Disability Inclusion Specialist

UNICEF in Turkey works to protect the rights of children and adolescents in Turkey since 1951. UNICEF's programme in Turkey focuses on the needs of the most vulnerable children in the areas of education, child protection, health care, social policy, adolescents and youth, in line with the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.

The UN Secretary-General has made non-discrimination a key part of his agenda and wider UN reform, and the UN Disability Inclusion Strategy-UNDIS (https://www.un.org/en/content/disabilitystrategy/) has put workplace disability inclusion at the forefront.

Centered on efforts to realize the rights of all children, UNICEF's 2022-2025 Strategic Plan complements and contributes to the Sustainable Development Goals 2030 Agenda (https://sdgs.un.org/2030agenda) by committing to improve the life of disadvantaged children and adolescents today and enhance prospects for their well-being tomorrow. Multiple references to disability inclusion and intersectionality are made throughout the SP and disability is mainstreamed across all Goal Areas. In 2023, the UNICEF Disability Inclusion Policy and Strategy-DIPAS (https://www.unicef.org/unicef-disability-inclusion-policy-and-strategy-dipas-2022-2030), which includes both programmatic and operational/management targets and priorities. All this demonstrates UNICEF's renewed commitment to promote inclusion and accessibility throughout the organization, across all functional areas.

While UNICEF has made considerable progress to strengthen disability inclusion both in programming and operations, the commitments in the new Strategic Plan and DIPAS require an intentional and sustainable effort to further advance disability inclusion as part of our collective work.

This UNV assignment is part of UNICEF’s strategy to become a more disability inclusive workplace and an employer of choice for people with disabilities.

The UN Volunteer will support the coordination and technical support for the implementation of the operational and management commitments of the UNICEF Disability Inclusion Policy and Strategy-DIPAS (https://www.unicef.org/unicef-disability-inclusion-policy-and-strategy-dipas-2022-2030). Under the supervision of the Disability Inclusion Project Manager, and in collaboration with the wider Culture and Diversity team and the Disability team in Programme Group, the UN Volunteer will need to work with numerous stakeholders in that have responsibility for operationalizing the institutional aspirations of the DIPAS. This will require supporting the provision of regular disability inclusion technical advice to HQ, regional and country offices, and contributing to an intersectional approach to non-discrimination lead by the Culture and Diversity team, Division of People and Culture.

Coordination and Integration of Disability Inclusive Workplace Commitments Across UNICEF’s:

Policy and Strategy Implementation and Reporting
• Support the implementation and reporting of the management and operational commitments of the Disability Inclusion Policy and Strategy (DIPAS) 2022-2030, using an intersectional approach.
• Support the Disability Section in Programme Group (PG) with efforts to meet UNDIS requirements linked to indicators 7 (reasonable accommodation), 13 (employment), and 14 (capacity building), as needed, and other activities to increase mainstreaming of disability inclusive workplace approaches into UNICEF’s work.
• Support and contribute to annual UNDIS reporting across divisions, especially indicators that the Culture and Diversity Team are responsible for, i.e., indicator 7 (reasonable accommodation) and 13 (employment).
• Coordinate intersectional work on remedial actions stemming from the annual UNICEF UNDIS Report, the bi-annual Global Staff Survey (GSS), the annual Pulse Survey, the Core Standard Indicators (CSIs), and the Recommendations from the Internal Task Team on Anti-Racism and Discrimination.

Accessibility and Inclusion
• Support the development and dissemination of guidelines on accessibility and inclusion, such as the Managers Guide to Nurturing Neurodivergence in an Inclusive Workplace.
• Support the design and coordination of the Global Accessibility Helpdesks and global accessibility capacity building webinars.
• Support UNICEF’s Information, Communication and Technology Division (ICTD) actions to remediate accessibility issues in UNICEF’s online platforms.
• Support UNICEF’s Supply Division (SD) actions to make procurement procedures and supply purchases more disability inclusive.
• Support UNICEF’s Division of Financial and Administrative Management (DFAM) actions on implementing accessibility initiatives in UNICEF premises globally.
• Provide ongoing technical advice to headquarters, regional, and country office-level activities on accessibility of premises, security considerations, and overall disability inclusion elements in operations.
• Support the coordination of capacity building activities on disability inclusion for all personnel in headquarters, regional, and country offices.
• Support the continual updating, design and development of the Culture and Diversity Team’s SharePoint pages on Disability Inclusion.

Employment
• Support the development of tailored resources on recruitment, onboarding, and workplace disability inclusion for headquarters, regional, and country offices.
• Support UNICEF to increasingly hire employees with disabilities.
• Provide onboarding support for offices hiring employees with disabilities.
• Support the continuous updating of the Inclusive Employment Guide and roll it out in HQ, regional, and country offices.
• Support talent outreach team and People and Culture practitioners in headquarters, regional, and country offices with targeted or mainstreamed initiatives for creating hiring pipelines for employees with disabilities, including the UN Volunteers with disabilities programme.

Reasonable Accommodation
• Support the management of reasonable accommodation (RA) requests (via Service Gateway), queries (via the RA email inbox), and facilitation of the RA Committee.
• Support implementation of the reasonable accommodation evaluation management response recommendations for action and the updating of the EISI (evaluation management) platform to capture progress.
• Support the continuous updating of the Reasonable Accommodation Guide and roll it out in HQ, regional, and country offices.
• Support the design and coordination of capacity building activities on reasonable for all personnel in headquarters, regional, and country offices.

Employee Engagement and Wellbeing
• Support regular liaison with Employee Resource Groups and implement actions to increase the wellbeing and engagement of employees with disabilities and employees with dependents with disabilities with senior leadership.
• Support the development of tools to measure the engagement of employees with disabilities more accurately in global staff surveys and so on.

Non-discrimination and Intersectional Approaches
• Actively support and contribute to the Culture and Diversity Team’s whole of diversity approach with an intersectional focus on disability inclusion.
• Provide input to other activities carried out by the Culture and Diversity Team, particularly on policy, performance management, learning, recruitment, wellbeing, and mental health.
• Keep abreast, research, benchmark, and implement best and cutting-edge practices in disability inclusive workplace management and contribute to the development of innovative global policies and initiatives.