With over 70 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!

Employee Contract Type:

Local – Fixed Term Employee (Fixed Term)

Job Description:

*Position Location – Remote (Home based) to be determined by the home country of the successful candidate in a jurisdiction where WVI is registered to operate preferably in Africa.

*Please submit your CV in English.

The purpose of this role is lead the regional safeguarding functional area and ensure that safeguarding is prioritized, of high quality, and embedded in a culture of prevention, awareness, reporting and response. The ultimate purpose of the role is to ensure that World Vision in the Southern Africa Region (SAR) is safeguarding children and adults in the communities where World Vision works. The Southern Africa Regional Safeguarding Lead will combine elements of capacity building and monitoring whilst enforcing compliance and accountability, management and investigation as well as aspects of high-level advocacy, in alignment with WV’s Child and Adult Safeguarding Policy.

This role reports directly to the Regional P&C Director and works closely with the global safeguarding team, the SAR Regional Leader, SAR National Directors, and the Southern Africa Regional Office (SARO) Senior Management Team (SMT).

Safeguarding Culture Transformation, Building and Leadership

Actively support and contribute to building a culture of safeguarding, where staff are informed and empowered to discuss key issues, report, and take action on safeguarding violations.
Deliver quality assurance for safeguarding across regions, incl. monitoring performance of safeguarding KPIs. Brief the RD and CDs on state of safeguarding in the region and advise on required interventions. Monitor accessibility and effectiveness of reporting channels, risk, compliance gaps, incident trends, impact, and learning.
Regularly (at least quarterly) interface with Regional Risk Management Lead in order to build common understanding of safeguarding risks, and to support the region to pursue holistic risk management.
Build collaborative working relationships with FO Safeguarding Focal Points and other relevant staff in Field Offices and GC for the effective functioning of safeguarding in FOs.
Provide FO and SARO teams with key messages and resources that enable them to build a healthy culture of safeguarding.
Develop and document a plan with SARO and FO leadership that articulates specific actions the SDO, SMT, SLTs and other managers will take to create and nurture a safeguarding culture, incorporate into Safeguarding Action Plans.
In partnership with the regional communications and external engagement team, develop regional external engagement plan to position WV as a thought leader in the safeguarding space.

Safeguarding Incident Management

Support and encourage Field Offices (FOs) to report L3/L2 incidents in Ethics Point.
Support the WVI Safeguarding Unit to clarify and manage new incidents reported in Ethics Point and within one business day to set up global incident management call (so that the call can be held within 72 hours).
Conduct regular follow up with FOs on open safeguarding cases to ensure agreed actions are completed expeditiously, including but not limited to review of investigation plans, referrals of survivor support, completion of investigation reports, and disciplinary action of implicated staff.
Ensure L3 incidents are ready to close within 60 days and L2s within 30 days or agree with WVI Safeguarding Unit if more time is needed.
Regularly review Ethics point and support FOs to ensure all incidences are successfully closed within 90 days.
Follow-up on after action items identified during incident management to continuously strengthen FO safeguarding practices.

Safeguarding Capacity Building

Train and mentor new FO Safeguarding Focal Points on safeguarding policies, protocols and practices, including incident management process.

Engage, coach, support and build capacity of existing country safeguarding functional leads

Hands-on functional management of safeguarding leads in country across 4 pillars – prevention, awareness, reporting, response
Pro-active talent management in partnership with NDs and P&C Directors
Inspire and build capacity
Actively seek out development opportunities for country leads, incl. secondments and deployments in the region and globally in partnership with global safeguarding team

Engage, coach, support and build capacity of regional office staff

Train SARO staff on safeguarding and provide periodic refresher trainings to ensure Safeguarding culture is in place.
Lead safeguarding orientation and messaging for all SARO vendors to strengthen safeguarding culture
Ensure safeguarding training has been coordinated for RO staff and affiliates (eCampus basic online safeguarding course online or face-to-face or virtually).

Support FOs and RO to develop and regularly update their safeguarding risk register in alignment with existing risk management practices.

Provide technical guidance and referrals to FOs and the RO on all aspects of implementing the Child and Adult Safeguarding Policy in alignment with implementation guidelines (i.e., policy contextualisation, development of SIPPs, exemptions to background checks, etc.)

Support preparation of the FO Safeguarding Action Plan after the Safeguarding Update Report process, addressing key areas of weakness and prominent safeguarding risk and submit FO/RO Safeguarding Action Plans to WVI Safeguarding Unit when prepared.

Monitor the progress of FO’s Action Plans quarterly and provide support when needed to complete the actions.

Provide intentional support to underreporting FOs, Action Plan development to address underreporting, pilot of proactive detection guide, child friendly BP pilot, support implementation and monitoring of actions of Action Plan.

Responsible for the preparation of the RO Safeguarding Action Plan.

Monitor and support progress made on community-based feedback and complaints mechanisms including the development of contextualized awareness-raising materials that inform children and communities about the behaviour they can expect from WV employees or affiliates.

Support audit processes by providing reports, action plans, and input.

Work with key SARO functions including People and Culture (P&C), Strategy, Evidence and Learning to ensure safeguarding integration across the office.

Safeguarding Self-Assessment (Update Report)

Support FOs to understand and properly complete their annual safeguarding self-assessment (i.e., Safeguarding Update Report) including orientation to the questionnaire, one-on-one support as needed, reviewing every FO update report for inaccuracies before GC submission, and following-up on scores with the FO.

Lead a working group to complete the annual safeguarding self-assessment for the Regional Office and collect associated documents, which will form part of the RO’s Safeguarding update report.

Lead the working group to develop a Safeguarding Action Plan for the RO based on results and feedback from the Safeguarding Update report process; follow up with senior leadership on progress on the RO Action Plan.

Safeguarding Surge Support

In the case of emergencies or other extenuating circumstances that heighten safeguarding risk in an office or context, be available to provide safeguarding surge support to a Response or Field Support, upon request and for a limited period.

Support FOs to review the emergency response plans to ensure Safeguarding considerations are adequately provided for.

Provide Safeguarding in Emergencies training for FOs implementing emergency responses.

Represent SARO in GC convened safeguarding platforms to provide insights into key Safeguarding issues from a SARO perspective.

Participate in key GC safeguarding initiatives including review of policies, processes and guidelines necessary for Safeguarding implementation.

Required Knowledge Skills and Abilities:

Looking for candidates with senior management experience of at least 5 years’ in field/practical situations of policy formation, guidance and implementation (child protection, prevention of sexual exploitation and abuse (PSEA), gender-based violence (GBV) or safeguarding)
Extensive experience of planning and undertaking training programmes/workshops/trainings in child protection/safeguarding at a range of levels (e.g., field workers, managers, senior managers and decision makers)
Awareness of own strengths and weaknesses and evidence of commitment to self-managed personal development
Deep experience in safeguarding, child protection or similar investigations
Significant experience of building personal internal and external networks at senior level
Strong interpersonal, negotiation and diplomacy skills and ability to bring people from different cultures on-board
Strong moral compass and ability to deal with complex and ambiguous dilemmas
Self-sufficient, collaborative, proactive self-motivating work styles
Education to degree standard with a professional qualification in a relevant field, including but not limited to: law, child rights, child psychology, child protection/counselling, survivor care, behavioural change

Preferred Knowledge Skills & Abilities:

Understanding and appreciation of World Vision’s role as a global, international, Christian organization in the Safeguarding and Protection from Sexual Exploitation Abuse (PSEA) arena
Exceptional external engagement experience working with non-WV entities on safeguarding, advocacy or child protection issues
Legislation, government guidance and national/regional/global frameworks for safeguarding children and adults at risk
Role and responsibilities of national and regional key safeguarding agencies, including social services and the police
Local, national, regional and global agencies that provide support for children, adults and their families
Awareness of certain signs that a vulnerable individual is being abused, exploited, neglected or mistreated
Strong knowledge of World Vision safeguarding systems and procedures
Specific knowledge to help shape the contextualization of safeguarding policies
Demonstrated ability to communicate clearly and concisely, both orally and in writing, and lead presentations, training courses, and effective meetings
Strong analytical (incl. quantitative analysis), organizational, problem solving, time management and cross-cultural skills
Proven track record of delivering consistent, quality results with accountability and integrity
Performance history in strengthening organizational capacity in a distinct area
Able to solve complex and rapidly changing operational challenges in today’s dynamic and connected business environment.
Ability to cope under significant pressure while maintaining healthy work life balance
Ability to travel and work within challenging environments, such as conflict locations
Ability to effectively communicate and negotiate with key internal and external stakeholders while maintaining effective working relationships with varied stakeholders of different academic, cultural, gender, denominational etc. background
Digital dexterity mind-set supported by strong digital literacy
Strong knowledge of MS Office applications

40% travel to World Vision Field Offices is expected
Virtual/hybrid work environment
Based in any location within SAR where WV is registered, with a preference for Angola or Mozambique

Fluency in written and spoken English, required
Fluency in written and spoken French and/or Portuguese desired

Applicant Types Accepted:

Local Applicants Only