Job Description
Position Overview
Under the guidance of the Senior Education Officer, the Social Worker will identify, document, and manage cases of vulnerable children in Erbil governorate, providing timely and quality support to children and their families. In support of this activity, the Social Worker, with the support of the CYPD tem, will coordinate with relevant child protection actors and service providers, child protection committees, and members of the displaced communities to support individual cases and, where appropriate, arranging and supporting care. Occasional travel to other areas within the KRG may also be required.
Job Responsibilities
Case Management
• Assess protection issues, develop, and implement case plans with vulnerable children including full documentation and follow up, psychosocial care, and referral.
• Advocate with service providers on behalf of children and their families to access support and services.
• Monitor and document work using the child protection information management information management system in support of high quality child protection reporting.
Community Support
• Help establish and train community child protection committees (CPCs), and support CPCs to be able to fulfill their terms of reference including regular liaison with committees at monthly and ad hoc meetings.
• Facilitate trainings that respond to capacity building needs of child protection committees.
• Facilitate parenting skills trainings for parents of students in the Safe Healing and Learning Spaces (SHLS) and formal schools that IRC supports.
• Support Outreach Workers and CPC members to implement and document recreational and psychosocial support activities for children.
• Supervise referrals of vulnerable children made by CPCs and Outreach Workers.
• Mentor school counselors on case management steps and challenges.
• Train and support children’s committees at schools.
Administration and compliance
• Collaborate with the senior education officer to ensure that supplies are available for child protection activities in a timely manner and resources are available to support events, trainings, workshops conducted by outside consultants/experts.
• Provide continuous feedback to the Senior Officer on any challenges in the work implementation to be addressed directly with corrective steps/measures if needed.
• Ensure compliance with IRC policies and protocols of confidentiality, respect and safety.
• Perform other duties, as needed or requested by the supervisor.
Key Working Relationships:
• Position Reports to: Senior Education Officer
• Works closely with: Education Manager, CYPD Senior officer, Social Workers, Education Officers, and Community Outreach Workers / Mobilizers.
Professional Standards:
• All IRC staff are required to adhere to THE IRC Way Standards for Professional Conduct and the IRC country employment policies.
Skills
Requirements
1. Bachelor degree in relevant field. Social work background preferred.
2. At least three years of prior professional experience in a similar post.
3. Demonstrated understanding of working with children and particularly vulnerable children.
4. Previous experience in capacity building and mentoring of staff preferred.
5. Personal qualities: Team player, flexible, network-builder, able to handle pressure well.
6. Ability to build and maintain trusting relationships with communities.
7. Fluency in Arabic and Kurdish, and strong command of English required.
8. Ability to work independently in a rapidly changing professional environment with a view towards establishing administrative procedures and protocol that will ensure optimal functioning of the Operation.
9. Good interpersonal, organizational, and time management skills.
10. Practical understanding of Microsoft office applications.
11. Ability to work in a face-paced environment, think critically, and plan work in advance.
12. Ability to maintain the highest degree of discretion.
