Technical Advisor: Education & Youth

BACKGROUND

The International Rescue Committee (IRC) helps people whose lives and livelihoods are shattered by conflict and disaster to survive, recover, and gain control of their future. Founded in 1933, the IRC works in over 40 countries. The IRC’s Resettlement, Asylum and Integration department (RAI) operates 30+ offices across Germany, Greece, Italy, the Balkans, the United Kingdom, and the United States, with new offices and programming anticipated in response to the Ukraine crisis. RAI serves clients and communities through a diverse portfolio of programs aimed at five core outcomes: Health, Safety, Economic Wellbeing, Education and Power. RAI’s Education & Youth work seeks to ensure children and youth are supported to overcome the challenges to their well-being, learning, and development wrought by forced migration, and gain the skills and knowledge to achieve their goals. This is accomplished through collaboration with affected communities, direct programs and services, training and technical assistance  with formal and non-formal education systems and providers, and formal and informal partnerships.

Job Overview:  

The Technical Advisor (TA) for Education & Youth (E&Y) supports education and youth work across RAI, with a focus on Europe. The TA sits within the Safety, Education & Wellness (SEW) team, which is a part of RAI Program Quality & Innovation (PQI) department. PQI provides thought and practice leadership and technical support that helps IRC and partners grow and sustain high quality, evidence-based, impactful, and cost-effective programs. The SEW team focuses on technical excellence in Education & Youth, Health Promotion, Mental Health and Psychosocial Well-being, Child Protection, Women’s Protection & Empowerment, and Anti-Trafficking. The TA is responsible for partnering with offices and HQ colleagues to enhance education and youth work within RAI and contributing to increase cross-context learning across IRC’s global Education portfolio. The TA helps coordinate and align E&Y efforts across offices, liaises with critical stakeholders, and robustly contributes to business development. The TA provides support across a range of programming areas with a particular emphasis on professional development of educators and education system actors. The TA’s central responsibility is focused on program quality, and they will spend about 80% of their time on delivering technical assistance, and 20% on influence, advocacy, research, coordination, and liaising with stakeholders.

Key Responsibilities:

Technical Support

·       Develop, support, and maintain relationships with and between offices, teams, and external stakeholders related to Education & Youth programming; foster cross-office sharing and learning

·       Adapt existing, and develop new, training and technical assistance (TTA) materials on best practices in trauma-informed, culturally and linguistically responsive child/youth, caregiver, and educator-focused interventions, including teacher education and professional development related to academic and social emotional learning and asset development among forcibly displaced children and youth, safeguarding, and other timely issues

·       Deliver remote and in-person TTA to RAI offices and other agencies to enhance their use of best practices in E&Y interventions in alignment with IRC’s Outcomes to Evidence, Social Emotional Learning and Asset Development, and Gender, Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion (GEDI) frameworks, among others; support offices to adapt and contextualize IRC programs and approaches and program models to the local context

·       Lead strategic initiatives to enhance RAI approaches, content, and tools for education system support and educator professional development

·       Facilitate and disseminate learning from E&Y interventions and their adaptation and contextualization

·       Participate in efforts to improve monitoring, evaluation, and learning around E&Y program activities

Strategy, Policy and Institutional Capacity

·       Participate and advise on strategic initiatives and participate on joint initiatives with other IRC technical units and departments

·       Contribute to building a diverse E&Y workforce supporting recruitment and hiring of new staff including providing input on job descriptions, sitting on interview panels, and mentoring of staff

·       Identify where Education & Youth efforts intersect and/or conflict with other programmatic and strategic efforts in an aim to explore where programming could create collective impact

·       Educate IRC leadership about trends, political consideration and traditional sources of funding to help shape IRC’s Education & Youth approach, including strategic partnerships and alliances

·       Represent IRC in academic fora, donor meetings, inter-agency working groups, and various global/regional/transnational networks to share best practices, collectively advocate, increase visibility and establish relationships with partners working in the same sector

Business Development

·       Identify and pursue financial and technical resources that can support achievement of RAI Education & Youth outcomes

·       Cultivate partnerships that increase the reach and impact of Education & Youth programs

·       Support business development for E&Y programming including office, regional, and network-level opportunities, including technical review of proposals, writing, creating M&E plans, providing budgetary inputs, and liaising with donors

·       Provide guidance and support to programs and offices to effectively access funding and provide technical review of proposals

Assessment and Evaluation

·       Coordinate tracking, compilation and analysis of key indicators and outcomes for Education & Youth programming

·       Provide ongoing analysis of program activities, including supporting monitoring and evaluation of efforts to determine and adjust approaches as needed.

·       Build partnerships with academic institutions and other organizations to support Education & Youth work and research projects

·       Strengthen and expand partnerships to solicit and integrate feedback to continually inform efforts

Job Requirements:

·       Master’s/post-graduate degree in Education or relevant field or equivalent combination of education and experience is required. 

·       At least five years of Education-related work experience with forcibly displaced people, experience in education training/professional development desirable

·       Expertise in pedagogical approaches to academic and social emotional learning and language acquisition instruction and tutoring for students affected by forced migration, dominant language learners, students with limited and/or interrupted formal education, and newcomers

·       Expertise on best and promising practices to support the well-being of forcibly displaced children and youth within education and child/youth development programming

·       Experience in project design, proposal development and monitoring and evaluation with the ability to turn concepts and strategy into measurable action

·       Outstanding capacity to understand the country context, portfolio, and overall programmatic needs, and coordinate the relevant technical assistance needed to make a project successful, including experience with training, coaching and/or workforce development

·       A strong understanding of European context as it relates to forcibly displaced peoples, education, and child/youth development, with established relationships in the sector

·       A strong understanding of intersectional gender, equity and equality, diversity and inclusion issues pertaining to education and children/youth programming and a commitment to fostering inclusion and equitable outcomes

·       Experience in strategy development and working across disciplines and sectors

·       Self-starter with excellent project management skills, including the proven ability to prioritize and effectively manage competing demands and complete project tasks on time

·       Ability to effectively communicate and work as a team member with collaborative partners, the community, and clients in a cross-cultural, multi-disciplinary environment

·       Excellent verbal and written communication skills

·       Computer proficiency, including MS Office and internet applications

Language Skills: English fluency and another European language where IRC offices are located required (Greek, Italian, German, Serbian)

Key Working Relationships

Position Reports to: Senior Technical Advisor: Youth and Education

Position Directly Supervises: N/A

Other Internal/External Contacts:

·       Internal: Regular collaboration with RAI’s Safety, Education and Wellness Technical Unit, communication with other members of PQI, RAI Europe leadership, Education & Youth Coordinators, CRRD Education Technical Unit

·       External: Serve as IRC program representative in outside regional meetings and global meetings and academic forums with donors, non-governmental organizations, foundations, and inter-agency groups

Working Environment:

Regular office environment. 20% - 40% travel.

The IRC and IRC workers must adhere to the values and principles outlined in IRC Way - Standards for Professional Conduct.  These are Integrity, Service, and Accountability.  In accordance with these values, the IRC operates and enforces policies on Beneficiary Protection from Exploitation and Abuse, Child Safeguarding, Anti Workplace Harassment, Fiscal Integrity, and Anti-Retaliation.

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