Safeguarding & Accountability to Affected Populations (AAP) Officer
The Organisation
Plan International is an independent development and humanitarian organisation that advances children’s rights and equality for girls. Plan has gained vast experience since 1937 when it was established, and it works in more than 75 countries across the world. We strive for a just world, working together with children, young people, our supporters, partners and host governments. Our work supports marginalised children and youth, especially adolescent girls, to grow up physically and mentally healthy and ready to shape their future. We create an enabling environment and empower girls to be active drivers of change in realising their rights. Plan International has been working in Malawi since 1994 in 14 districts, and its current strategy aims to reach 3.5 million adolescent girls and young women between 2022-2027 through different interventions.
ROLE PURPOSE
This role exists to provide technical and operational support to implement, coordinate, and monitor interventions for safeguarding children and programme participants and for AAP. They will work with Programme Area Focal Points who will take full responsibility for supporting safeguarding issues of children and young people in their Programme areas within projects and support operations. They will lead on approaches and adherence to requirements for all staff and associates to respect children’s and programme participants' rights to be protected from harm, and to provide a safe and protective environment when they are involved in any programmes, projects, or events. They will also ensure views, preferences and priorities of affected populations are incorporated into humanitarian response plans and all stages of project cycles.
DIMENSIONS OF THE ROLE
The position reports to the MERL Manager with strong accountabilities to the Country Director due to the sensitivities of safeguarding issues should they arise, they gave no direct report, however, they will lead at least 3 Safeguarding Focal Point Persons across programme area offices. They do not have delegated financial and will work closely with the entire Country Leadership Team (CLT) and the Global Safeguarding & PSHEA team.
Accountabilities
1. Safeguarding Leadership &Operations
- Support the leadership team to create environment that demonstrates high commitment to safeguarding children ad project participants
- Support CLT in developing measures and support implementation of procedures
- Facilitate the process to develop internal promotion and socialisation of the policy and management standards among staff, associates, and partners
- Lead in annual reviews of implementation and adherence to management safeguarding standards and make recommendation for remedial actions
- Support People & Culture in ensuring recruitment processes minimise risk of engaging candidates that are unsuitable to work with children, young people and communities
2. Case Management.
- Provide support to ensure a strong child friendly feedback mechanism is in place and meets the needs of children and project participants
- Ensure that vetted referral pathways (internal and external) are included in the CFFM
- Participate and/or facilitate incident reporting, investigations, and case closure, ensuring that responses to incidents are survivor-centred and prioritise the best interests of the child, young person, or adult project participant
- Compile regular reports and analyse trends from evidence-based learning over time to ensure the CLT gleans lessons and strengthens safeguarding and AAP
3. Programming and Influencing
- Participate in proposal development to ensure safeguarding and AAP activities are incorporated with clear deliverables, indicators, timeframes, and adequate budgets
- Facilitate strategy development and reviews for use and adherence to safeguarding and AAP tools and standards in all programming, influencing, communications, & media interventions
- Develop quality controls e.g. checklists and field visits to monitor how strong mainstreaming of safeguarding and AAP is across all stages of project cycle management in humanitarian and development work
- Support humanitarian response interventions to ensure highest standards of safeguarding and AAP
- Support project data collection for reviews, evaluations, and annual Plan or donor reporting
4. Capacity Building and External Representation
- Develop local training packages, new staff orientations, and training plans annually
- Lead internal trainings and refresher activities e.g. drop-in-sessions, and maintain regular engagement with staff, partners, and associates
- Conduct due diligence for partners, contractors, and other associates and provide awareness raising on the policy and procedures
- Hold quarterly learning and review meetings for all safeguarding focal point persons and key project staff
- Support the CLT to ensure quality and timely annual self-assessments and reporting
- Prepare and present briefing notes for visitors and during events
- Represent Plan International Malawi in inter-agency safeguarding and AAP groups
- Lead the safeguarding information management within Plan International Malawi
5. Risk Management and Gender Equality & Inclusion
- Support project teams to assess safeguarding risks from planned delivery of activities and events to minimise risks to girls, boys, children and young people in all their diversity
- Support the formulation of risk management strategies for safeguarding to ensure they are integral to all business systems and processes.
- Work with all staff to ensure all types of child/ youth engagement are inclusive of girls, boys, children and young people in all their diversity and prioritise their best interest and safety.
- Promote staff behaviour towards girls, boys, children and young people to be respectful, non-discriminatory and appropriate.
- Support socialisation of CHS, particularly those that address Gender Equality and Social Inclusion (GESI), within the country and response including capacity building initiatives and with leadership groups
6. Safeguarding, Risk Management, and Gender Equality & Inclusion
- Ensure that Plan International’s global policies for Safeguarding Children and Young People, and Gender Equality and Inclusion (GEI) are fully embedded in accordance with the principles and requirements of the policy including relevant Implementation Standards and Guidelines as applicable to their area of responsibility
- Provide guidance in identifying and mitigating complex risks and problems that arise as a result of the participation of girls, young women and youths in driving change, or during our implementation of programmes/ projects
- Demonstrate gender transformative programming and activities in reports
- Advocate internally for adaptations of Plan International’s policies, processes, attitudes and behaviours to ensure our work to support youth collective action is consistently strategic, meaningful, inclusive and safe. This includes collaboration with various functions including risk and compliance, programme quality, HR, finance, M&E (as well as others).
- Ensures that Plan International’s global policies for Child Protection (CPP) and Gender Equality and Inclusion (GEI) are fully embedded in accordance with the principles and requirements of the policy including relevant Implementation Standards and Guidelines as applicable to their area of responsibility. This includes, but is not limited to, ensuring staff and associates are aware of and understand their responsibilities under these policies and Plan International’s Code of Conduct (CoC), their relevance to their area of work, and that concerns are reported and managed in accordance with the appropriate procedures.
Key relationships
Internal
- Country Director
- Director of Programs
- Programme Thematic Leads & Specialists for Communications, Youth Engagement, Gender etc.
- Programme Area Managers
- Project Managers
- Business Development Unit
- Finance Teams
- Supply Chain and Administration unit
- Other staff, including members of the Country Leadership Team and the Country Director
- Safeguarding Networks across the organisation
External
- Government Ministries, Departments and Agencies, National and Local authorities, community leaders, sponsored families, sponsored children, community volunteers, community members etc.
- Partners organisations and other INGO
- Civil society organizations
- Sponsorship departments
- Donors, Sponsors, sponsored children/families, NOs, GH, RH
Technical Expertise, Knowledge and Skills
Qualifications and Experience
- Bachelor’s degree from an accredited educational institution in human rights, law, development studies, gender studies, social sciences or another related field.
- At least 5 years of progressive work experience in international development/humanitarian contexts of which at least 2 years of humanitarian experience in addressing sexual exploitation and abuse, sexual harassment and/or sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV)
- Proven track record of extensive experience in safeguarding and protecting children
- Experience working directly in gender, age, disability or social inclusion programming, related issues and/or broader protection issues, preferably in an NGO, UN context
- Experience in interactive/ innovative training approaches and conducting successful workshops
- Experience in community facilitation, sensitisation and awareness raising is desirable
- Demonstrated knowledge in PSHEA and case management.
Skills & Knowledge
- Demonstrated fluency in critical concepts of advising, assessing, designing or managing programmes or efforts related to gender, age, disability, social inclusion in humanitarian contexts and ability to develop program strategies and guidance.
- Knowledge of inclusive gender analysis and assessments, including approaches, methods, and frameworks
- Familiarity with data protection and confidentiality measures
- Familiar with the CRC and its provisions, including the Optional Protocol
- An understanding of child and young people participation and participatory techniques
- Familiarity with the issue of child and young people participation
- Familiarity with local customs, language, logistics and practices
- Ability to work in a team
- Ability to communicate effectively in English
- Excellent verbal and written communications skills
- Strong analytical skills and the ability to quickly adapt technical guidance to any given operating environment
- High computer literacy with full knowledge of Microsoft Office applications.
Behaviours
- Honest, integrity, open and transparent personality.
- Working towards achieving a team goal
- Be able to Respect all groups of people in the community and culturally sensitive
- Persuasive and able to work with different cultural settings
- Motivated, energetic and strives to develop and support others
- Result oriented and a team player
- Working for the best interest of the organisation and children
- Appreciate of child rights and gender equality
Plan International’s Values in Practice
We are open and accountable
- Promotes a culture of openness and transparency, including with sponsors and donors.
- Holds self and others accountable to achieve the highest standards of integrity.
- Consistent and fair in the treatment of people.
- Open about mistakes and keen to learn from them.
- Accountable for ensuring we are a safe organisation for all children, girls & young people
We strive for lasting impact
- Articulates a clear purpose for staff and sets high expectations.
- Creates a climate of continuous improvement, open to challenge and new ideas.
- Focuses resources to drive change and maximise long-term impact, responsive to changed priorities or crises.
- Evidence-based and evaluates effectiveness.
We work well together
- Seeks constructive outcomes, listens to others, willing to compromise when appropriate.
- Builds constructive relationships across Plan International to support our shared goals.
- Develops trusting and ‘win-win’ relationships with funders, partners and communities.
- Engages and works well with others outside the organization to build a better world for girls and all children.
We are inclusive and empowering
- We empower our staff to give their best and develop their potential
- We respect all people, appreciate differences and challenge equality in our programs and our workplace
- We support children, girls and young people to increase their confidence and to change their own lives.
Physical Environment
Typical office environment with occasional engagements in community village settings
Level of contact with children
High
Location: Country Office, Lilongwe.
Type of Role: Fixed Term
Reports to: MERL Manager
Grade: Level 13
Closing Date: 25 May 2024
Equality, diversity and inclusion is at the very heart of everything that Plan International stands for.
Qualified Females are encouraged to apply!!
We want Plan International to reflect the diversity of the communities we work with, offering equal opportunities to everyone regardless of age, disability, gender reassignment, marriage and civil partnership, pregnancy and maternity, race, religion or belief, sex or sexual orientation.
Plan International is based on a culture of inclusivity and we strive to create a workplace environment that ensures every team, in every office, in every country, is rich in diverse people, thoughts, and ideas.
We foster an organisational culture that embraces our commitment to racial justice, gender equality, girls’ rights and inclusion.
Plan International believes that in a world where children face so many threats of harm, it is our duty to ensure that we, as an organisation, do everything we can to keep children safe. This means that we have particular responsibilities to children that we come into contact with and we must not contribute in any way to harming or placing children at risk.
A range of pre-employment checks will be undertaken in conformity with Plan International's Safeguarding Children and Young People policy. Plan International also participates in the Inter Agency Misconduct Disclosure Scheme. In line with this scheme we will request information from applicants previous employers about any findings of sexual exploitation, sexual abuse and/or sexual harassment during employment, or incidents under investigation when the applicant left employment. By submitting an application, the job applicant confirms their understanding of these recruitment procedures.
Please note that Plan International will never send unsolicited emails requesting payment from candidates.