Technical Advisor II – Safe and Dignified Programming & PSEA, EMPOWER

About CRS 

Catholic Relief Services is the official international humanitarian agency of the Catholic community in the United States. CRS works to save, protect, and transform lives in need in more than 100 countries, without regard to race, religion or nationality. CRS’ relief and development work is accomplished through programs of emergency response, HIV, health, agriculture, education, microfinance and peacebuilding. 

 

The Humanitarian Response Department (HRD) provides leadership and support to CRS emergency programming. The HRD strengthens CRS’ impact through high quality, innovative programs; improved technical and management capacity at the field level; and active engagement in global efforts to promote excellence and learning in humanitarian response. The HRD has technical staff that supports emergency program planning, rapid response, and capacity strengthening of staff and partners worldwide.

NOTE: This is a remote position; CRS will give preference to candidates who are based in countries where we have existing offices. CRS does not sponsor visas for remote employees.

Country/Program Background

The EMPOWER (Empowering Partner Organizations Working on Emergency Responses) project is a joint initiative piloted in FY18 of the CRS Latin American and Caribbean Regional Office and the Humanitarian Response Department (HRD). In 2020, CRS expanded this program to Central America and Mexico and it continues to grow a team of LACRO-based emergency responders whose primary role is to support strengthening the emergency response capacity of local partners response in the Caribbean, South and Central America and Mexico and support them implementing high quality emergency responses. 

Through EMPOWER, CRS staff accompany local organizations in institutional capacity self-assessments. Based on self-assessment results, as well as institutional mission, vision, and strategy, participating local organizations develop institutional strengthening plans. In response to expressed priorities and requests, CRS provides participating organizations with demand driven technical resources, support, training, and accompaniment, and organizes zonal and regional workshops to facilitate shared learning and strengthening of peer networks among local and national humanitarian response organizations.

Job Summary: 

 

You will lead a team of technical advisors providing technical support to EMPOWER partners on Protection from Sexual Exploitation and Abuse (PSEA)/Safeguarding as well as Safe and Dignified Programming (SDP)/protection mainstreaming in line with the EMPOWER program goals and objectives, and with Catholic Relief Services (CRS) principles and standards, donor guidelines, and industry best practices to advance the delivery of high-quality, safe programming to the poor and vulnerable. Your technical advice, leadership, knowledge, and support will provide capacity strengthening for partners in Latin America and the Caribbean.  You will be part of the global Humanitarian Response Department (HRD), within the Safe & Dignified Programming & PSS team.

 

Roles and Key Responsibilities

 

• Supervise a team of two TAI for SDP to provide comprehensive and streamlined support to all partners. 
• Provide technical leadership in designing a capacity strengthening approach in PSEA/safeguarding and SDP for CRS EMPOWER staff and partners by developing learning and training strategies, standard training agendas/curriculums/tools, and follow-up plans for coaching and accompaniment.
• Work with CRS EMPOWER team and partners to ensure coordinated SDP messaging and practices are integrated in program implementation.  
• Oversee and coordinate the work of the SDP team with Partner Safeguarding Policies and Procedures compliance
• Contribute to knowledge management by documenting and promoting the sharing of learning, best practices and experience on supporting partners’ SDP and PSEA/safeguarding application within CRS as well as with Partner staff, the Caritas Internationalis Safeguarding Task Force, IASC AAP PSEA Taskforce, and the CHS Alliance. 
• Support 20+ national/local partner organizations in the EMPOWER project to strengthen, integrate and improve SDP in humanitarian response programs, strengthen organizational safeguarding/PSEA policies and practices, and apply humanitarian standards by:
  • Conduct self-assessments to identify their strength and gaps in PSEA/safeguarding and SDP.
  • Develop action plans based on self-assessments to address gaps and prioritized areas, in conjunction with EMPOWER team members. 
  • Take appropriate efforts to strengthen partner capacity, as per the action plans.  This will include a combination of methods, such as formal trainings, exchange visits among partners,