Child Protection Capacity Building Officer - Beirut

Background

The International Rescue Committee (IRC) responds to the world’s worst humanitarian crises and helps people to survive and rebuild their lives. Founded in 1933, the 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 cities in the United States, the IRC restores safety, dignity, and hope to millions of vulnerable individuals who are uprooted by conflict or disaster. The IRC leads the way from harm to home.

In Lebanon, the IRC implements programs in the education, protection, women’s empowerment and protection, economic recovery and development, and child protection sectors. In child protection, one of the IRC’s main objectives is to strengthen the national child protection system to provide a quality response to children and families facing protection issues both during and outside of emergencies. To reach this objective, the IRC partners with local child protection actors to build their capacities.

Job Overview/Summary:

The IRC Child Protection Capacity Building Officer will play a crucial role in strengthening the capacity of local agencies involved in juvenile justice, focusing on case management, psychosocial support (PSS), and legal frameworks. This position involves working closely with stakeholders to enhance their knowledge, skills, and systems to ensure effective support and protection for children in contact with the law.

The scope of work for the Child Protection Officer will be as follows:

Responsibilities:

Capacity Building:

• Conduct needs assessments and gap analysis for the agencies involved in the juvenile justice system.
• Develop comprehensive capacity-building plans based on identified needs and priorities.
• Design and deliver training programs on case management, psychosocial support, and legal aspects including law 422/2002, child-friendly communication skills, transparency, access to justice and accountability to children, Child-friendly skills, and child rights.
• Provide coaching, mentorship, and technical assistance to staff and partners to improve their competencies in child protection access to justice.
• Create and adapt training materials, manuals, and tools to support capacity-building activities.
• Regularly review progress and adjust training and capacity-building plans as needed to ensure effectiveness and sustainability.
• Document lessons learned, success stories, and challenges encountered during capacity-building efforts.
• Prepare and organize meetings and discussions with different stakeholders such as mandated agencies by the ministry of Justice, Ministry of Social Affairs, legal prosecutors, judges, Internal security forces, lawyers, partner staff, and other community members.
• Provide training on Child protection and access to justice to the partners and Judicial Staff.

Case Management:

• Coach the caseworkers who will be delivering case management services inside the Juvenile Prison with the partner.
• Case management audit will monitor case management work achieved by the caseworker through regular audits.
• Update the Access to the justice manager and the IRC coaching program on the challenges related to case management in implementation.
• Conduct weekly monitoring visits to the partner's activities, and to the juvenile prisons and share documented feedback on the visits with the partners.
• Report all the needed information and data to the monitoring and Evaluation team.
• Regularly conduct service mapping to update existing services in the area and support the partner's caseworkers on the referral mechanism.

Other:

• Liaise with the CP support manager to ensure that all logistical and operational requirements for the training are finalized.
• Build strong relationships with local partners, through maintaining mutual respect and vision.
• Participate in the development of lessons learned and best practices.
• Assume full responsibility for tracking individual participants in training databases, and ensure data entered is accurate and up to date.
• Assume full responsibility for all relevant monitoring and evaluation activities (capacity-building reports, training evaluation reports, Pre – post-test analysis reports, etc...)
• Document all trainings, workshops, and field visits using the appropriate tools.
• Report data and draft narrative reports in a timely manner.
• Participate in team meetings and partner meetings with the Access to Justice project manager.
• Conduct any other CP activities or support needed as requested by the supervisor.

Internal coordination: Coordinate with the IRC Child Protection capacity building unit, child protection specialist, Protection and rule of law, and Health team.

Key Working Relationships:

• Position Reports to Child Protection Access to Justice Manager.
• Position directly supervises: NA

Job Requirements:

• Education, bachelor’s degree or master’s degree in social work or related field.
• Work experience: 3 to 4 years working in child Protection Access to Justice.
• Strong experience in delivering and facilitating training programs.
• Strong knowledge of Child Protection and of the Juvenile justice system in Lebanon.
• Strong communication skills.
• Fluency in written and spoken Arabic and English.
• Staunch advocate of child protection and child rights.

Demonstrated Skills and Competencies:

• Committed to teamwork and contributing to improving child protection outcomes.
• Ability to develop training materials, case management experience.
• Strong organizational skills.
• Strong facilitation skills.

Working Environment: Office work and field visits.

The IRC and IRC workers must adhere to the values and principles outlined in IRC Way - Standards for Professional Conduct. These are Integrity, Service, and Accountability. By these values, the IRC operates and enforces policies on Beneficiary Protection from Exploitation and Abuse, Child Safeguarding, Anti Workplace Harassment, Fiscal Integrity, and Anti-Retaliation.