ROLE PURPOSE: 

The Child Protection Technical Lead provides strategic technical leadership to Myanmar Country Child Protection Programmes. In Myanmar, SC has been working to strengthen selected components of formal and informal child protection systems that support girls and boys at risk during the protracted crisis, with a focus on child protection case management, social service workforce capacity development, Community Led Child Protection, and mental health psychosocial support (MHPSS). SC has also been actively working on the issue of Children and Armed Conflict (CAAC). The Technical Lead plays a lead role in setting strategic direction for the sector, designing new programs and projects, and identifying and pursing strategic partnerships. S/he is responsible for ensuring program quality for a range of projects, directly supervises the Child Protection technical advisors, and works in close collaboration with the Child Protection Head of Programme and Deputy Director for Program Operations (DDPO). S/he plays a senior representational and advocacy role with key national and international stakeholders as appropriate in the current country context, and works on a regular basis with SC members and internal stakeholders to maximize programme impact. The Technical Lead ensures that program learning, research and evaluation findings are channeled towards advocacy, continuous improvements, innovation and new program design.

SCOPE OF ROLE:

Reports to: Programme Development and Quality Director.

Staff directly reporting to this post: Child Protection Advisor

Staff indirectly reporting to this post: None

KEY AREAS OF ACCOUNTABILITY :

Strategic Direction, Program Design and Development

• Take lead role in formulating CO’s vision for long-term programming in Child Protection in Myanmar aligning with country strategic plans for 2022-2024.
• Introduce innovative ideas and approaches to support children Child Protection issues in Myanmar; Identify needs and opportunities for potential programmes, in particular in response to the current humanitarian needs, through situation analyses/feasibility studies, networking, participation in cluster coordination as relevant, and leveraging research and evaluation findings from both internal and external sources.
• Encourage and facilitate implementation of a Strategic Learning Agenda for Child Protection in Myanmar for systematic and a coordinated approach to evidence generation and learning.
• Work with other teams (BD, Ops, Awards, ACCM) to develop funding strategies and proposals to expand and adapt the Child Protection portfolio in line with strategic priorities, technical best practice, and research/learnings from current/past programming. This will involve continuously developing concepts and innovations and packaging them for a range of donors, both for proactive and reactive fundraising efforts.
• Continuously assess technical staffing patterns and competencies to ensure that the right technical expertise is in place to support Child Protection portfolio needs and development.
• Identify and pursue opportunities for synergistic, inter-sectoral programs to address the holistic needs of children, especially the most deprived.
• Facilitate a community of practice on Child Protection involving staff from different teams across the country programme to foster a culture of learning and sharing

Programme Quality:

• Overall responsibility to ensure programme quality of SC’s Child Protection programming in Myanmar
• Identify internal and external capacity building opportunities and resources to provide high quality technical assistance to Child Protection projects, supporting technical staff, partner agencies and others to build knowledge and technical competence.
• Update and adapt capacity development programs on key approaches including MHPSS, community led child protection, case management, and Children and Armed Conflict, with relevant technical advisors and deliver high quality training programs and ongoing coaching and supervision in a way to ensure consistency across different states/regions.
• Integrate programme learning across the sectors, ensuring coherence of technical approaches across programmes, identifying best practice, and ensuring inter-sectoral complementarity.
• Develop strategies to ensure gender equity, social and disability inclusion, child participation and beneficiary accountability in all programmes.
• Complete the Silver Common Approaches Learning Program course and adapt and use appropriate Child Protection Common Approaches.
• Ensure that thematic and internal technical best practices, including SC’s Common Approaches, is applied in collaboration with the programme implementation teams.
• Proactively support the continued country uptake of Common Approaches, ensuring that they are adapted to the Myanmar
• Share results, evidence and learning on Common Approaches in Myanmar and elsewhere.
• Ensure that all programs have an effective Monitoring Evaluation Accountability and Learning (MEAL) practices and robust data management system, particularly for case management and Monitoring and Reporting Mechanism, throughout the program cycle.
• Ensure that interventions are evaluated using appropriate methods, including process and impact evaluations, and that evidence is rigorously maintained, documented and disseminated internally and externally, to contribute to improvements in programme quality and advocacy efforts.
• Ensure that monitoring and accountability systems (i.e IPTT and FRM) provide information in the appropriate form and at the right time (in different levels) to allow for effective decision making and risk mitigation
• Working closely with MEAL, ensure that all programs have and follow the recommended MEAL practices throughout the program cycle
• Ensure that quality benchmarks are developed for key interventions, as well as all new projects; ensure that ongoing analysis of QBs is used for adaptive management and programme quality improvement
• Provide technical leadership in undertaking research in line with the learning agenda agreed by the team.
• Support teams to identify, design and carry out operational research related to Child Protection.
• Ensure that Save the Children’s regional and global experience is reflected in Child Protection programmes
• Share CO’s experience and organizational learning with COs as well as with relevant organizations over the globe.
• Proactively attend and support coordination and information sharing meetings across departments.

Policy and Advocacy:

• Coordinate closely with the Advocacy, Research, and Evidence sector on policy and advocacy work relating to Child Protection
• Lead on policy and advocacy for the sector, ensuring that Child Protection technical interventions are designed to inform relevant policy concerns. Develop policy briefs and position papers, ensuring the inclusion of technical input from the relevant project managers.
• Lead in networking and articulating Save the Children’s position, policy and strategy in national forums and meetings as appropriate. Engage in key debates related to national Child Protection sector policies and programs, in coordination with technical colleagues and other relevant staff, as context allows and as per the CO’s engagement principles.
• Identify appropriate strategic partnerships for joint advocacy initiatives on related issues