Recruitment of a Global Safeguarding and Protection Lead, Girl Effect

February 4, 2022

Who We Are

Girl Effect is an international non-profit that builds media that girls want, trust and need. From chatbots to chat shows and TV dramas to tech, our content is reaching millions of girls in Africa and Asia to make choices and changes in their lives. Igniting their confidence to act differently at a time that can define their future. We create safe spaces for girls, sharing facts, and answering questions about health, nutrition, education, relationships and so much more. And we use innovative technology so we can reach girls at scale.

We arm girls with the skills to negotiate and redefine what they are told is possible, so every girl can choose to be in control of her body, her health, her learning and livelihood. When a girl unlocks her power to make different choices that change her life, it inspires others to do so too. She starts a ripple effect that impacts her family, her community, her country. That’s the Girl Effect.

Context of the Role

We are looking for a Head of Safeguarding who will lead the development and delivery of safeguarding across the organisation. This is an exciting new role for Girl Effect as we transition from having global Headquarters in London, to a networked model with hub offices in Nairobi and Mumbai.

The post holder will lead our safeguarding thinking and practice across Girl Effect. This includes supporting the ongoing development, implementation and monitoring of organisational safeguarding policies and processes; providing in-depth support to country safeguarding teams to embed high quality safeguarding standards throughout our work; and to work with other teams and Senior Leadership across Girl Effect to ensure our safeguarding approach responds to dynamic and evolving needs across the organisation.

What You’ll Do

Ensure Girl Effect’s safeguarding policies and procedures meet international safeguarding standards and are driven by the principles of girls agency and meaningful youth participation across the organisation. This includes:

Policy and processes

Support the ongoing development, implementation and monitoring of safeguarding policies and procedures across Girl Effect,
Promoting a culture where the safety of children and young people is at the heart of everything we do
Ensure appropriate reporting and response mechanisms and procedures are in place and followed, and that these reflect the relevant legal and cultural contexts.
Support teams to ensure that Girl Effect has strong measures in place to ensure digital safety and data protection, including compliance with GDPR.
Ensure country context mapping; including legal framework, cultural context and available referral services, is conducted in all countries of operation and that this is updated annually.
In collaboration with in-country Safeguarding teams, build relationships with referral services and develop referral pathways to ensure that Girl Effect provides safe and effective signposting to children and young people in need of protection.
Support Safeguarding teams to conduct an annual safeguarding self-assessment, and resulting work plan to address gaps and reduce organisational risk
Ensure that confidential records of safeguarding concerns are maintained, and that appropriate follow-up is conducted.
Lead the management of serious safeguarding concerns including reporting to the Charity Commission and relevant donors.
Keep Girl Effect’s Senior Leadership and Board of Trustees up to date on safeguarding case management and procedures through quarterly safeguarding reports.

Team Planning and Management:

Working with the safeguarding team to develop yearly team objectives interlinked to the organisations strategy
Team members objectives and appraisals
Oversight and management of the safeguarding budget and forecasting
Managing staff contracts and extensions

Support to county-level Safeguarding teams:

Girl Effect has offices in Ethiopia, Rwanda, Malawi, India, Kenya and Tanzania.

Line management of global safeguarding managers (remotely)
Providing technical backstopping and support to country-level Safeguarding teams/leads to ensure the policy is embedded, adapted and delivered against.
Provide capacity building to country Safeguarding teams/leads, ensuring they have the skills and confidence to deliver safeguarding in their respective country contexts, including digital safety, privacy and security and safe digital and offline engagement of children and young people.
Support the safeguarding teams in sharing best practice

Training and technical support:

Develop training materials and systems to help all staff implement safeguarding policies and procedures across all countries, brands, products and channels
Build the capacity of country safeguarding teams, ensuring they have the skills and confidence to deliver safeguarding in their respective country contexts, including digital safety privacy and security and safe digital engagement of children and young people.
Working with the Senior Safeguarding Manager to build the organisation’s expertise on digital safeguarding, and embed this across teams and countries.

Management and governance:

Provide regular reports on safeguarding risks, progress and learnings to the Executive team, CEO and Board, including escalating high risk/priority information appropriately and supporting compliance with the UK Charity Commission’s requirements for safeguarding.

Programme design:

Support the integration of safeguarding into the programme life cycle. Collaborate with the programmes team and/or product design teams to ensure that safeguarding is integrated into the design and delivery of activities.

Who You Are

Education and qualifications (Essential)

University degree in social work, social sciences or related discipline

(Desirable)

Vocational training courses e.g. Managing safeguarding Investigations, NSPCC, Child Protection Training the Trainer, Other safeguarding related specific training

Experience and skills (Essential)

Experience in developing, enhancing and/or implementing organizational Safeguarding policies and procedures in an international development organisation
Knowledge and experience of applying child protection and safeguarding approaches into international development programming
Experience leading safeguarding or child protection from a global or regional context
Experience managing and supporting staff and partners in how to implement Safeguarding measures across different countries and cultures
Experience of women, girl or youth centred programming
Experience in case management of safeguarding, child protection or GBV concerns

(Desirable)

Experience or an understanding of digital safeguarding risks and mitigations
Experience identifying networks and building relationships with other agencies
Experience working with children and young people
Experience in youth participation

Personal Characteristics (Essential)

Innovative and confident to think beyond compliance and identify safeguarding systems to empower adolescent young women
Ability to be flexible within a fast-paced, changing environment
Commitment to realising the potential of girls and to the vision and values of Girl Effect
Proactive, solution-focused approach
Confident to support teams from a global hub
Strong interpersonal skills and awareness, particularly in cross-cultural contexts/teams
Ability to manage conflict and handle sensitive issues confidentially
Strong communication skills, both written and verbal
Good teamwork skills
Ability to mentor and support staff remotely and apply global policies to local contexts

What else you should know

As we continue to scale and grow – we are hugely ambitious for our future and we are looking for people who are driven to change the world for girls.

Our teams are a diverse mix across sectors (non-profit and commercial) and specialisms (from Brand and Creative through to Gender and Insight). You’ll learn and grow in an environment that will challenge you to think and work with a fresh perspective. In turn, you can expect to work somewhere where you will be stretched and developed in your role, a place where you can build your career and work with talented, engaged people committed to our cause.

Girl Effect is committed to equal employment opportunity regardless of race, color, ancestry, religion, sex, national origin, sexual orientation, age, marital status, disability, gender, gender identity or expression. We are proud to be an equal opportunity workplace.

We are committed to building an organization that is increasingly representative of the communities that we serve. To this end, due regard will be paid to recruiting candidates with diverse professional, academic and cultural backgrounds.

We are committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of all those we work with and for, especially children and young people. We expect all staff to share this commitment, uphold standards in our safeguarding policy and our code of conduct. In particular: