Technical Advisor II - Child Protection and Care System Strengthening

Catholic Relief Services | CRS•Baltimore, MD

About The Position

CRS is seeking Technical Advisor candidates for an anticipated multi-country child development, care, and protection project. The overall objective of the project is to strengthen national systems that protect vulnerable children, support families, and improve early childhood development through locally led and sustainable approaches. The project will improve outcomes for vulnerable children by strengthening child protection systems, supporting families and caregivers, advancing integrated early childhood health and development, and reducing reliance on residential care. As Technical Advisor II - Child Protection and Care Systems Strengthening, you will provide technical leadership, advice, guidance, and support to a wide range of program design and implementation issues with a focus on child protection and care systems strengthening. These will all be in line with Catholic Relief Services (CRS) program quality principles and standards, donor guidelines, and global best practices. You will support regional and Country Program (CP) teams to advance the delivery of high-quality programming for vulnerable children and families. Your technical expertise will contribute to determining how effective, adaptive, evidence-based, and innovative CRS' child protection and care system strengthening programming is across participating countries. The Technical Advisor will serve as the project's lead technical resource for strengthening child protection and care systems, promoting safe and nurturing family-based care, supporting government-led reform efforts, and ensuring technical excellence across all project interventions in diverse contexts.

Requirements

Bachelor’s degree in social work, Child Protection, International Development, Social Policy, Public Policy, Psychology, Sociology, Public Health, Human Services, Education, or a related field.
Minimum of eight years relevant international working experience in an advisory or management role with progressive responsibilities, ideally with an international NGO, with minimum of three years supporting child protection systems strengthening, family care reform, alternative care, safeguarding, or related programming.
Previous experience providing technical assistance and developing successful proposals for external donor funding is required.
Fluency in English required.

Nice To Haves

Master's degree in Social Work, Child Protection, Social Policy, Public Administration, International Development, Psychology, Sociology, Public Health, Human Services, Education, or a related field.
Fluency in Spanish or French a plus.

Responsibilities

Contribute to the development and implementation of agency-wide strategies, standards, tools, and best practices in child protection and care system strengthening that effectively engage program participants, partners, donors and governments. Help ensure a cross-sectoral approach integrating gender, safeguarding, protection mainstreaming, disability inclusion, and early childhood development.
Provide technical solutions to regional and CP teams, remotely and on-site, for strategic planning and how to best apply program design and implementation standards, best practices, partnership principles, tools, and M&E, ensuring high-quality implementation of child protection system strengthening and care reform interventions including key elements such as governance/policies, social service workforce, financing/resources, child protection management information systems.
Lead the development and refinement of technical approaches, guidance, tools, and implementation frameworks related to child protection system strengthening, care system strengthening, family care reform, deinstitutionalization, gatekeeping, case management, social service workforce strengthening, and safeguarding systems.
Support participating countries and partners to strengthen the capacity of government institutions, faith actors and networks, civil society organizations, and social service workforces to provide quality child protection and family care services.
Contribute to regional and CP efforts to pre-position CRS for growth opportunities in child protection and care system strengthening. Lead or contribute to the development of the technical design for large and/or complex proposals, including defining appropriate monitoring systems and indicators. Advise project teams on integrating donor strategies, priorities and technical requirements into CRS’ approach.
Contribute to capacity-strengthening initiatives for CRS and partner staff through development of learning strategies, training curricula, technical guidance, workshops, mentoring, and coaching. Promote cross-country learning, knowledge management, and the exchange of best practices, lessons learned, and innovations across participating countries and partners
Contribute to knowledge management and learning through collecting and analyzing program data, evaluating strategic projects, assisting with measuring program impact, documenting promising and best practices, and producing technical reports and learning products. Support achievement and technical verification of milestone-based deliverables and assist project teams in applying adaptive management approaches to strengthen performance and results
Establish and maintain relationships with donors, partners, peer organizations, research and other institutions. Participate in forums related to child protection, family care reform, safeguarding, and care system strengthening to share evidence-based best practices and promote CRS’ work.
Liaise with the Family Strengthening Technical Advisor II to coordinate technical support to regions, country programs and the broader initiative