Protection Officer – Community Services

INTERSOS is a non-profit humanitarian aid organisation that works to bring assistance to people in danger, victims of natural disasters and armed conflicts. Established in 1992 with support from the Italian Federation of Trade Unions, its actions are based on the values of solidarity, justice, human dignity, equal rights and opportunities for all people and respect for diversity and coexistence, paying particular attention to the most vulnerable and the unprotected.

INTERSOS identifies with the core values of CONCORD, the European Confederation of NGOs; it adheres to international codes of conduct for humanitarian organisations and the values and principles expressed within those codes. INTERSOS is recognised by the Italian Ministry for Foreign Affairs, the European Commission and the principal UN agencies; it is privileged to hold an advisory status with the United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC).
INTERSOS is an independent association which, through its own humanitarian operators, intervenes to effectively answer the needs of people in serious crises situations, mainly in the world's poorest regions, who are suffering, deprived of rights, dignity and essentials goods. It maintains a flexible operating structure. The head office in Italy coordinates, supports and monitors the planned activities in the countries of intervention carried out by decentralised offices.

Job Purpose:

Lead and coordinate the implementation of community services activities in the center and on outreach in designated areas, develop trend analysis, information dissemination and referrals according to Donor standards in Protection work.

Guarantees the correct and efficient implementation of the projects activities in and the overall supervision of the project teams (Donor).

Generic Duties:

Community Services:

1. Monitor and supervise the process of designing and implementation of the activities in the community centres, and child friendly space.
2. Responsible to support INTERSOS CS staff with technical advices and guidance for the design, plan, implementation, development, and analysis of the centre-based activities or through outreach.
3. Collaborate with the field assistants (FA) to ensure a smooth coordination between the CS staff and the center partner(s), as well with local authorities and relevant stakeholders in all areas.
4. Supervise the activities related to the CFS in the intervention location and provide support to the Animators/social workers.
5. Support and manage social workers, in their daily activities; ensure distribution of tasks within the teams.
6. Work closely with the other organizations in order to ensure smooth referral and monitoring of required follow-up actions and avoid overlapping.
7. Hold regular mentoring and coaching sessions to social workers based on identified needs and gaps.
8. Provide on-going support to the Social Workers in the designated districts, ensuring proper and timely information flow, quality, supervision and advice.
9. Communicate regularly with the CS teams for updates on achievements and challenges.
10. Undertake field visits to the community centres to provide technical guidance and supervision as well as regularly monitoring of the progress of the community services activities.
11. Train and capacity build for Social Workers, and external organizations if required, on psychosocial support, and other protection topics.
12. Support the SWs to identify, activate/establish and empower community-based structures such as (but not limited to) women groups, center management committees, men groups, children groups and youth groups.

Monitoring & Reporting:

1. Supervise/Revise/Update on a weekly basis the correct fulfilment of all relevant information on beneficiaries attending the CDCs.
2. Ensure accurate quality reporting on the activities reported under the protection program, in close collaboration with the IM team, feeding into weekly and monthly reporting to be prepared by the Project Manager.
3. Contribute to the drafting of internal/external reports (weekly/monthly/and quarterly) according to INTERSOS and donors’ requirements ensuring that reports are of a high quality and submitted on time.
4. Elaborate trends, challenges and lessons learned on a monthly/quarterly basis.
5. Maintain regular and positive collaboration with the colleagues to harmonize approaches and methodologies of response, share challenges and best practices and ensure that protection is mainstreamed into the other sectors of intervention.
6. Ensure the referral of any medium/high risk case identified in the community centres to the case management/senior case workers located in the same centres.
7. Coordinate with the quality department to ensure monitoring of the activities in a periodical basis, provide constructive feedback and show technical knowledge and flexibility to adapt tools, agenda, approaches upon the findings and needs from the target communities.

Area Coordination:

1. Ensure a permanent monitoring of projects’ teams’ activities.
2. Support the staff teams through the development of a technically sound (monthly & weekly) work plan consistent with the goals and objectives of the project.
3. Organize weekly/monthly meetings to plan activities with the projects’ teams.
4. Ensure the referral mechanism system is known by Donors Teams, properly applied and monitored. 
5. Ensure timely and quality implementation of the work plan, in coordination with field teams.
6. Ensure smooth communication and coordination between the projects’ teams in all areas
7. Ensure that teams in all areas use harmonized approaches and tools.
8. Strengthen coordination among the projects’ teams, ensuring that there is a comprehensive link and mainstream between the different project components.
9. Participate in the recruitment of projects staff and provide objective feedback with regards to staff performance (evaluate performance and delivery against job descriptions), expectations and areas for growth and professional development. 
10. Ensure the team in the respective area are working effectively together, mitigate in case of tensions and conflict and report immediately on HR related issues
11. Maintain good working relations with key actors amongst the refugees from Syria and Lebanese host community local authorities.
12. In coordination with the teams, ensure that a weekly expenditure planning is prepared and timely delivered to the Project Manager including expected costs for:
    1. Office running costs of the centres (cleaning services and material, stationary, maintenance, rehabilitation, equipment etc.) 
    2. Cost to deliver/implement activities

Coordination & Representation:

1. Develop and maintain effective working relationship with stakeholders including partner agencies, community leaders and service providers in the target areas for prompt referral, follow up and information sharing.
2. Contribute to the maintenance of an up-to-date service mapping of the service providers operating in the area and take proactive steps to remain informed about the available services.
3. Proactively participate in protection and relevant INTERSOS coordination meeting at the national, regional and district level. 
4. Liaising with field-offices of humanitarian agencies and coordinate with Donor Sub-Office to ensure field concerns and challenges are brought to relevant stakeholders.
5. Manage and join field staffs in monitoring protection issues affecting refugees from Syria and Lebanese host population.
6. Participate to relevant interagency working group as requested by the Protection Manager as well as to bi-lateral coordination meetings with organizations (local and international) as relevant and when required. 

Program Development:

1. Contribute to the development of activities in relation to CS and other protection-related activities.

Other Specific Duties:

1. Submit one IMP the weekly and monthly needs of the CDC and send to the Protection Manager
2. Draft input for the PAT on CS on a monthly basis and send to the Protection Reporting and M&E Officer
3. Submit PR in a weekly basis or as relevant to ensure the purchase of materials to cover the needs for the activities’ implementation.
4. Monitor the spending related to Community services activities through the Financial Plan and input on updates in coordination with Protection Manager and Project manager in a monthly basis.
5. Support to anticipate identification of budget under/over spend and report timely to Protection Manager and Project manager in a monthly basis or as relevant.
6. Being the focal point for the IDEA Box activities conducted in Mreje CDC and other area when required.

Competencies: (Knowledge, Skills & Abilities)

Professional Competencies:

• 3 to 5 years of relevant work experience
• Very good understanding of protection and refugee rights
• MS Proficiency (Word, PowerPoint, Excel, etc)
• Excellent Reporting and analytical skills
• Driving License issued since more than one year

Behavioural competencies:

• Cultural awareness
• High confidentiality, respect and non-discrimination attitude
• High level of planning and organising; Ability to work under pressure and meet deadlines
• Strong interpersonal and communication skills
• Teamwork
• Flexibility and adaptability
• Initiative
• Problem solving and decision making
• Strategic vision
• Leadership: developing and motivating staffs
• Driving and achieving results
• Humanitarian motivation and commitment to INTERSOS values
• Respect of Intersos policies and procedures