Safeguarding Manager

Job Description

More than 3.6 million people have fled across borders to seek safety in the 1st month since the escalation of conflict in Ukraine on February 24, 2022, and over 6.5 million Ukrainians are reported to be displaced internally. As the vast majority of the displaced are women, girls, and boys, this could become the worst humanitarian crisis Europe has seen in decades.

Between February 7-23, 2022, an IRC team undertook a scoping mission covering Poland and Ukraine to better understand the context, humanitarian and civil society landscape, and anticipated service gaps in the event of an escalation of conflict in Ukraine and consequent displacement into neighboring Poland. As of February 24th, the IRC has pivoted to an emergency response, and have identified partner agencies in Ukraine to facilitate immediate assistance that can be used where it is the most needed. Simultaneously, the IRC is establishing operations across Ukraine to complement partner response services either in breadth or scale.

In Poland, the IRC has launched a country program through the emergency response team. The IRC currently has offices in Lublin, and is looking to expand in programme scale, scope and geographic support over the coming months.

This position will be based in Warsaw, with occasional travel to Rzeszow, Lublin and other locations as necessary. As this is a fluid and rapidly changing context, the location of this assignment may change based on the needs of the program. This position will be unaccompanied, with the possibility of review at the end of the first year. Housing will initially be in hotels, or shared, IRC accommodation.

The Safeguarding Manager will support the Poland Country Program as it prevents and responds to safeguarding violations in the context of the current crisis. The Safeguarding Manager will work collaboratively across programs and operations teams to ensure learning, accountability and zero tolerance of exploitation and abuse of clients, including but not limited to sexual exploitation and abuse (SEA). The Safeguarding Manager will work closely with the IRC Protection program and partners to ensure functional, safe and confidential reporting mechanisms and services for people who experience SEA and other safeguarding violations. Finally, the Safeguarding Manager will work alongside Human Resources to promote a safe workplace for all IRC staff and associates.

Key Responsibilities

Strategy and learning

• Support the country program to deliver safeguarding commitments in line with its safeguarding and client responsiveness SOP. Report to the country senior management team on a monthly basis on progress, challenges and solutions, and learning.

• Participate in the inter-agency safeguarding and PSEA coordination groups in Poland. Ensure that IRC reporting channels are integrated into inter-agency efforts; feeds into support and referral pathways; influences a survivor-centered approach to responding to safeguarding concerns; and is an active, contributing member to civil society and inter-agency efforts.

Staff learning and competencies

• Collaborate with Human Resources to ensure the orientation of all newly hired staff, enumerators, incentive workers, etc., to IRC polices, reporting pathways, and basic survivor referral and support options.

• Train and mentor safeguarding leads in each IRC office location, and within partner teams where they desire. Ensure that these individuals are empowered to be champions of safeguarding within their teams, and that they feel supported.

• Ensure availability and visibility of IRC safeguarding policies and communications materials, in appropriate languages, within all IRC offices and IRC structures or facilities.

Programming integration

• Work closely with IRC protection teams and partners to establish and disseminate information on basic referral and response pathways for survivors of violence, exploitation and abuse. Ensure that IRC reporting and response mechanisms with regard to safeguarding are part of inter-agency efforts.

• Support program coordinators and partners with safeguarding risk assessments, risk mitigation planning and measures.

Partnerships

• Support program and partnership coordinators to integrate safeguarding into partnership agreements, learning and relationship-building.

• Deliver direct support to partners where requested, to reinforce their own PSEA/safeguarding policies and practices.

Community-based reporting

• Share IRC reporting information with local authorities, ministries, partners and community leaders.

• Work with program coordinators and MEAL to ensure that client feedback mechanisms and registers include PSEA/safeguarding reporting channels and protocols.

• Where possible ensure clients are engaged to capture their preferred reporting methods and learn of unknown safeguarding risks emerging as the crisis evolves.

Job requirements

Mandatory:

• Minimum of 2 years’ experience working on protection, PSEA and/or safeguarding with civil society / I/NGOs

• Ability to work well independently but also coordinate partnership workloads of staff not under your direct line management

• Team leadership and supervision experience and skills

• Experience in training internal staff and partner staff.

• Willingness to travel frequently to field offices and partner locations

• Professional fluency in spoken and written English and Polish; able to communicate clearly.

• Very strong English writing and editing skills; strong computer skills.

Internal and/or external contacts: The position regularly corresponds and attends meetings with external and internal audiences, thus a strong ability to communicate and maintain positive working relationships is highly desirable for this position.

Internal: Country Senior Management Team, Human Resources, Technical Coordinators, and Partnership Coordinators

External: Partners

Standards of Professional Conduct: The IRC and IRC workers must adhere to the values and principles outlined in the IRC Way – Code of Conduct. These are Integrity, Service, Equality and Accountability. In accordance with these values, the IRC operates and enforces policies on Beneficiary Protection from Exploitation and Abuse, Child Safeguarding, Harassment-Free Workplace, Fiscal Integrity, Anti-Retaliation, Combating Trafficking in Persons and several others.

Gender Equality: IRC is committed to narrowing the gender gap in leadership positions. We offer benefits that provide an enabling environment for women to participate in our workforce including parental leave, gender-sensitive security protocols and other supportive benefits and allowances.

IRC is an Equal Opportunity Employer IRC considers all applicants on the basis of merit without regard to race, sex, color, national origin, religion, sexual orientation, age, marital status, veteran status or disability.

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