Child Protection Officer at SOS Children Villages

Position Summary

• The Protection Officer would be responsible for implementing community-based child protection activities in the programme.
• He/she will be responsible for prevention and response activities of the protection program that include working with the community and community-based child protection structures and system; psychosocial support activities, case management, promotion children’s wellbeing and protection.

Responsibilities

• Prepare the child protection component of your programme annual plan, implement and monitor child protection activities and ensure that the child protection activities align with the local context, programme objectives and the organisation’s values and principles
• Encourage good practice by promoting and championing child protection policy and support procedures to protect children
• Ensure all incidents are appropriately documented, correctly reported and considered in accordance with the state child protection policy and procedures. Analyze trends from reporting mechanisms and provide management with recommendations for improvements
• Builds links between community-based initiatives and referral pathways to allow a more efficient access to services, and constitutes an interface between local communities and the programme, maintaining and managing relations with community leaders and members, local authorities, community-based organizations, CSOs, Child protection Networks and NGOs
• Ensure that children abused or at risk of being abused are identified and receive individual case management support by direct counseling to the families or by providing the community-based child protection network with guidance on conducting case management, in accordance with the state child protection laws, standard tools and procedures
• Organize capacity building training for child-led clubs, community caseworkers; youth center facilitators, Child-Friendly Spaces (CFS) facilitators, child protection committees and other community structures, community members/representatives, foster parents, and vulnerable children to build their resilience
• Maintain confidential records of reported cases, action taken and ensure information is only held on an individual whilst the person continues to carry out their regulated work role within the community
• Raise awareness of the Code of Conduct for working with children to community child protection network members, parents/caregivers, teaching and non-teaching school staff, and adults in the community. Raise concern on behaviour that breaches the Code of Conduct
• Support community-based child protection Network to undertake risk assessments of all spaces accessed by children to implement mitigating and corrective measures
• Maintain a system to document risks and concerns raised, ensuring that appropriate follow-up is conducted and that learning from implementing these processes is fed back into the organization’s practice, policies and risk management
• Work with state CPN to strengthen the implementation of the child protection activities and Procedures and to build the skills of CCPC members and key implementing partners in managing concerns
• Assessing the Protection needs of children.

Qualifications, Experience and Skills

• HND / BSc Degree in a relevant subject area such as Guidance & Counseling, Law, Community Development, Social Work etc
• Minimum of 1 year of experience in a similar role within an NGO/iNGO sector
• Understanding of child development issues, including knowledge of child rights, child protection, child welfare, childcare and parenting; and relevant local and national laws, regulations and protocols
• Understanding of current child protection legislation
• Ability to develop a child safety policy, risk registers and other child protection-focused procedures.