Save the Children invests in childhood – every day, in times of crisis and for our future. In the United States and around the world, we give children a healthy start, the opportunity to learn and protection from harm. By transforming children’s lives now, we change the course of their future and ours.
As part of a commitment to working with children in times of crisis, Save the Children will support programs in both sudden onset emergencies and chronic humanitarian situations. The Humanitarian Surge Team (HST) scheme ensures that high quality personnel are deployed at speed and scale when and where emergency strikes. HSTs may be deployed in the first or second phase of a large or medium scale emergency where Save the Children is scaling up in order to provide expertise and leadership. HSTs may also deploy to small or medium emergencies or chronic humanitarian crises in order to provide additional support to Country Programs to continue to deliver quality programming.
As Save the Children US’s dedicated surge personnel capacity, HSTs can expect to deploy 6-9 months of the year for 2-3 months at a time in varying environments and contexts. During deployments HSTs should expect to work unusual hours and in potentially insecure and stressful environments. When not deployed, HSTs will support the work of their technical or operational teams in the US.
The Team Leader will generally be deployed to manage a country-wide or regional response, and to provide strategic direction to the country program in collaboration with the Country Director and the Humanitarian Director. The Team Leader is responsible for identifying needs and resources and elaborating program recommendations for the emergency response in line with Save the Children national and global priorities. The post-holder will develop and manage programs or country support functions and negotiate and network at an international level. They will ensure that all relevant Save the Children policies and procedures with respect to child safeguarding, safety and security, code of conduct, equal opportunities and other relevant policies are in place. The post holder will play a strategic role in the effective scale up and management of Save the Children emergency programs to increase impact and enable positive change for children.
Program Support (typically will be for large/complex emergencies working with limited support):
- Assume overall oversight of country-wide or regional emergency response in collaboration with the Country Director.
- Manage large number of multiple grants (across up to 10 sectors), ensuring strict compliance of program activities with Save the Children national and global policies and procedures and with relevant donor regulations and agreements, SPHERE guidelines and the NGO code of conduct.
- Lead on country or regional level strategic planning, action plans, and monitoring to ensure an effective emergency response and a smooth transition to recovery phase
- Have oversight over the development of 6-24 month master budgets for multiple sites, multiple sectors and take overall leadership on the implementation of national level budgets of $5million+, keeping relevant stakeholders informed and ensuring any corrective actions are taken.
- In coordination with the Deputy Team Leader for Operations and Deputy Team Leader for Programs, ensure the preparation of timely program and donor reports on project activities in compliance with internal SC requirements and any relevant external donor requirements.
- Establish project monitoring plans and systems for identifying and tracking the indicators and develop processes/procedures and forms to support monitoring and inform learning.
- Ensure optimal safety and security management procedures and practices are in place for the emergency response program and continually monitor the safety and security situation, adapting staff safety and security procedures accordingly in collaboration and cooperation with the Country Security Manager.
- Oversee effective functioning of logistics systems to procure, store and distribute stock, supplies and services for the timely delivery of project objectives at national level
- Ensure strong accountability to beneficiaries
- Plan, identify and resource appropriate and effective structure & staffing needs for the entire response (including ensuring that personnel policies are in accordance with national laws)
- Oversee the development & implementation of staff well being (policy) and ensure appropriate staff well-being and R&R policy and processes in place
Capacity Building:
- Ensure that capacity building plans and performance management systems are in place to develop the requisite competencies in staff to ensure ongoing sustainability and quality of response
- Coach and mentor international staff and national level counterparts and link in to wider organizational talent development mechanisms.
Representation & Advocacy & Organizational Learning:
- Represent Save the Children’s emergency response on a national, regional and international level to donors, the media and members of the humanitarian community.
- Help shape broader sector strategies through influence of and leadership within inter-agency coordination forums, ensuring the specific needs of children are being addressed
- Regularly undertake high level representation and advocacy with Government partners and officials as well as donor representatives. Establish systems for communication with local Government partners, relevant line departments and community representations in the project area(s).
- Lead on organizational level operational practice, innovation and learning in consultation with the Humanitarian team.
- Oversee the implementation of Save the Children policies and procedures with respect to child rights and safeguarding, health and safety, equal opportunities and other relevant policies
- You have a minimum 7-10 years' experience in area of expertise
- Extensive experience of working within a senior management role within a complex country program in an emergency response or fragile state
- Previous experience of managing program teams in large-scale first phase emergency response is essential
- Senior management experience of multi-national, multi-sector team at a Country Director level.
- Experience of managing multi-donor, multi-site programmes (including ECHO, DFID and OFDA) of $5M and above in a first phase response at regional or country level
- Multi-site security management in insecure environments
- Experience of international level representation with key stakeholders, and co-ordination with other NGOs/UN
- Experience of international media representation and advocacy
- Experience of M&E and beneficiary accountability systems in large complex programs
- Experience of developing and negotiating successful partnerships with institutional donors
- Proven ability to influence change at an operational and strategic level
- Politically and culturally sensitive with qualities of patience, tact and diplomacy
- A high level of written and spoken English
- The capacity and willingness to be extremely flexible and accommodating in difficult and sometimes insecure working circumstances, including the ability to deploy at short notice.
- Commitment to the aims and principles of SC. In particular, a good understanding of the SC mandate and child focus and an ability to ensure this continues to underpin our support
Preferred Qualifications
- Education: MA / MSc level (or equivalent field experience)
- Fluent in French, Spanish, Portuguese or Arabic
- Meaningful work, with a knowledge that you are changing the lives of children all around the world
- A family friendly work environment
- Highly collaborative and innovative teams
- Generous paid vacation days, holidays, family leave days, and sick time
- Healthcare plans including medical, dental, and life insurance
- Retirement savings account with matching company contributions
- Structured and formalized management development and coaching programs for mid and senior level managers
- Extensive e-learning opportunities on a variety of topics offered through our affiliation with several prestigious universities as well as language learning opportunities