National Individual Contractor for Child Protection

UNICEF Belgrade is hiring a National Individual contractor to support the work of the Child Protection Section. This is full time office-based contract for the period till 31 December 2025

UNICEF works in some of the world’s toughest places, to reach the world’s most disadvantaged children. To save their lives. To defend their rights. To help them fulfill their potential. 

Across 190 countries and territories, we work for every child, everywhere, every day, to build a better world for everyone. 

And we never give up. 

For every child, Protection

Child Protection Programme in UNICEF Serbia works towards advancing rights of children in the country and ensuring that all children can live in a safe, non-violent and family-based environment and are protected from all forms of violence, exploitation, abuse and harmful practices.

UNICEF Serbia’s work is aligned with the key national priorities and policies and supports further reforms of the relevant sectors. Programme builds on strategic partnerships and results achieved with joint efforts so far and addresses the remaining gaps and challenges in the areas of prevention of child-family separation, improvement of alternative care capacities, prevention and protection of children from violence taking place in areas of their lives and strengthening justice for children.

Addressing cross sectoral challenges the programme closely cooperates with the social welfare, family and demography and justice line ministries, as well as with relevant nongovernment and international partners to further contribute to strengthening the enabling environment, building capacity for quality service delivery and empowering all children and their families to claim their rights, focusing on most vulnerable boys and girls including those living with developmental challenges, those coming from ethnic minority communities, those affected by migration, or facing other deprivations.

Key components of the UNICEF Serbia Child Protection Programme are:

• Social service workforce strengthening to ensure provision of timely, quality, inclusive family strengthening services and alternative care options,
• Strengthening of child protection system so professionals have the capacity to provide gender-transformative inclusive, cross-sectoral support and rehabilitation in cases of violence against children, and caregivers and girls and boys are empowered to seek support
• Supporting the strengthening of social and justice sectors to ensure children's rights are respected when they come into contact with the law, whether as offenders, victims/witnesses, or parties in civil proceedings.
• Support to social welfare and migration management systems to provide adequate protection for refugee and migrant girls, boys and women

The purpose of this position is to contribute to UNICEF’s efforts in advancing the protection of children in Serbia from all forms of violence, exploitation and abuse and strengthening capacities of Government and key actors to ensure safe family-based environment for every child in the country.

How can you make a difference? 

Under the supervision of the Child Protection Specialist, the contractor will have the responsibility to contribute to UNICEF’s efforts in advancing the protection of children through provision of technical, operational and administrative assistance throughout the programming process for child protection development and emergency projects and initiatives, within the Country Program. This will include support to planning, delivery of results, preparing, executing, and implementing a variety of technical and administrative program tasks to support program development, implementation, progress monitoring, evaluating and reporting.

The position will involve engagement with other UNICEF country program sections, institutional partners, other UN agencies and civil society organizations. The work will be delivered in accordance with more detailed monthly work plans agreed between the Individual Contractor and the Supervisor at the beginning of every month.

In particular, the contractor is expected to provide support to overall programme planning, implementation, monitoring and reporting for both development and emergency portfolio in the area of protection of family strengthening and deinstitutionalization, refugee/migrant children, and justice for children.

Task 1: Providing assistance in implementing the programming on family strengthening and deinstitutionalization through:

- Technical and operational support to implementation of the technical assistance activities for line ministries related to the portfolio

- Closely monitoring implementation of activities of partner organizations related to foster care and family strengthening on multiple projects

- Reviewing and dissemination of capacity building materials

- Documenting good practices and supporting communication and visibility program activities

- Other relevant tasks

Deliverables: Ensuring complete documentation of the technical assistance activities to line Ministries, Drafted regular

reporting as per donor requirements, monitoring of partner implementation and documentation.

Timeframe: September 2024 - December 2025

Task 2: Providing assistance in implementing the programming on gender sensitive protection of refugee/migrant children through:

- Technical and operational support to implementation of the technical assistance activities (related to enhancing coordination)

- Reviewing and facilitating process of development of capacity building materials, informational materials, monitoring sectoral training programs,

- Closely monitoring implementation of activities of partner organizations on multiple projects

- Documenting good practices and supporting communication and visibility program activities

- Support interagency collaboration and knowledge sharing with UNHCR and IOM;

- Supporting relevant reporting efforts as per donor requirements;

Deliverables: Ensuring complete documentation of the technical assistance activities, Drafted regular reporting as per donor requirements, monitoring of partner implementation and documentation;

Timeframe: September 2024 - December 2025

Task 3: Provide technical support to overall Child Protection programming (including above mentioned areas, as well as

justice for children and violence against children) through:

- providing technical inputs in development of project proposals, partnership agreements, reports, policy, and other internal and external documents

- supporting communication and advocacy efforts by drafting statements, briefing notes and similar

- supporting cross-sectoral cooperation with other UNICEF programmes and regular communication / coordination with external partners

- supporting team program planning and reporting activities,

- organization and documentation of relevant meetings/events.

Deliverables: Documentation of activities realized / inputs provided as per more detailed monthly plans.

Timeframe: September 2024 - December 2025

To qualify as an advocate for every child you will have… 

• University degree in social work, education, psychology, sociology or other related fields/social sciences
• At least seven years of work experience related to child protection 
• Experience in child protection in both emergency and development context
• At least seven years of experience in coordinating implementation of projects which include cooperating with local
  level and national level stakeholders 
• Ability to manage multiple tasks and keep to strict deadlines
• Ability to work effectively with an ethically diverse team in a sensitive environment and to successfully coordinate multiple
  initiatives
• Proficiency in English and Serbian
• Previous experience with UN/UNICEF is an asset

For every Child, you demonstrate… 

UNICEF's values of Care, Respect, Integrity, Trust, Accountability, and Sustainability (CRITAS). 

To view our competency framework, please visit  here. 

UNICEF is here to serve the world’s most disadvantaged children and our global workforce must reflect the diversity of those children. The UNICEF family is committed to include everyone, irrespective of their race/ethnicity, age, disability, gender identity, sexual orientation, religion, nationality, socio-economic background, or any other personal characteristic.

UNICEF offers reasonable accommodation for consultants/individual contractors with disabilities. This may include, for example, accessible software, travel assistance for missions or personal attendants. We encourage you to disclose your disability during your application in case you need reasonable accommodation during the selection process and afterwards in your assignment. 

UNICEF has a zero-tolerance policy on conduct that is incompatible with the aims and objectives of the United Nations and UNICEF, including sexual exploitation and abuse, sexual harassment, abuse of authority and discrimination. UNICEF also adheres to strict child safeguarding principles. All selected candidates will be expected to adhere to these standards and principles and will therefore undergo rigorous reference and background checks. Background checks will include the verification of academic credential(s) and employment history. Selected candidates may be required to provide additional information to conduct a background check. 

Remarks:  

Only shortlisted candidates will be contacted and advance to the next stage of the selection process. 

Individuals engaged under a consultancy or individual contract will not be considered “staff members” under the Staff Regulations and Rules of the United Nations and UNICEF’s policies and procedures, and will not be entitled to benefits provided therein (such as leave entitlements and medical insurance coverage). Their conditions of service will be governed by their contract and the General Conditions of Contracts for the Services of Consultants and Individual Contractors. Consultants and individual contractors are responsible for determining their tax liabilities and for the payment of any taxes and/or duties, in accordance with local or other applicable laws. 

The selected candidate is solely responsible to ensure that the visa (applicable) and health insurance required to perform the duties of the contract are valid for the entire period of the contract. Selected candidates are subject to confirmation of fully-vaccinated status against SARS-CoV-2 (Covid-19) with a World Health Organization (WHO)-endorsed vaccine, which must be met prior to taking up the assignment. It does not apply to consultants who will work remotely and are not expected to work on or visit UNICEF premises, programme delivery locations or directly interact with communities UNICEF works with, nor to travel to perform functions for UNICEF for the duration of their consultancy contracts.