Children’s Villages Programme Director

SOS Children’s Villages takes action for children as an independent non-governmental social development organization. We build families for children in need, we help them shape the development of their communities, we respect varying religions and cultures, and we work in countries and communities where our mission can contribute to development.

Position Title: Children’s Villages Programme Director (CVPD)

Line Manager: National Director

Status: Full Time

Location: Bethlehem

Child Safeguarding Commitment:

SOS Children’s Villages works with children’s and youth. Any applicant he/she should act in a way that safeguards children and youth from all forms of discrimination, abuse, mistreatment and neglect, and will keep data about the children and youth in SOS Children’s Villages programmes confidential. He/she will report all concerns regarding actual or potential child abuse, mistreatment or any other violation of the Child Protection Policy according to our reporting and responding system. For sure, He/she would be protected and supported by the organization.

Position Summary:

The SOS Children’s Villages Programme Director (CVPD) leads under the monitoring and guidance of National Office function staff the overall development and implementation of an SOS Children’s Villages Programme (CVP) in response to needs in one or several locations and in line with the vision, mission, values of the organisation. She/he represents the organisation towards governmental and non-governmental stakeholders in the location.

She/he coordinates the CVP activities, ensures high quality and cost-efficient services for children and families from the target group. The CVPD is responsible for the professional implementation of the programme management cycle in the location. She/he leads the managing co-workers within the programme. She/he negotiates with local authorities, advocates for the rights of the target group and involves in professional child welfare networks. She/he actively engages volunteers, partner organisations, institutional funders, donors from the community and identifies potential income sources in cooperation with the Fund Development & Communications function in the National Office and/or the National Director (ND). She/he reports to the ND and cooperates content-wise also with national functional managers. As a member of the National Management Team she/he participates in the annual strategic planning of the Member Association.

Main Clients

• National Director

• National Office functions
• Managing staff of the SOS CV Programme units
• Local and national authorities

Programme Development and Management

·         Leads the development and implementation of the SOS CVP in line with the SOS Children’s Villages Programme Policy and related international and national SOS policies, strategies, quality standards and guidelines

·         Leads the implementation of the programme management cycle including the CVP planning process as part of MA annual and strategic planning to ensure that interventions are relevant to the local context, respond to the needs of the target group and contribute to the development of sustainable social support systems

·         Coordinates and ensures cooperation between all areas of work within the CVP

·         Ensures efficiency through best use/sharing of resources across different programme units

·         Regularly reports on CVP activities and progress to ND and relevant National Office functions

·         Ensures that the CVP is supportive to the brand of the SOS Children’s Villages Organisation

HR Management and organisational development

·         Develops appropriate workforce planning in close cooperation with national HRM and ensures full staffing of the CVP

·         Establishes a positive, healthy and safe working environment in accordance with mission, vision, values of the organisation

·         Continues to build own knowledge and knowledge of team regarding national and Federation trends and strategies in child protection

·         Builds and leads an engaged and high performing CVP team

·         Recruits, interviews and selects co-workers with proper profile, all according to national recruitment guidelines

·         Ensures that all new co-workers are onboarded in quality way

·         Ensures and conducts performance management process for all co-workers which includes monitoring staff performance on ongoing basis, conducting annual performance conferences

·         Coaches co-workers as appropriate to improve performance

·         Contributes to optimise processes between the CVP and the National Office

·         Fosters cooperation between National Office staff and their counterparts in the location

Financial and administrative Management

·         Builds accountability in the programme by ensuring implementation of simple and effective financial and administrative procedures in accordance with defined policies and guidelines

·         Leads the budgeting process in the location(s)

·         Monitors budget expenditures and conducts financial and content controlling of CVP in order to ensure that funds are properly used

·         Continually looks for ways to provide quality services in a cost-effective manner

·         Ensures that budgeting of maintenance costs (construction, repairs, renovation) for SOS property is carried out by the leader of the programme the facility belongs. The CVPD is overall accountable for good facility maintenance in the CVP

Quality Management, Monitoring and Evaluation

·         Is overall responsible for quality management in the CVP and ensures the implementation of national and international quality standards with guidance and monitoring from function staff in the National Office

·         Is responsible for the implementation of results-based management, including planning, monitoring and evaluation of programmes

·         Monitors the implementation of recommendations from national and international audits

Partnership building, advocacy and cooperation with external stakeholders

·         Negotiates and concludes agreements and contracts with state authorities and other organisations with a power of attorney given by the ND

·         Leads and coordinates cooperation, partnership building, and networking efforts of the CVP with local and national authorities and other external stakeholders

·         Represents together with managing CVP staff the organisation at relevant local networks, forums, platforms, campaigns, working groups and advocates on behalf of the organisation for the promotion of child rights, especially related to children from the target group

Fund Development and Public Relations

·         Promotes the organisation in the public and identifies potential income sources in cooperation with the Fund Development & Communications function in the National Office and/or the ND

·         Strives for the highest possible level of programme self-financing with a focus on government subsidies and public funding within the frame of targets agreed at strategic planning process

Child Safeguarding (CS)

·         Leads and coordinates the CS team’s work in the CVP with a particular attention to prevention and awareness raising. This includes carrying out a CS risk assessment and mitigation of existing and possible CS risks in the CVP

·         Reports to national CS focal person about all incidents and development of the incident management on a timely manner (bi-annually or quarterly)

·         Is responsible for the implementation of proposed CS incident actions in the CVP

·         Is responsible to maintain CS incident register at the programme level

·         Is responsible to organise review of incidents dealt with in the CVP

·         Takes decision to close the incident managed by CS team in CVP after implementation of respective action plan

·         Ensures new co-workers receive CS orientation during the onboarding period

·         Ensures CVP co-workers’ CS capacity building and specific individual CS support

·         Assesses capacity building needs of the CS team on programme level and plans support actions in cooperation with national CS focal person and HR manager

·         Acts as a child rights ambassador to influence communities, policymakers, governments, other stakeholders to make them understand the importance of protecting children and young people and to take action

·         Establishes diverse reporting channels, incl. anonymous, for co-workers, children, young people

The Child Safeguarding (CS) team at programme level is responsible to:

·         Raise awareness of the SOS Child Protection Policy principles among SOS staff in the respective programme

·         Conducts CS risk assessment focusing at all programme units and functions at programme level. Existing and potential CS risks are addressed with appropriate mitigating actions

·         Take active role in the national annual planning process to ensure that the identified CS risks are communicated to the national management and reflected during the annual plan of the member association

·         Be a support hub to all SOS staff at programme level and provide advise and guidance should they raise any questions or concerns related to child safeguarding

·         Receive reports of CS concerns and complaints from the SOS staff, children and young people supported by the respective programme, former SOS beneficiaries and from external third persons

·         Respond to all reported child safeguarding concerns and incidents in the programme

·         Determine the exact nature of a child safeguarding incident or concern and to make decision on next steps (incident assessment)

·         Share information about the reported child safeguarding concerns with the national CS focal person on a timely manner

·         Responsible to prepare the child safeguarding report for the national CS focal person when the child safeguarding incident is closed

·         Educate children on their right to be protected from any harm and make them aware that any form of violence against them hurts their human dignity

·         Promote a participatory approach, involve children and young people in local mapping and risk assessment so that existing risks can be identified and mitigated

·         Teach children and young people how to detect and avoid unsafe situation, inform children and young people how they can report child safeguarding concerns and to whom they can turn should they need help or guidance

General

·         Follow up on other tasks as requested by line manager, within the scope of this job description

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Must Criteria

• Higher degree in social sciences, public administration, business administration, law
• Minimum 3 years management experience in social welfare field, preferably in the sector of child and youth welfare
• Minimum 3 years leadership experience
• Strong communication, negotiation and advocating skills
• Strong in leading, planning and managing
• Good knowledge of English

Competencies – knowledge, skills, abilities

• Leadership and people management: able to build engaged and high performing teams committed to the programme goal, interested in own and team’s learning and development
• Good skills in programme management, project cycle management, monitoring and evaluation
• Good knowledge of standards, legal issues, developments in the social welfare field, particularly in child and youth welfare. Good knowledge of and commitment to children’s rights
• Open for innovation
• Highly organised, result-oriented, collaborative way of work fostering integration and teamwork
• High level of communication and presentation skills, networking building skills to foster effective relations and build partnerships with local stakeholders
• Good knowledge in financial management, budgeting
• Basic knowledge in fund development, particularly in public funding
• Computer literacy (MS Office).

Interested candidates must send their Cover Letter including related job achievements, CV, and three traceable references to:

j[email protected] by Monday 17/04/2023

Indicating in the subject line: CVPD

Only short-listed candidates will be contacted Applications after deadline will be excluded. Applications not conforming to the conditions will not be considered.