Response Team Leader - Humanitarian Surge Team at Save the Children

• TITLE: Response Team Leader – Humanitarian Surge Team 
• REPORTS TO:
• Director -  Global Expertise and Humanitarian Surge Platform     LOCATION: International, including remote and insecure locations
• GRADE: 1    
• CONTRACT LENGTH: 24 Months 

CHILD SAFEGUARDING: 
Level 3:  the role holder will have contact with children and/or young people either frequently (e.g. once a week or more) or intensively (e.g. four days in one month or more or overnight) because they work in country programs; or are visiting country programs; ore because they are responsible for implementing the police checking/vetting process staff.

ROLE PURPOSE: 

In 2019, the Global Humanitarian Surge Platform (GEHSP) was launched to increase the quality, speed and effectiveness of our global surge capacity in supporting the delivery of our humanitarian responses. In 2020, the Technical Expertise (TE) Request Platform was set up to support country programmes with the technical expertise they need, when they need it.   In April 2021 the TE Request Platform became part of the GEHSP to form the Global Expertise and Humanitarian Surge Platform (GEHSP).  

The Global Expertise and Humanitarian Surge Platform (GEHSP) is Save the Children's global humanitarian surge, technical expertise and new business development deployment management function, operating on behalf of both members and SCI. It is dedicated to identifying, developing and deploying skilled and experienced talent from across the movement to meet the needs of our domestic and international programmes and humanitarian responses. Our vision is to help to improve the quality, timeliness, and effectiveness of our humanitarian responses and programmes; directly contributing to Save the Children's capability to deliver the best outcomes for children and their families.

The GEHSP is responsible for:
Ensuring our humanitarian responses have access to suitably skilled and experienced staff they need to deliver a high quality and timely humanitarian response;

1. Managing the end to end deployment process for all surge deployments;
2. Identifying and developing future humanitarian surge staff to meet the needs of our responses;
3. Identifying new and innovative ways to meet the surge needs of our responses.

HSTs work alongside country, regional and member teams to support the scale up and management of international and domestic emergency responses, enabling positive change for children. The role of the surge staff varies depending on the needs of the response and could include:

1. Deploying in the first days or hours following a natural disaster or crisis to lead the first phase of a response to sudden onset emergency;
2. Supporting ongoing emergency response and recovery work through providing advice, guidance and expertise in a specific skill area;
3. Providing short term interim cover for country office staff; 
4. Supporting delivery of capacity building initiatives. 
5. The Team Leader will generally be deployed to manage a Category 1 or 2 response, and to provide response oversight and strategic direction to the country programme in collaboration with the Country Director and the Operations and/or Humanitarian Director. In rare occasions, the Team Leader will be deployed to out of area responses and will be reporting directly to the relevant regional office or SCI centre. 
6. The Team Leader is responsible for identifying needs and resources and elaborating programmatic, operational, strategic and leadership recommendations for the emergency response in line with Save the Children national and global priorities. The post-holder will develop and manage programmes or country support functions and negotiate and network at an international level.
7. They will ensure that all relevant Save the Children policies and procedures with respect to child safeguarding, safety and security, code of conduct, equal opportunities and other relevant policies are in place.
8. The post holder will play a leading role in the effective scale up and management of Save the Children emergency programmes to increase impact and enable positive change for children.

KEY AREAS OF RESPONSIBILITY:

1. Assume overall oversight of country-wide or regional, most often categorised as Category 1 or 2 emergency response in collaboration with the Country Director and other relevant CO SMT members, or where applicable set up response programmes in countries with no SC presence.
2. Ensuring strict compliance of programme activities with Save the Children national and global policies and procedures and with relevant donor regulations and agreements, SPHERE guidelines and the NGO code of conduct.
3. Lead on country or regional level strategic planning for the humanitarian response to ensure an effective emergency response in all of its phases of delivery
4. Having oversight over the development of relevant master budgets, aligned with the Response Strategy objectives, for the duration of the response and for multiple sites and multiple sectors where appropriate. S/he will take overall leadership on the implementation of the Response relevant national level budgets, while keeping relevant stakeholders informed and ensuring any corrective actions are taken where required. 
5. In coordination with relevant (E)SMT level members from both the Response and CO teams, s/he will ensure the preparation of a timely programme delivery and submitting the donor reports on project activities in compliance with internal SCI requirements and any relevant external donor requirements.
6. Ensuring that the relevant project monitoring plans and systems for identifying and tracking the indicators and develop processes/procedures and forms to support monitoring and inform learning are established and implemented.
7. Ensure optimal safety and security management procedures and practices are in place for the emergency response programme and continually monitor the safety and security situation, adapting staff safety and security procedures accordingly in collaboration and cooperation with the Country Security Manager.
8. Oversee effective functioning of logistics systems to procure, store and distribute stock, supplies and services for the timely delivery of project objectives at national level
9. Ensure strong accountability to beneficiaries
10. Plan, identify and resource appropriate and effective structure & staffing needs for entire response; In liaison with the HR Director ensuring that personnel policies are in accordance with national laws)
11. Oversee the development & implementation of staff well-being (policy) and ensure appropriate staff well-being and R&R policy and processes in place

Capacity Strengthening:

1. Ensure that capacity strengthening plans and performance management systems are in place to develop the requisite competencies in staff to ensure ongoing sustainability and quality of response
2. Coach and mentor international staff and national level counterparts and link in to wider organisational talent development mechanisms.
3.  Representation & Advocacy & Organisational Learning:
4. Represent Save the Children’s emergency response on a national, regional and international level to donors, the media and members of the humanitarian community. 
5. Help shape broader sector strategies through influence of and leadership within inter-agency coordination forums, ensuring the specific needs of children are being addressed
6. Regularly undertake high level representation and advocacy with Government partners and officials as well as donor representatives. Establish systems for communication with local Government partners, relevant line departments and community representations in the project area(s). 
7. Lead on organisational level operational practice, innovation and learning in consultation with Humanitarian team.  
8. Ensure SCI response review framework is implemented and lessons learnt / recommendations followed up

General:

1. Comply with Save the Children policies and practice with respect to child safeguarding, code of conduct, health and safety, equal opportunities and other relevant policies and procedures.

COMPETENCIES FOR THIS ROLE:

• Leading and Inspiring Others
  1. Demonstrates leadership in all our work, embodies our values, and articulates a compelling vision to inspire others to achieve our goals for children.
  2. Level required: Accomplished
• Problem Solving and Decision-Making
  1. Takes effective, considered and timely decisions by gathering and evaluating relevant information from within or outside the organisation.
  2. Level required: Accomplished
• Networking
  1. Builds and uses sustainable relationships and networks to support the work of Save the Children.
  2. Level required: Accomplished

QUALIFICATIONS AND EXPERIENCE
Essential

1. Extensive experience of working within a senior management role and within a complex country programme in an emergency response or fragile state setting; and/or extensive experience of setting up responses in out of area contexts (either where no SC presence or CO presence); and/or extensive experience of working in high income contexts
2. Previous experience of managing programme teams in large-scale/complex, first phase emergency response is essential

Degree or equivalent field experience

1. Senior management experience of leading a diverse, multi-function and/or multi-sector team at a Country Director or other relevant SMT level.
2. Experience of managing multi-donor, multi-site programmes (including ECHO, DFID and OFDA) of GBP 5m+ in a first phase response at regional or country level
3. Multi-site security management in insecure environments
4. Experience of international level representation with key stakeholders, and co-ordination with other NGOs/UN
5. Experience of international media representation and advocacy
6. Experience of M&E and beneficiary accountability systems in large complex programmes
7. Experience of developing and negotiating successful partnerships with institutional donors
8. Proven ability to influence change at an operational and strategic level
9. Politically and culturally sensitive with qualities of patience, tact and diplomacy
10. A high level of written and spoken English 
11. The capacity and willingness to be extremely flexible and accommodating in difficult and sometimes insecure working circumstances.
12. Commitment to the aims and principles of SC. In particular, a good understanding of the SC mandate and child focus and an ability to ensure this continues to underpin our support
13. Fluent in French, Spanish, Portuguese or Arabic

Additional job responsibilities

1. The duties and responsibilities as set out above are not exhaustive and the role holder may be required to carry out additional duties within reasonableness of their level of skills and experience. In the event of a major humanitarian emergency, the role holder will be expected to work outside the normal role profile and be able to vary working hours accordingly.

Equal Opportunities 

1. The role holder is required to carry out the duties in accordance with the SCI Equal Opportunities and Diversity policies and procedures.
2. Child Safeguarding: We need to keep children safe so our selection process, which includes rigorous background checks, reflects our commitment to the protection of children from abuse.
3. Safeguarding our Staff: The post holder is required to carry out the duties in accordance with the SCI anti-harassment policy
4. Health and Safety:The role holder is required to carry out the duties in accordance with SCI Health and Safety policies and procedures.