Location: Edinburgh or London
Position Status: Full-time, Permanent
Salary: depending on experience and location circa £36,000 for Edinburgh, circa £42,000 for London
Travel: Up to 30%**Candidates must have the right to work in the UK at the time of appointment.**
Applications will be considered on a rolling basis by CV and cover letter. If interested, please apply at the earliest to avoid disappointments.
Mercy Corps is a leading global organisation powered by the belief that a better world is possible. In conflict, in disaster, in hardship, in more than 40 countries around the world, we partner to put bold solutions into action — helping people triumph over adversity and build stronger communities from within. Now, and for the future.
Mercy Corps Europe (MCE) has grown rapidly in terms of volume of activity and complexity. With offices in Edinburgh, London and Geneva, we now attract over £90m in income, and employ around 100 domestic and expatriate field team members. The breadth and impact of our programmes makes Mercy Corps a unique and truly rewarding place to work. Our teams are proud of what we achieve in the field and we are always looking for talented individuals who share our passion and commitment.
The Role
At Mercy Corps, Safeguarding is a holistic term that encompasses our prevention and response work on issues involving Sexual Exploitation and Abuse of Beneficiaries, Sexual Harassment in the Workplace and Child Safeguarding.
Mercy Corps has been engaging with key stakeholders in leading the humanitarian and development sector to prevent and improve responses to safeguarding violations. Mercy Corps Europe now seeks to engage an experienced safeguarding professional to support the global organisation’s efforts in this area. This new position will contribute to the agency’s strategic vision and to the cross-functional work-streams within our global organisation to improve our systems and culture of safeguarding--operationalizing and embedding it into the day-to-day culture of the organisation, as well as represent the organisation externally in promoting and learning best practices in safeguarding in Europe and other locations as relevant.
You will not only have the right experience on paper but also the right personal 'fit' - you will live and breathe our culture and values, with a visible passion for the work we do and a desire to be part of our story.
The Safeguarding Advisor will input to the global Safeguarding Strategy and adapt and implement it to the context of MCE and Europe while ensuring coordination and harmonization with the global efforts. As a member of the Global Safeguarding team, the Safeguarding Advisor will provide agency leadership internally and externally on the issue, proactively identify areas requiring action and actively advocate for the implementation of evolving industry best practice.
Key Responsibilities:
Technical Leadership: 1- Prevention**
Develop and facilitate trainings for existing staff on organizational safeguarding expectations in alignment with the global safeguarding strategy.Where possible, tailor trainings to specific program needs. Do so in a manner that then promotes a comprehensive positive safeguarding culture at Mercy Corps.**2- Risk Mitigation in Programs**
Provide technical advice and input on the corporate risk register, ERM and country risk registers of on emerging risks, especially around child safeguarding and preventing sexual exploitation and abuse of beneficiaries. WHen needed, provide support to develop risk registers as needed for specific programmes/ donors.
Provide technical support to Compliance teams on safeguarding clauses in all subawards and partner agreements, on due diligence, specifically the review of partners policies, as well as strategizing on building capacity of local partner organizations
Seek opportunities to leverage tools, capacity building, etc. on program risk mitigation and partner capacity-building into ongoing activities. Collaborate on initiatives to expand training materials for partners, daily workers and contractors.
Perform informal ‘spot checks’ of compliance of safeguarding clauses in subaward and partner agreements to develop and disseminate lessons learned and facilitate a culture of continuous improvement 3- CARM
Provide onboarding and orientation to current CARM approach, materials and current direction of CARM project to European-based team members..
Ongoing technical advice to development of CARM guidance, tools, materials, etc, especially in relation to its use as a tool to raise awareness of sexual exploitation and abuse of beneficiaries and child safeguarding, as well as providing a confidential and safe mechanism for reporting potential violations committed by our staff and/or partners
Facilitate opportunities for integration with other workstreams**4- Human Resources Policies and Procedures**
Develop a policy for MCE on background checks and reference checks
Lead project to implement background and reference checks into recruitment processes, including identifying any vendors required to support implemented processes
Evaluate candidate vetting process and suggest improvements as related to safeguarding
Support agency efforts to improve support to field-based HR colleagues.
ORGANISATIONAL LEARNING
Organisations are more effective, efficient and relevant to the communities they serve, we expect all team members to commit 5% of their time to learning activities that benefit Mercy Corps as well as themselves.
ACCOUNTABILITY TO BENEFICIARIES
Mercy Corps team members are expected to support all efforts toward accountability, specifically to our beneficiaries and to international standards guiding international relief and development work, while actively engaging beneficiary communities as equal partners in the design, monitoring and evaluation of our field projects.
The successful Safeguarding Advisor will have knowledge of the INGO environment; possess a sustained lens of cultural humility while staying abreast of best practice as it relates to Safeguarding in the context of insecure and opaque environments with varying cultures, languages and education levels; and persistence in moving complex problems forward in a timely yet methodical manner. This person will have an abiding sense of empathy for the difficulties that INGOs face and an unwavering commitment to improvement in the face of these difficulties; s/he will do so while maintaining ongoing empathy for the beneficiaries INGOs serve, including survivors of safeguarding concerns. S/he will lead by example, with both technical expertise and an attitude of cultural humility that always seeks to learn from a place of equity, and in turn, motivate a diverse array of stakeholders. S/he will embody and facilitate the development of an organizational culture of continuous improvement and learning for safeguarding.
This position is based in Edinburgh or London. The successful candidate may travel up to 30% of the time and will be expected to travel to countries that are listed as failed or failing states.
MCE team members represent the agency both during and outside work hours when deployed in a field posting or on a short term assignment or trip to country offices. Team members are expected to conduct themselves in a professional manner and respect local laws, customs and MC's policies, procedures, and values at all times and in all Mercy Corps locations.
Fostering a diverse and open workplace is an important part of Mercy Corps’ vision. Mercy Corps is an Equal Opportunity Employer regardless of background. We are committed to creating an inclusive environment.
Candidates must have the right to work in the UK at the time of appointment.
Applications will be considered on a rolling basis by CV and cover letter.
This vacancy is archived.