DIRECTOR OF PROGRAMMES AND ADVOCACY Appointment Brief January 2020
INTRODUCTION TO WARCHILD UK War Child UK has grown rapidly over the past few years. Income has increased from approximately £3.5m pa in 2011 to £17m pa in 2018. We have seen an even more dramatic increase in the numbers of children we reach directly and indirectly: from 5,000 in 2008 to 126,000 in 2018.
Our programming has become more efficient, more professionally managed, and more consistent across the countries we work in. We have an ambitious strategy to grow our organisational impact over the next three years. Our work focusses on the vulnerabilities of children in conflict situations and seeks to support them to meet their specific challenges through:
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Service delivery (directly and through local partner organisations)
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Investment in local protection structures and systems
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Advocacy
We focus on issues which particularly affect children in conflict areas, and have three main programmes:
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Child protection (including psychosocial support)
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Education
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Livelihoods
Director of Programmes and Advocacy
We aim to respond to conflict emergencies early, bringing life-saving child protection and psychosocial support to children in acutely vulnerable situations as soon as we can. However, our mission extends through post conflict to recovery phases, meaning that we will stay with affected populations until the impact of conflict is no longer the primary driver of issues that need to be addressed. This is a relatively wide intervention range which reflects our concern for individual children and their long-term recovery from conflict shock. We are now a trusted partner of the UN and national donors, receiving significant support from UNHCR and UNICEF in emergency response programmes, with longer-term programmes funded by DfID, the UN Peacebuidling Fund, Dubai Cares and other institutional donors. We are fully committed to the Core Humanitarian Standards, and recently signed a partnership agreement with ECHO. War Child UK is one of three independent operational agencies – War Child UK, War Child Holland and War Child Canada that together make up the global War Child family. Coordination and relationships are strong with our sister organisations, particularly War Child Holland, which includes joint working both in the field and on advocacy and fundraising. We will continue to deepen these relationships and co-operative ways of working to maximise our delivery and impact in all areas, including Advocacy and Communications. War Child UK also receives funding from two partner organisations: War Child Australia based in Sydney and Children in Conflict based in New York.
OUR VALUES BOLD We use our passion and creativity to deliver high quality evidence-based work designed to maximise our beneficial impact for children in conflict.
ACCOUNTABLE TO CHILDREN Children can rely on us to respond to their voices and to treat them with respect and dignity.
TRANSPARENT
COMMITTED TO EACH OTHER
We expect to be held to account by our supporters and beneficiaries and we respond with openness and honesty.
We support each other and our partners to achieve ambitious goals and to be the best we can be. We are honest and open with each other, sharing our successes and confronting our challenges.
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OUR STRATEGY The Director of Programmes and Advocacy is responsible for delivering the new Strategic Impact Model, the first pillar of our new strategy.
Our new strategy can be divided into three core components, each of which has its own set of strategic aims and critical success factors. Collectively, we believe these three components will help us achieve a transformative impact for children affected by conflict:
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The right kind of help at the right moment in time Children’s needs, and community capacity to meet them, vary across different stages of conflict and recovery. Our new strategic impact model applies what we have learnt about supporting children and their families in different contexts. It gives us the tools we need to deliver the right kind of help at the right time, and make sure that children are involved in determining what their top priorities are. It leads War Child further into areas where some of the biggest dangers facing children in conflict often go unchallenged and where our specialist expertise can make the biggest difference.
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A strong organisation to face up to the biggest challenges To reach children in acute danger and stay through the conflict cycles up to the point of sustainable reintegration, War Child needs to stand on a strong financial platform. Our new sustainable finance model will increase our financial resilience in order to better respond to emergency and longer term needs of children in conflict.
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Director of Programmes and Advocacy
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Live our values and partnerships This objective challenges us to ensure any new approaches we adopt stay true to our four core organisational values:
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Bold: We use our passion and creativity to deliver high quality evidence-based work designed to maximise our beneficial impact for children in conflict
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Accountable: Children can rely on us to respond to their voices and to treat them with respect and dignity
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Transparent: We expect to be held to account by our supporters and beneficiaries and we respond with openness and honesty
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Committed to each other: We support each other and our partners to achieve ambitious goals and to be the best we can be. We are honest and open with each other, sharing our successes and confronting our challenges
Finally, we know that we can only achieve transformational change by building strong partnerships in the countries where we work, across the wider War Child family, and with UN agencies and NGOs who collectively make up the humanitarian and development system.
STRATEGIC IMPACT MODEL Our strategy is based on the realities facing children at different stages of a conflict crisis.
RECOVERY The Recovery phase covers children and families who have reached a place of safety but have psychological, educational and livelihood needs which cannot be met from within the community. War Child will continue to work in this phase, focussing on high quality interventions which provide the most impactful rehabilitation of security, education and families’ capacities to protect their children and achieve access to education.
RESPONSE The Response phase is characterised by active fighting, the immediate danger of physical and psychological injury, displacement, loss of home and family. Children face a wide range of acute vulnerabilities in this situation. We want to better respond to acute needs in this emergency phase.
RESILIENCE In the Resilience phase, as communities return to longer term settlement patterns, we will focus on reintegration, including of children who have been caught up with armed groups. Our aim in this phase is to build community cohesion and resilience to future conflict shocks.
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ROLE DESCRIPTION JOB TITLE DEPARTMENT LOCATION REPORTS TO CONTRACT TYPE WORKING HOURS
Director of Programmes and Advocacy Programmes and Advocacy NW5, London CEO Permanent Full time, 37.5 hours
PURPOSE The Director of Programmes and Advocacy is responsible for the impact the organisation makes through delivering services to children, families and communities, through developing innovative and evidence based methodologies which can be adopted by other organisations, and through changing policy at local, national, and international levels. The Director of Programmes and Advocacy is accountable for the strategic investment of over ÂŁ15 million per year, and the development of a rigorous, effective and impactful integration of programmes and advocacy effort. The Director of Programmes and Advocacy is also a key part of the War Child UK Senior Leadership Team responsible for long term strategic development of the organisation and its culture.
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Director of Programmes and Advocacy
KEY RESPONSIBILITIES •
Provide inspiring leadership to colleagues in our programmes and advocacy teams across five countries, and the London office, developing a shared ambition for how programmes and advocacy can deliver the maximum impact against our mission
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Work with the CEO and senior leadership team to build War Child UK as a uniquely capable child protection and support agency, deciding on organisational goals, investment plans and risk management choices
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Build a high performing department where leadership is effectively delegated within a framework that holds individuals to account against a set of shared standards and high expectations
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Ensure the highest standards around safeguarding of vulnerable children, vulnerable adults, and War Child staff, leading by example and setting safeguarding at the heart of our culture
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Recruit and lead a team of highly effective Country Directors, supporting them to develop their capacity and also their country programmes Deliver results against the ambitions in our strategy to scale up our impact, expand our partnerships, grow our programmes and advocacy income and transform the levels of protection and support which are available to children and communities affected by conflict
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Achieve a high level of integration between the views of children in our programmes, the programmes themselves, the innovations we develop, the advocacy priorities we work on and the ways in which we deliver this work as a integrated organisation
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Build our cooperation with other War Child organisations on programmes and advocacy
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Be accountable for the use and effectiveness of programmes and advocacy budgets of over £15 million per year
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Ensure appropriate professional levels of security planning and management
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Manage a high level of internal relationships with trustees, SMT colleagues, country teams, and all departments in War Child UK
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Represent War Child externally at senior levels including United Nations, bilateral and government agencies and INGO
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PERSON SPECIFICATION
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Significant senior management field experience within conflict effected locations, including effectively leading and managing teams across a number of disciplines, including child protection Significant experience of successfully building long term funding partnerships with major institutional donors around ambitious plans for innovation and scale up Experience of successful high level advocacy – ministers, donors and key UN agencies
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Experience of managing security risks in uncertain environments
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Significant experience of recruitment and retention of capable key staff
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Director of Programmes and Advocacy
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Significant experience of financial management
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Significant experience of working in consortia and/or on the integration of programming
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Strong people management and team building skills
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Good financial, budgeting and reporting skills
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An appetite for innovation and awareness of how experience can become organisational knowledge
Ability to think through the future and set an inspiring course
OUR BENEFITS
Flexible working arrangements
28 days annual leave per year, rising to 33 with service (pro-rata for part time roles)
Childcare vouchers
Range of wellbeing initiatives and training
Investment in training and development
Up to 4 paid volunteer days per year
Group Personal Pension Plan
Opportunity to participate in fundraising events
Health cash plan
1-1 wellbeing consultations with trained counsellors
Enhanced maternity, paternity & shared parental leave
Eyecare vouchers
CHILD SAFEGUARDING Our work with children to keep them safe is the most important thing we do. We are committed to the safeguarding of children in all areas of our work. Successful applicants will be expected to be compliant and sign up to our Child Safeguarding policy.
PRE-EMPLOYMENT CHECKS Employment with War Child will be subject to the following checks prior to your start date:
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a satisfactory police record check to include a Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) check and/or an International Criminal Record Check
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receipt of three satisfactory references
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HOW TO APPLY To apply to become Director of Programmes and Advocay at War Child UK, please upload a CV and a supporting statement of no more than two pages of A4 via the link below. We ask that you complete the equal opportunities information online when you submit your application via our website. The information collected will be treated as confidential, used for statistical purposes only, and will not be treated as part of your application. Finally, please ensure that you have included your contact number and email address, as well as any dates when you will not be available or might have difficulty with the indicative timetable. Applications should be made via the Prospectus website at: www.prospect-us.co.uk/jobs/details/HQ00176849
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Director of Programmes and Advocacy
RECRUITMENT TIMETABLE
QUERIES
Deadline for applications: 7 February 2020
If you wish to have an informal discussion about the opportunity, please contact Fiona Wansborough or Joan Mwangi at Prospectus via email:
Interviews with Prospectus: 10-17 February 2020 Interviews with War Child UK: TBC
fiona.wansborough@prospect-us.co.uk joan.mwangi@prospect-us.co.uk
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ABOUT US War Child, the charity for children affected by war. We are a specialist charity for children in conflict, delivering high-impact programmes that are rebuilding lives across Afghanistan, Iraq, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Central African Republic and Yemen. We understand children’s needs, respect their rights, and put them at the centre of the solution - from supporting Yazidi children to access education, to reintegrating child soldiers in the Central African Republic and upholding the rights of children caught up in juvenile justice in Afghanistan. We look forward to a world in which the lives of children are no longer torn apart by war. This is a vision that can only be realised through the collective actions of children themselves, communities and their leaders, organisations like War Child, governments and key decision makers.
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