’s changing context, IRC Ukraine is planning to establish multisectoral Rapid Response Teams, able to deliver a variety of technical programs (NFI, cash, health and protection) in a mobile, efficient manner to reach people affected by the conflict as soon as possible.

The main role of the Child Protection (CP) Officer will be to provide psychological first aid in remote and newly liberated locations, implement psychosocial activities, child protection case management services and provide information on existing services in the community and wider to children and caregivers 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 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 needs in the affected communities, including newly liberated. - 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 - Ensuring that protection services are focused on immediate risks and needs that can be addressed in a rapid response timeframe - Seek technical guidance and support from the CP Senior Officer on activity development, implementation and available resources - Reinforce adherence to the CPiE minimum standards, and SPHERE standards throughout all CP activities, and ensuring confidentiality, informed consent/assent and the best interest of the child. - Ensure safe, supportive responses for children and caregivers, by providing psychological first aid (PFA), information provision, and safe and confidential referrals to other services in line with their needs and wishes. - Ensure that children who are at-risk or have experienced violence are safely identified; provided with age- and gender-sensitive, child-centered support and psychological first aid; and are referred for appropriate services in line with their needs and best interests. - Provide information to children and caregivers about safe, high quality, and available services and awareness on thematic protection or general topics for their safety, protection, and wellbeing.

Psychosocial support (PSS) activities: With support from the Senior Officer and according to work plans, provide psychological first aid, psychosocial and recreational activities for children and caregivers. 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 support, the Officer will ensure that appropriate referrals are made to respective departments within IRC or external actors - Provision of PSS activities for children and caregivers - Community Based Child Protection, the Officer will work to develop and implement assessments, safety maps and action plans - Support distributions of risk reduction items (inc. PSS kits) and follow on monitoring

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: Coordinate with relevant stakeholders in the development and ongoing update of internal and external referral pathways to enable referrals for particularly vulnerable individuals to specialized services to address identified needs. Engage with organizations and actors on identifying concerns and strategies that reduce risks faced by at-risk children and their families. And where requested by supervisor, actively take part in coordination meetings relevant to CP.

Other: Conduct protection and context analysis and maintain dialogue with communities to inform humanitarian response programming and advocacy and identify vulnerable individuals with specific needs for support and thereby facilitate internal and external referrals. 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 desirable. - Bachelor of Arts or Science in Psychology. - 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 psychological first aid, psychosocial support programming 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 - Computer literate, including Microsoft Word and Excel

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