SOS Children`s Villages is hiring a
SOS Children's Villages, founded in 1949, is the world's largest non-governmental organization focused on supporting children and young people without parental care, or at risk of losing it.
Child neglect, abuse and abandonment is everywhere. Families are at risk of separation. Locally led, we work in more than 130 countries and territories to strengthen families who are under pressure so they can stay together. When this is not in a child or young person's best interests, we provide quality care according to their unique needs.
Together with partners, donors, communities, children, young people and families, we enable children to grow up with the bonds they need to develop and become their strongest selves. We speak up for each child's rights and advocate for change so all children can grow up in a supportive environment.
Location: Vienna, Innsbruck (Austria), Dakar (Senegal), Addis Ababa (Ethiopia), Nairobi (Kenya, only remote work possible from official home address in Kenya)
Duration: Full-time, Unlimited
Mission
SOS Children’s Villages strives to create and ensure a safe environment for everyone who engages with us internally or externally. An environment that does not expose children, young people and adults to harm, sexual exploitation and abuse. It also aims to manage its financial and other assets free from fraud and corruption.
The main high-level purposes of the Safeguarding and Anti-Corruption /Asset Protection team area are:
a) to lead and champion safeguarding priorities, strategies and action plans to ensure safeguarding and Anti-Corruption and Asset Protection are mainstreamed across all parts of the Federation
b) to support management in General Secretariat and Member Associations in the implementation of policies, practices, capacity building, awareness raising and other activities for prevention of harm, sexual exploitation, abuse, fraud and corruption wherever people engage with SOS Children’s Villages
c) to run the incident management process and support management response and actions when dealing with allegations made. It does this in conjunction with the independent audit and investigations unit and collaborates on a regular basis with the SOS Children’s Villages International Ombuds Office
d) support SOS Children’s Villages management in reporting all criminal acts or concerns for children’s, young people’s and vulnerable adult’s safety, to the appropriate authorities
e) to monitor, evaluate and report on progress in delivery of strategies, outcomes and learning to Governance, Leadership and Management.
f) to participate in, share with and learn from external networks to improve internal practice and to influence sector wide thinking and initiatives and facilitates relevant knowledge management.
Our Safeguarding approach is grounded in our organisation’s values of accountability, courage, trust, and commitment and Living Our Values. Our incident management is victim and survivor centred. Child Safeguarding covers children, young people and individuals who have left the care of SOS Children’s Villages Programmes; people affected by current and past abuse are in focus.
The purpose of the position is to build and continuously strengthen the Federation’s capability in Child Safeguarding. SOS Children’s Villages interacts through its programmes with tens of thousands of children in the provision of direct alternative care or, with partners, delivering family strengthening and other child centred programmes outside SOS Childrens Villages organisations. The provision of direct alternative care means that SOS Children’s Villages has specific and elevated safeguarding risks which differentiate it from other INGOs.
Working jointly with the Head of Adult Safeguarding and as required, other Safeguarding functions under the leadership of the Global Director of Safeguarding, the Head of Child Safeguarding develops, implements and strengthens integrated strategies, policies, processes, tools, training, systems and monitoring processes with specific focus on children and youth. The incumbent works with all layers and entities across the Federation to enable them to fulfil their safeguarding responsibilities including protection of complainants, witnesses and support to survivors.
The incumbent oversees and coordinates incident management across the child safeguarding network . They report progress, outcomes and the overall incident management status for child safeguarding, and ensure further development based on lessons learnt including specific recommendations on prevention of child abuse and neglect and the safe implementation of programs. The incumbent supports the Global Director of Safeguarding in their leadership of the Federationwide network, supports the equivalent teams and individuals in the International Office Regions, GSC-run entities/programmes and as requested Member Associations. The incumbent works with SOS Children’s Villages federation legal bodies to report on, makes decisions and advances child safeguarding in cooperation with the Global Safeguarding Director.
Tasks & Responsibilities
1. Jointly championing Safeguarding
2. Support of management and others across the Federation to build a safe environment for children, youth and adults - with a special focus on children
3. Incident Management
4. Monitoring, evaluation, learning and reporting regarding child safeguarding. Working with the Head of Adult Safeguarding
5. Management of staff and other resources
Requirements
Essential:
Desirable
We offer
What We Stand For
SOS Children’s Villages is committed to creating and maintaining a caring and protective environment, which promotes its core values, and prevents and addresses child abuse and exploitation. We strongly condemn all forms of child abuse and exploitation, be it within or outside of our organization, and always respond to any case of proven, alleged or attempted abuse within our sphere of influence according to its nature. Efforts ensure that mechanisms are in place to raise awareness, aid prevention, encourage reporting and ease response. They range from human resource development actions such as training and counselling to measures such as suspension, dismissal, and legal action.
SOS Children’s Villages is committed to creating and maintaining a safe working environment for our staff, the children and young people and the communities that we work for. The organization prohibits harassment, exploitation and abuses by or of any employee, supervisor, manager, child, young people, community, contractor, applicant, or other individual with whom SOS Children’s Villages employees come into contact by virtue of their work. All employees are expected to carry out their duties in accordance with our prevention and protection against Sexual Harassment, Exploitation and Abuse policy.
In addition, SOS Children’s Villages apply zero tolerance concerning any fraud situation. The organization does not charge a fee at any stage of the recruitment process.
Successful candidates will have to submit a criminal record certificate, current within the last three years. In accordance with the organisation’s child protection policy, these positions will be subject to criminal record checks.
If you are interested in this position, please submit your detailed application in English by the 8th of May, 2023 at https://careers-sos-kd.icims.com
Due to the high level of responses, SOS Children Villages can only respond to shortlisted candidates.