Access to Justice Manager - Beirut - National Candidates Only

​​​​​​The International Rescue Committee responds to the world’s worst humanitarian crises and helps people to survive and rebuild their lives. Founded in 1933 at the request of Albert Einstein, IRC offers life-saving care and life-changing assistance to refugees forced to flee from war or disaster. At work today in more than 40 countries and in 22 U.S. cities, IRC restores safety, dignity and hope to millions who are uprooted by conflict or disaster. IRC leads the way from harm to home.

CONTEXTUAL BACKGROUND

More than half of the affected Syrian population in Lebanon, are under 18 years of age. The deteriorating overall economic situation in the country and Covid- pandemic have exacerbated the situation of the vulnerable families of different nationalities including Syrian, hindered their access to services and resources and increased their reliance and resort to negative coping mechanisms such as engaging children in worst forms of labor and child marriage. Moreover, Children survivors of abuse, witnesses to crime, and children in conflict with the law face persistent barriers to access justice. These include lack of information on their rights, legal procedures and support, and lack of child-sensitive processes prioritizing their needs and guaranteeing their best interest.

Under the CP program, the IRC aims at increasing vulnerable and at-risk children’s access to quality, specialized individual, and group-level protection assistance. This is done through the provision of life saving services such as case management, legal assistance, focused psycho-social support, and risk mitigation activities for children survivors or at risk of abuse, exploitation and neglect including out of school, working children and children in contact with the law (at high risk, in conflict with the law or witnesses). their caregivers are also targeted with parenting and awareness sessions. The IRC and local partners provide these services in different modalities remotely and through mobile spaces while abiding by COVID-19 prevention and safety measures. in addition, IRC works aims at maintaining an excellent coordination and collaboration skims with the National A2J stakeholders from governmental and civil society actors as well as the international key agencies in order to strengthen the access to justice area at the strategic and operational levels and avoid as much as possible overlapping and wasting of efforts and resources.

Job Overview/Summary:

The Child Protection Access to Justice Manager is responsible for supporting the improvement of processes and systems in Lebanon to facilitate and ensure full fledge protection (prevention and response) for the children a t risk with greater attention to those in contact with the law. The Manager will be responsible for project management including, budget development and tracking, all reporting (proposals and reports), overseeing project implementation, team management and external relations.

He/She will be responsible for the capacity building of the team, with a heavy focus on their technical competencies in the area of Access to justice. The Manager will have critical thinking skills and will be able to identify gaps in processes that obstruct access to justice for children. The Manager will be responsible for identifying specific gaps in process and systems that need to be improved, and will be responsible for recommending concrete solutions to address these gaps in the national system and based on IRC strategy to better serve children in contact with the law. Conducting assessments to identify areas where counterparts providing services for children require technical support, in addition to how this can be provided.

The Access to Jsutice Manager will be responsible for all aspects of implementation of the technical component of programming at the National Level as well as in IRC sites of intervention. This includes strong diplomacy skills and the ability to build cooperative relationships with key stakeholders in the National judicial system, key government stakeholders relevant to access to justice, municipalities, police stations, community members and other stakeholders.

Major Responsibilities:

Advocacy, coordination, and networking:

• Identify key stakeholders within the Judicial system who play a key role in Access to Justice for children at risk of harm
• Build strong relationships with formal and non- formal key leaders and influencers of the justice system for children: judges, legal prosecutors, municipality members, head of police stations, frontline police workers, representatives of political parties, religious leaders.
• Conduct ongoing assessments throughout the implementation of the program of key stakeholders involved in service provision to support strengthening their technical capacity.
• Responsible for starting and driving the implementation of the Access to Justice for Children Program forward.
• Responsible for developing implementation plans, actively contacting relevant stakeholders to target for advocacy initiatives, developing content and approaches for workshops.
• Identify key community members, committees and representatives in Lebanese regions and Palestinian camps and build relationships to facilitate cooperation
• Represent IRC as a strong advocate of child rights, more specifically of children fair and transparent access to justice
• Proactively meet with key stakeholders monthly for project implementation.
• Participate and actively contribute to coordination meeting at the national and local level when necessary, Liaise closely with governmental departments and/or international and local, NGOs including UN agencies and academia and identify areas for collaboration.
• Support the Senior Child Protection manager in related activities of the Case Management Task force and collect information in specific thematic areas.
• Work closely with Legal counterparts to jointly identify specific components for technical capacity building plans, draft and deliver workshops together, based on the programs vision.
• Flag important gaps in processes and the system to the Senior Manager to inform strategic priorities for the National Case Management Task Force.
• Contribute to research, A2J need-assessments, and organization of events pertaining the A2J for children.

Project Management:

• Responsible for all aspects of budget monitoring and tracking – this includes preparing accurate spending plans, monthly reviews of budget versus actuals, amending budgets, re-aligning budgets
• Oversee two components of the project- the direct implementation team providing child protection case management and legal services to children who require access to the judicial process
• Prepare and monitor project detailed implementation plan and consistently review and monitor.
• Responsible of preparing and monitoring project procurement plan in line with IRC processes.
• Responsible of the recruitment of the project vacant positions
• Oversee logistical and financial arrangements of all related project activities

• Responsible of weekly/monthly reporting on the project activities, progress, targets, challenges, suggestions and lessons learnt.
• Draft and submit monthly and quarterly donor reports
• Provide concrete recommendations based on lessons learnt for proposals to build systems
• Document child protection trends and highlighting major risks that affect children at risk in Lebanon.
• Monitors activities progress and reporting: pre-posttests’ documentation and analysis, focus group discussions, surveys etc
• Monitor and evaluate project’s progress and implementation quality in accordance with IRC M&E standards and procedures
• Document project files

Capacity building:

• Work closely with the legal counselor and the caseworker to ensure quality case management for children, and to synchronize case management and legal interventions for the best interest of children.
• Identify the team’s capacity building needs and link them with internal learning opportunities within the child protection and protection teams
• Deliver child protection trainings to staff members and support staff to make the most of the interventions they are responsible for.
• Support different stakeholders to identify organizational and technical needs and gaps, coach partners and mentor partners staff.
• Review and modify (when necessary) case management tools and train staff on them.
• Support in the provision of trainings related to case management and IRC staff and local partners.

Staff Management and Development:

• Empower staff to drive results forward for children with special focus on children in contact with the law who require safety and justice.
• Supervise and motivate the team to excel this includes a Senior capacity building officer, legal counselor and indirectly supervising the caseworker and capacity building officer to ensure we maximize our potential to influence change for children.
• Working closely with the senior capacity building officer to support the organization and implementation of capacity building activities such as workshops, trainings, discussion meeting and learning sessions around transparency measures and access to justice for children, clinical management of rape, and steps for Physical Examination and Forensic Testing protocols, child friendly communication, accountability, transparency, etc.
• Provide support to the caseworker in complex case and ensure cases fit within the required profile of the program on Access to Justice
• Provide constructive feedback and counsel on appropriate career paths and professional development.
• Promote and monitor staff care and well-being; approve and manage all leave requests to ensure adequate coverage.
• Offer leadership support for successful adherence by staff to IRC’s Global HR Operating Policies and Procedures.
• Other duties as assigned by the supervisor to enable and develop IRC programs

Key Working Relationships:

Position Reports to: Senior Child Protection Manager

Indirect Reporting: Child Protection coordinator

Position directly supervises:

• Senior Capacity Building Officer
• CP Case worker
• Legal counselor
• Capacity building Officer

Job Requirements:

Education: