Senior Director, Safeguarding

Social network you want to login/join with:

With 75 years of experience, our focus is on helping the most vulnerable children overcome poverty and experience fullness of life. We help children of all backgrounds, even in the most dangerous places, inspired by our Christian faith.

Come join our 33,000+ staff working in nearly 100 countries and share the joy of transforming vulnerable children’s life stories!

Key Responsibilities:

Position to be based in the home country of the successful candidate where WVI is registered to operate.

The Senior Director – Safeguarding leads a division, including the WVI Safeguarding Unit, to develop and lead implementation of a global strategy for end-to-end Safeguarding processes, including policy level and tactical delivery at global, regional, and national levels. The Senior Director – Safeguarding oversees technical leadership in child and adult safeguarding, including preventing sexual exploitation and abuse (PSEA) and safeguarding investigations.

The WVI Safeguarding Unit is mandated by the WVI Board of Directors to provide global strategic and technical leadership for action across the World Vision Partnership in preventing and responding to harm through integration of safeguarding across operations and organisational processes.

The unit also manages reporting and responding to child and adult beneficiary safeguarding risks and incidents, particularly focusing on a survivor-centred and professional approach to investigation and risk mitigation measures.

This role is critical to WVI fulfilling its Board-mandated commitment to be an organisation that is safe for the children and communities it serves, maximising our efforts to first do no harm to the children and families we engage with and minister alongside. Utilising his/her specialised knowledge of the safeguarding and related fields, the Senior Director – Safeguarding shapes internal and external discourse on key safeguarding topics, moving the organisation and sector closer to achieving \”Do No Harm\” principles.

KEY RESPONSIBILITIES

• Lead a division to develop an end-to-end global safeguarding strategy, providing guidance and tactical support at global, regional, and national levels. Collaborate with leaders of key functions to embed safeguarding into their processes.
• Identify systemic or emerging organizational weaknesses and gaps. Direct efforts of Global Centre (GC), Support Offices Office (SO), Field Offices (FO), Regional Offices (RO), and Vision Fund teams to close those gaps.
• Advance the safeguarding agenda by driving innovation and continuous process improvement.
• Oversee multiple functions and hold senior leaders, managers, and stakeholders across the Partnership accountable for taking strategic, timely actions to strengthen the safeguarding of children and adult beneficiaries. Facilitate targeted improvements, culturally relevant prevention initiatives, and awareness-building campaigns.
• Report regularly to executive leadership on the progress of the safeguarding strategy and the overall health of safeguarding systems. Keep relevant stakeholders throughout the Partnership updated on key milestones and risks.
• Lead strategic change-management initiatives informed by data analysis and trend insights.
• Inform and influence budget and operational decisions at global, regional, and national levels , including support offices for all safeguarding activities, covering prevention, investigative response, and survivor support.
• Define Safeguarding standards to which all entities must adhere and evaluate their sufficiency on an annual basis.
• Develop corresponding policy guidance and cross-functional best practices to enable compliance by all entities and which furthers the safeguarding agenda in World Vision and across the sector.
• Lead the continued integration and definition of accountability mechanisms for safeguarding practices across the relevant areas of operations, including global, regional, and national P&C, Programs, Audit, Sponsorship, Communications, Technology and Digital Communications, and Supply Chain among others
• Sets policies and guidelines for direct communication to donors in regards to safeguarding matters; engage with multilateral agencies in incident management
• Oversight of incident management protocols, particularly to ensure a survivor-centred approach.
• Ensuring excellence in incident management and response to high-risk safeguarding incidents through the safeguarding investigations team
• Support case managers to oversee incidents to highest possible standards.
• Support crisis management, particularly in cases with external pressures such as donor or media attention.
• Oversee quality control for potential areas of concern, training needs, and risk mitigation measures for prevention.
• Lead strategic change management for the safeguarding function and systems based on data and trends analysis
• Lead uptake of robust safeguarding risk management, including representation on the WVI Risk Committee.
• Proactively address risks in collaboration with key leaders across the Partnership, identifying process improvements that increase efficiency and add value to implementing entities, particularly Field Offices.
• Lead high-performance team and broader safeguarding network. Matrix management of Regional Safeguarding Leads
• Prioritize team morale and a healthy working environment for the team and Regional Safeguarding Leads
• Manage team budget to maximize safeguarding outputs for the Partnership
• Serve as the Partnership’s spiritual, moral and technical authority on safeguarding issues, conducting himself/herself with the highest levels of integrity while making rapid and pragmatic decisions that ensure the best outcome for children and adult beneficiaries.
• Represent World Vision in global fora in matters of safeguarding such as on the United Nations Technical Advisory Group for PSEA.
• Produce thought partnership for WV and the wider aid sector on areas to better prevent, report and respond to safeguarding matters.
• Ad hoc projects as requested by supervisor, other WVI Executive Leadership team (EXL) members, or external donors or regulators.

Required Knowledge, Skills & Abilities:

• Master’s degree or equivalent in a Legal, Human Resources, Management, Development, Humanitarian or Child Rights-related field; or field/practical experience working with situations of strategic leadership and/or policy formation, guidance and implementation.
• Minimum two years experience in a developing world environment, minimum 10 years working in NGO sector. Experience in strategic leadership, management, and/or policy formation, guidance and implementation.
• Seasoned experience and knowledge from best practice externally as well as field experience of managing child safeguarding and/or adult beneficiary safeguarding (PSEA) protocols.
• Very strong organizational skills; ability to delegate and set clear priorities for work team; ability to complete a complex variety of tasks in an organized manner and to quickly change and adapt to new priorities.
• Experience making judgement calls on need-to-know and right-to-know parties within highly sensitive matters.
• Experience in communicating to and influencing decisions at the highest degrees of organizational leadership and Boards of Directors.
• Proven ability to exercise judgement and decisive leadership, balanced with diplomacy and consensus building, in highly complex and high-stakes situations. Able to quickly discern the core issues within a multi-faceted incident and move a team to action.
• Familiarity with child protection issues, beneficiary safeguarding, humanitarian accountability, Preventing Sexual Exploitation and Abuse, and the UN Conventions on the Rights of the Child, along with ability to quickly learn, analyse and interpret large amounts of complex information.
• Proven ability to lead cross-cultural teams, seeking diverse views and rapidly building consensus to address multi-faceted challenges.
• Experience achieving timely results while enhancing stakeholder relationships and buy-in in a large, federated organizational structure. Demonstrated level of interpersonal, influencing, and team building skills which net high degrees of trust and efficient collaboration in a diverse and virtual work environment.
• Experience developing and interpreting complex or challenging policies, with an advanced understanding of implementation implications across various contexts and settings.
• Excellent leadership, management and coaching skills, with a track record of motivating and developing the capacities of others, including peers, direct reports, and staff over which there is no line management authority.
• Experience engaging in external forums, including UN agencies and inter-agency working groups.
• Well-honed presentation skills, including use of data to influence decisions. Expertise in written communication, including drafting and editing technical or legal documents.
• Effective in written and verbal communication in English; language skills in Spanish, French, and/or Portuguese is a plus.
• The position requires ability and willingness to travel domestically and internationally up to 15% of the time.

Strong technical Safeguarding knowledge gained from continuous learning of best practice externally, as well as extensive operational experience including child safeguarding and adult beneficiary safeguarding and PSEA.

• Deep understanding of and appreciation for WV’s Christian identity and ethos, and how it links to the organisation’s mission, risk management philosophy, and staff motivation at all levels.

For positions filled in the United States, the typical salary range for this role is $118,000 to $145,000 USD. Ranges are based on various factors, including the labor market, job type, job level, internal equity, and budget. Exact salary offers will be determined by factors such as the candidate\’s skills, qualifications, experience and geographic location.

#J-18808-Ljbffr