Safeguarding Officer

The International Rescue Committee (IRC) responds to the world's worst humanitarian crises, helping to restore health, safety, education, economic wellbeing, and power to people devastated by conflict and disaster. Founded in 1933 at the call of Albert Einstein, the IRC is one of the world's largest international humanitarian non-governmental organizations (INGO), at work in more than 40 countries and 29 U.S. cities helping people to survive, reclaim control of their future and strengthen their communities. A force for humanity, IRC employees deliver lasting impact by restoring safety, dignity and hope to millions. If you're a solutions-driven, passionate change-maker, come join us in positively impacting the lives of millions of people world-wide for a better future.

Reporting to the Senior Safeguarding Manager, the Safeguarding Officer plays a key operational role in implementing Safeguarding activities across field sites. The Officer will lead the delivery of training, support partner capacity-building, and contribute to community awareness and safe reporting mechanisms. This is a hands-on role requiring regular travel and strong coordination across teams.

Key Responsibilities:

• Training & Capacity Building

• Deliver in-person and remote Safeguarding trainings for IRC staff, incentive workers, partners, and community members.
• Adapt training materials and support logistics and documentation of capacity-building efforts.
• Monitor training effectiveness through pre/post assessments, feedback loops and monitoring visits.

• Partner Support

• Support implementation of IRC’s approach to safe partnerships – it entails conducting partner capacity analysis, actively contribute to partner’s project cycle meetings and visits and engage in bilateral discussions with partner focal points for safeguarding to support organizational capacity strengthening and mitigate risks identified.
•  partner Safeguarding support plans and coaching activities.
• Contribute to contextualizing tools and guidance aligned with partners’ needs and capacities.
• Support coordination of the Community of Practice gathering IRC partners.

• Community Awareness

• Help produce and disseminate IEC materials to raise client awareness on safeguarding and reporting.
• Engage in community-based activities to strengthen local understanding of safeguarding pathways.
• Support a participatory approach to programming ensuring that feedback from clients is regularly analyzed to inform programming and adjustments required to uphold safety and dignity.
• Collect and analyze data supporting evidence-based engagement strategies.

• Field Engagement & Safe Programming

• Regularly travel to other IRC locations to support staff and partners in applying safeguarding practices – this may entail for example training in the offices, monitoring visits and participation to focus group discussions and other community engagement activities.
• Provide technical input to identify risks and strengthen preventative actions at site level.

• Support to Safe Programming

• Work closely with program teams to identify safeguarding risks in day-to-day implementation and propose practical mitigation measures.
• Facilitate orientation sessions for client-facing staff on how to deliver services in a safe, respectful, and inclusive manner.
• Support the development and roll-out of field-level risk mitigation checklists and activity-level do-no-harm guidance.
• Assist program teams to embed safeguarding messages into community engagement activities (e.g., safe distribution, inclusive registration, confidential referrals).
• Monitor implementation sites to flag emerging safeguarding risks and support action planning with field teams.

• Response to Safeguarding Incidents

• Act as a potential entry point for safeguarding disclosures coming from staff or clients (upon escalation from feedback channels) in line with IRC’s global SOPs, ensuring a survivor-centered and confidential approach is always maintained; safe and timely referral to appropriate protection and support service; protection of reporters and survivors, including enforcement of anti-retaliation measures; and data protection safeguards.

• Support the (Senior) Safeguarding Manager on an ad hoc basis to respond to escalation of safeguarding concerns.

Job requirements:

• Bachelor’s degree in law, social sciences, or related field.
• Experience working in humanitarian settings is a must. Experience with an international NGO is desirable.
• Minimum 2 years of experience in capacity-building in Protection, Safeguarding or related roles
• Strong facilitation, interpersonal, and coordination skills.
• Fluent in Ukrainian; English proficiency is an asset.
• Willingness to travel frequently to field sites.

Standard of Professional Conduct: The IRC and the IRC workers must adhere to the values and principles outlined in the IRC Way – our Code of Conduct. These are Integrity, Service, Accountability, and Equality.

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