Research Officer

• Background

War Child Holland (WCH) is an independent and impartial international non-governmental organization investing in a peaceful future for children and young people affected by armed conflict. We strive to empower children and young people while enabling adults to bring about positive and lasting change in the lives of conflict affected children and young people. In the next five years (2016 – 2020), based on innovation of our approaches, and solid research of our outcomes and impact. War Child aims to evolve towards a globally renowned and recognised expert organisation in the field of psychosocial well-being of children and youth affected by conflict.

• Research Project

To address the unique needs of in-service teachers in conflict-affected contexts, War Child has developed a holistic teacher support program that provides individualised and scaffolded wellbeing and in class support to teachers through a continuous quality improvement-based coaching model. The program—Coaching in Response to Emergencies for Teachers (CORE for Teachers)— goes beyond the typical quick-fix workshop training model to provide sustained and reflective learning on a range of holistic skills that are almost never addressed in teacher training and professional development programs in crisis contexts.

The aim of CORE for Teachers is to have a positive impact on classroom climate by providing teachers with the skills and knowledge to create an enabling, impactful and safe, learning environment for their students. It will build teachers capacity in three areas.

1. Teacher social-emotional competences: 
2. Teacher wellbeing: 
3. Positive classroom management: 

A key part of CORE is to challenge the culture in schools to expand the view of education more broadly than just academic learning outcomes to include social and emotional outcomes. In order to facilitate this, the intervention will undertake a whole school approach with all the teachers in the school engaged in the process building a shared experience, vision and support network. The intervention does not include working directly with the teachers but instead focuses on building the capacity of a pool of coaches. These coaches,  in turn will provide intensive, ongoing, and specific coaching to teachers over a 6 month period, through a repeating cycle of: i) observation, ii) one-on-one personal development planning, iii) in-class support and iv) teacher practice time.   

Following a successful proof of concept testing in Colombia, which examined feasibility, user-experience, and acceptability of the CORE for Teachers, this pilot study will test for viability and feasibility with a small sample of teachers in Gaza. This will provide an opportunity to fine-tune the research and program implementation protocols in preparation for impact evaluation, in accordance with the Medical Research Council Framework (MRC 2000) for complex interventions.

• Roles and responsibilities

• The Research Officer is essential to the success of any research project- s/he forms the backbone of a research team. 
• The Research Officer will work within the CORE for Teachers team to coordinate all aspects of implementation of research activities.  
• S/he will be responsible for
• Coordination of relevant partnership establishment (between War Child Holland and university in Gaza) and maintenance in close collaboration with
• The researcher in R&D Amsterdam
• Program Manager and Project Officer in Gaza
• Head of Programs and Country Director in Jerusalem.
• Coordination and preparation of logistics around research implementation.
• Recruitment, selection, and hiring of local research assistants.   This will involve:
• assisting in drafting job descriptions
• assisting in the circulation of advertisements to relevant networks
• participating in the screening potential applicants and shortlisting several for interview together with HR Department
• coordinating and participating in  an interview panel to conduct interviews
• taking a critical role in final selection of team together with the Gaza and CORE for Teachers team.
• Assisting in competency and capacity-building of local research team in research methods, research ethics, and interventions, with support of the Research and Development team within War Child Holland Head Office. This competency-building will involve
• Basics of data collection for qualitative and quantitative research projects
• Interviewing methods
• Data management processes
• Research ethics including participant safety, confidentiality, reporting of adverse events, maintaining integrity of research data
• Intervention facilitation (with support from relevant trainers)
• Child safe-guarding
• Supervision and coordination of the tasks of the local research team to ensure quality of data collected.  This will include:
• Holding regular supervision meetings and performance appraisals with research assistants
• Scheduling and coordination of data collection including managing all logistics such as transport, work schedules, resources required,
• Monitoring of quality of data collection, adherence to ethical practices, and intervention fidelity
• Overseeing data entry and data management, and able to be responsible for data set cleaning. 
• Communicating key information from the research in a simple, clear, effective way to stakeholders that are non-researchers
• Managing and reporting on adverse events and serious adverse events related to implementing the research project according to War Child Holland data management protocols
• Participating in regular research supervision and coordination meetings with War Child Holland Research and Development Head Office team
• The Research Officer takes a proactive role in monitoring progress of research implementation and proactively observes, documents and shares any community-level barriers. 
• S/he participates in weekly research supervision and coordination skype meetings with War Child Holland R&D department. 
• S/he shares updates about the research implementation in a structured way with the rest of the team.
• S/he is proactive in problem solving and suggesting solutions to community-level barriers. 
• S/he supports, if needed, with protocol writing and ethical review submission. 
• S/he supports, if needed, with any other tasks.

1. Reporting

• They will report to the Programme Manager in Gaza with a functional reporting line to the Researcher War Child Holland Research and Development Department in Amsterdam.

جميع الحقوق محفوظة لموقع جوبس.

• Profile

Essential:

• At least Masters level degree in relevant field (e.g. Education, Psychology, Nursing, Public Health, Social Sciences).
• At least 3 years’ experience in leading and coordinating field-based research with human subjects in a relevant field (i.e. psychosocial support, education, and/or child protection). 
• Extensive experience working within Palestine/ Gaza Strip.
• Proven track record in implementing research activities and data management for human subjects research projects.
• Experience in supervising research assistants and building competency. 
• Excellent communication skills in English (oral and written) and Arabic.
• Ability to communicate the results of research to others in a simple, clear, effective way.
• Ability to operate independently with minimal supervision
• Ability to work with SPSS and NVivo and/or similar data analyses software
• Available full time, committed to invest at least 1 year in contributing to our research agenda in Gaza
• Excellent command of English, both spoken and written, is a must. 

Desirable:

• Experience in (basic) analyses of data sets in SPSS NVivo and/ or similar software package
• Previous experience in a research Officer role in a field-based project
• Previous extensive experience with both qualitative and quantitative research methods

• Job Location: Gaza City with frequent travel to various implementation sites in the Gaza Strip
• Time frame:  The assignment is expected to start on 1st October 2019  
• Salary range

Depending on experience, the Project Officer will receive a monthly salary in line with War Child relevant policy, a fulltime basis.

Interested and qualified candidates are invited to apply by 24 August, 2019. Make sure to send your English CV and cover letter to: [email protected]

Please indicate in the subject line: Research Officer

Applications will be considered on a rolling basis. 

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The safety of children is essential to War Child. War Child does not tolerate or accept any form of abuse. This subject is addressed in our recruitment and selection procedures.