Senior Director, Safeguarding

With 75 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!

Key Responsibilities:

Position to be based in the home country of the successful candidate where WVI is registered to operate.

The Senior Director - Safeguarding leads a division, including the WVI Safeguarding Unit, to develop and lead implementation of a global strategy for end-to-end Safeguarding processes, including policy level and tactical delivery at global, regional, and national levels. The Senior Director - Safeguarding oversees technical leadership in child and adult safeguarding, including preventing sexual exploitation and abuse (PSEA) and safeguarding investigations.

The WVI Safeguarding Unit is mandated by the WVI Board of Directors to provide global strategic and technical leadership for action across the World Vision Partnership in preventing and responding to harm through integration of safeguarding across operations and organisational processes.

The unit also manages reporting and responding to child and adult beneficiary safeguarding risks and incidents, particularly focusing on a survivor-centred and professional approach to investigation and risk mitigation measures.

This role is critical to WVI fulfilling its Board-mandated commitment to be an organisation that is safe for the children and communities  it serves, maximising our efforts to first do no harm to the children and families we engage with and minister alongside. Utilising his/her specialised knowledge of the safeguarding and related fields, the Senior Director - Safeguarding shapes internal and external discourse on key safeguarding topics, moving the organisation and sector closer to achieving "Do No Harm" principles.

KEY RESPONSIBILITIES

Safeguarding Strategy & System

• Lead a division to develop an end-to-end global safeguarding strategy, providing guidance and tactical support at global, regional, and national levels. Collaborate with leaders of key functions to embed safeguarding into their processes.
• Identify systemic or emerging organizational weaknesses and gaps. Direct efforts of Global Centre (GC), Support Offices Office (SO), Field Offices (FO), Regional Offices (RO), and Vision Fund teams to close those gaps.
• Advance the safeguarding agenda by driving innovation and continuous process improvement.
• Oversee multiple functions and hold senior leaders, managers, and stakeholders across the Partnership accountable for taking strategic, timely actions to strengthen the safeguarding of children and adult beneficiaries. Facilitate targeted improvements, culturally relevant prevention initiatives, and awareness-building campaigns.
• Report regularly to executive leadership on the progress of the safeguarding strategy and the overall health of safeguarding systems. Keep relevant stakeholders throughout the Partnership updated on key milestones and risks.
• Lead strategic change-management initiatives informed by data analysis and trend insights.
• Inform and influence budget and operational decisions at global, regional, and national levels , including support offices for all safeguarding activities, covering prevention, investigative response, and survivor support.

Defining Standards and Prevention

• Define Safeguarding standards to which all entities must adhere and evaluate their sufficiency on an annual basis.
• Develop corresponding policy guidance and cross-functional best practices to enable compliance by all entities and which furthers the safeguarding agenda in World Vision and across the sector.
• Lead the continued integration and definition of accountability mechanisms for safeguarding practices across the relevant areas of operations, including global, regional, and national P&C, Programs, Audit, Sponsorship, Communications, Technology and Digital Communications, and Supply Chain among others
• Sets policies and guidelines for direct communication to donors in regards to safeguarding matters; engage with multilateral agencies in incident management

Incident Management & Organizational Learning

• Oversight of incident management protocols, particularly to ensure a survivor-centred approach.
• Ensuring excellence in incident management and response to high-risk safeguarding incidents through the safeguarding investigations team
• Support case managers to oversee incidents to highest possible standards.
• Support crisis management, particularly in cases with external pressure