1

War Child UK

Director of Advocacy and Communications
Recruitment pack
19 January 2015

Contents

1. About War Child and background to the role:...... 2

2. Job Description:...... 3

3. Person Specification:...... 3

4. Terms & Conditions: ...... 4

5. Application Procedure:...... 4

6. Equal Opportunities Monitoring...... 5

Are children in conflict reflected in current global development priorities?

Conflict is a priority identified by all the major UK political parties. Globally, conflict is also an issue placed at centre stage through the UN Security Council. However, despite children being over 50% of those affected and living in conflict, there is little focus and response to their needs.

Global donor behaviours in relation to children in conflict do not reflect the reality on the ground or the rhetoric of a thematic focus on conflict. Child protection and education (the only child-specific aspects of the emergency system) are woefully underfunded as part of humanitarian response and are not considered as the life-saving interventions that those operating on the ground know them to be.

  • In the years 2007-2012 the UN appeals system spent $24 billion on emergency response of which only$149 million went to Child Protection.
  • There were 28.5 million children out of primary school living in conflict affected countries in 2013. More than half of the total of 58 million children out of school globally.
  • Yet only 1.4 per cent of global humanitarian funding was allocated to education in 2012, a decrease from 2.4 per cent the previous year.
  • In 2010 the UK was the third lowest contributor (with less than one million dollars) to Child Protection in Emergencies (CPiE) and Sexual and Gender Based Violence (SGBV) and the fourth lowest in 2011 (with under two million dollars).
  • As one of the world’s largest humanitarian donors, the UK government (from Financial Tracking Data only) did not fund any protection projects within any appeals process in 2008 and the improvement was negligible in 2009.

Children in conflict are a low priority for the International aid system. Their rights are neglected and their needs for protection and education are unmet. This has to change.

Position: Director of Advocacy and Communications

Responsible to: Chief Executive Officer,

Direct Reports:Head of Advocacy, PR and Artist Liaison Manager, Digital Manager

Applications deadline:15thth April 2015

Start DateAugust 2015

1. Background to the Role

War Child was established in 1993 as a response to the brutal effects of conflict on children during the Balkans war. We now work in Iraq, Afghanistan, Jordan, Uganda, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Central African Republic.

War Child’s vision is of a world in which the lives of children are no longer torn apart by war, and our contribution to achieving this vision is articulated in our mission:

to support and improve the protection and care of children and young people who live with a combination of insecurity, poverty and exclusion in some of the worst conflict-affected countries in the world

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We deliver this mission through three strategies:

  • Service delivery (directly and through local partner organisations)
  • Investment in local protection structures and systems
  • Advocacy

We focus on issues which particularly affect children in conflict areas, and have three main programmes:

  • Education
  • Livelihoods
  • Child protection

We aim to respond to conflict emergencies early, bringing life-saving child protection and psycho-social support to children in acutely vulnerable situations as soon as we can. However, our mission extends through post conflict to recovery phases, meaning that we will stay with affected populations until the impact of conflict is no longer the primary driver of issues that need to be addressed. This is a relatively wide intervention range which reflects our concern for individual children and their long term recovery from conflict shock.

War Child has grown rapidly over the past few years. Income has increased from approximately £1m pa in 2007to £6.3 million in 2014. We have seen an even more dramatic increase in the numbers of children we reach directly and indirectly. From 5,000 in 2008 to over 90,000 in 2014. Our programming has become more efficient, more professionally managed, and more consistent across the countries we work in.

We are now a trusted partner of UN and national donors, receiving significant support from UNHCR and UNCEF in emergency response programmes, and with several programmes funded by the EU and Comic Relief. We have a Programme Partnership Agreement with DFID as part of a consortium with Restless Development and Youth Business International.

War Child UK is one of three independent operational agencies – War Child UK, War Child Holland and War Child Canada. Coordination and relationships are strong with our sister organisations, which includes joint working both in the field and on advocacy and fundraising. We will continue to deepen these relationships and co-operative ways of working to maximise our delivery and impact, in all areas including Advocacy & Communications.

Advocacy

Advocacy is one of our three programme approaches (the other two being service delivery and support to partner organisations). The London head office leads on advocacy in the UK, and on the international stage. Country teams lead on advocacy with their local and national authorities. London has a role in supporting teams to do this effectively and in working with country teams to ensure that children’s voices form the core of our international advocacy messages.

We have had significant successes with advocacy over the past three years, including playing a leading role in the Preventing Sexual Violence Initiative culminating in the 2014 London summit during which we secured major commitments to preventing sexual violence against boys and girls and providing support to survivors. We are members of Watchlist, the New York based consortium of agencies which lobbies the United Nations on issues affecting children and armed conflict. We a consulting agency to the World Humanitarian Summit. We lead a consortium of NGOs, corporates and foundations in the UK which works with DfID to improve their response to education in emergencies. We currently provide secretariat functions to an All Party Parliamentary Group which is conducting an inquiry into children and armed conflict.

Our advocacy function in the UK also runs a schools programmes, which provides curriculum materials to schools who want to learn more about the severe impact of conflict on children and also offers visits to school in the London area. The Advocacy and Comms directorate is also responsible for supporting the work of the Youth Engagement Panel – a group of young people with conflict backgrounds who contribute to our governance and awareness raising.

Communications
In March 2012 (the last time we looked) 18% of people said yes to the question ‘have you heard of War Child?’. Awareness was highest in the 25 to 34 age group (34%). We are clearly not the best known international charity but our awareness is higher than might be expected for an agency our size.

Our social media profile is growing and compares well to other much larger organisations in our sector. Facebook and twitter followers are increasing fast Unique visits to the War Child website will be approaching 1 million this year. We are keen to grow our online audience and to use this presence to develop campaigning and to use these channels to contribute to the recruitment of individual regular donors.

The War Child brand gives us a strong internal and external identity, although we are believe that this brand is capable of achieving a lot more if managed strategically. The Director of Advocacy and Communication will take a lead on leveraging our brand strength to mobilise support from individual donors and campaigners in the UK. Our five year plan includes significant budget for donor acquisition, which will be led by the Fundraising team but will draw heavily on the work of the Communications team.

Our profile benefits from the significant support we have received from well known musicians and other creative artists – a relationship which dates back to the award winning HELP album in 1995. Carey Mulligan has proved to be a committed and effective Ambassador since joining us in 2014. The Advocacy and Communications Directorate includes responsibility for stewardship of our high profile supporters and the development of a wider network of support at this level. The role also includes a push to raise the volume and quality of stories and case studies coming from our country programmes, to use the inspiration and learning from our innovative field programmes in our wider communications and advocacy work. We have an ambitious plan to develop a means of communicating not just the number of children we help but the impact we are having on reducing their vulnerability to the dangers of conflict. Our new Vulnerability Scale is undergoing field trials this year and has the potential to quantify exactly how much safer children are once they enter a War Child field programme.

Next Steps

We have an ambitious five year strategy and we believe that providing a strong structure and leadership in advocacy and communications is going to be a major factor in whether or not we realise these ambitions. At the heart of the ambition is the goal of putting the voices of children at the centre of our internal and external communications. In support of children’s voices we want to mobilise people and evidence to support huge increases in the priority given to children in conflict by the international aid system. This means becoming a campaigning force in the UK, engaging at least 10,000 members of the UK public in active campaigning for the rights of children on conflict countries, and having a big impact on how DFID and other donors respond to their needs. In 2014 we brought together the work streams of advocacy, schools, Press, PR, and digital media into a combined team reporting to the Chief Executive. The team also includes responsibility for coordinating our relationships with celebrities and other high profile supporters and for developing internal communications channels including a new intranet. We now need to establish a new level of strategic leadership of this team by creating the new post of Director of Advocacy and Communications who will be a key part of our Senior Management Team as we continue to build a uniquely capable child protection agency.

2Job description

This role reports directly to the CEO

Key responsibilities are:

Strategic leadership

  • Lead and manage the Advocacy and Communications Directorate, to deliver our strategic priorities and objectives, by taking an integrated approach to policy change, campaigning and communications
  • Providing high quality line management and development for talented staff, building a strong team and embedding robust planning, implementation reporting and evaluation processes into our advocacy and communications work
  • Play a full part in Senior Management Team Processes, leading on a range of cross-organisational priorities and strategies, driving WCUK through a period of exceptional growth and strong ambition
  • Engaging the advocacy and communications benefits which will flow from closer cooperation with our colleagues in War Child Holland and War Child Canada
  • Creating relationships, systems and pathways to ensure that the advocacy and comms team is fully integrated into the organisation at all levelsso that we can fully realise our potential for campaigning, income generation, quality and learning and impact reporting
  • Ensure that War Child’s Child Protection Policy is understood and adhered to for all communications work across the organisation
  • Lead and support developments in internal communications

Advocacy and policy

  • Strategic leadership in the development and implementation of an advocacy programme ensuring WCUK represents and promotes a powerful and expert voice to children in conflict
  • Strategically plan and implement stakeholder engagement, and develop relationships to increase the WCUK’s profile amongst target and influential audiences such as DFID, FCO, UN agencies, Ministers and politicians
  • Lead the development of War Child UK as a campaigning force with the UK public

Communications and Brand

  • Maximising the profile and impact of the Chief Executive and Chair as spokespeople for War Child, but also acting as a spokesperson yourself
  • Lead and support the team to realise our potential to use PR, media, our website and social communication channels to engage at scale with UK public, policy makers, and international organisations
  • Developing a strategy to promote the WCUK brand in a way which enhances our fundraising, our advocacy and our programme effectiveness in the UK, in-country and internationally
  • Developing our work with high-profile supporters to enable us to maximise their contribution to income generation, campaigning and awareness raising
  • Work closely with the Director of Programmes and Director of Fundraising to deliver robust impact reporting communications for internal and external use
  • Support the communications team to develop compelling storytelling assets for advocacy, fundraising, and in-country programme use

3Person Specification

The ideal candidate will be a highly motivated person with a significant background of achievement in advocacy and communications. Knowledge of advocacy approaches based on evidence and on the voices of people seldom given opportunities to speak to those in power will be essential. Candidates will need to show that they have a strategic understanding of how excellent communications can enhance the power of our advocacy, our fundraising and our programmes. They will have experience of campaigning for change by mobilising the voices of thousands of supporters in the UK in support of a strong argument. We are looking for a good knowledge of the digital landscape and a keen awareness of how this can drive support and build brand profile. They will have demonstrable good media sense and a track record of attracted press and media attention to particular issues which may otherwise go unnoticed. We need someone with the relationship skills to develop internal pathways for information and stories about our beneficiaries to inform every part of the organisation, and the emotional intelligence to sustain enthusiasm for this work at all levels of the organisation. A thorough knowledge of the humanitarian and international development structures will be vital to this role. The candidate should be able to demonstrate a strong business sense and the ability to prioritise between a number of valid options. Most importantly they will need to show a genuine and deep seated commitment to helping children in dire circumstances in conflict areas.

Experience:

  • Demonstrable experience of developing realistic but ambitious advocacy goals with a successful track record of achieving change in official policy and practice through the use of advocacy and campaigning techniques
  • Demonstrable experience of developing strategies and providing high level leadership of social media marketing
  • Demonstrable experience of developing strategies and providing high level leadership of well as traditional print and broadcast media
  • Delivering public facing campaigns which mobilise large numbers of campaigners around specific policy change goals.
  • Experience developing and managing relationships with senior level political decision makers and policy opinion formers
  • Experience building relationships, and managing delivery with, senior journalists and editors across media channels
  • Experience of achieving advocacy impact at an international level
  • Experience of working with beneficiaries and service users to influence those in power
  • Leading teams of highly motivated individuals and ensuring that planning and structured ways of working translate skills and motivation into highly successful outcomes

In addition, we are looking for experience of, proven abilities in, and a track record of:

  • Brand management
  • Harnessing the power of high profile supporters
  • Recruitment and retention of capable key staff
  • Using digital platforms for campaigning and donor recruitment
  • Integrated fundraising and communications planning and delivery
  • Financial management
  • Working in consortia, preferably across international boundaries

With this in mind, we will be looking for the following key attributes:

  • A genuine and deep seated commitment to helping children in dire circumstances
  • A thorough knowledge of the humanitarian and international development structures
  • A strong business sense and the ability to prioritise between a number of attractive options
  • Excellent people management and team building skills
  • Good financial, budgeting and reporting skills
  • Ability to think through the future and set an inspiring course
  • Good written communication
  • Good verbal communication and the ability to Represent War Child UK to a wide range of stakeholders through different channels
  • High levels of energy and personal resilience
  • Negotiation skills
  • Ability to involve others whilst also making decisions in a timely manner

4Terms and conditions

  • Salary in the region of £55,000 pa
  • 28 days paid annual leave, pro-rata (in addition to statutory Bank Holidays) plus an additional day for every year served up to a maximum of five additional days
  • Flexible working arrangements, including the opportunity to work from home for one day a week
  • 5% matching pension contribution

5Application Procedure

  • War Child UK Application to be submitted by 5.00pm onApril 15th
  • First interviews on 24th April
  • Second interview 30th April
  • All applications should be sent to

For more information on War Child please see our website:

6Equal Opportunities Monitoring

War Child is committed to continuing to develop its Equal Opportunities policy to ensure that all job applicants and employees are treated fairly, irrespective of gender, age, sexual orientation, religious belief or creed, disability, and racial or ethnic origin. The following section of the application form will help us to monitor the effects of our policy and will be used for no other purposes, except to monitor how well we are reaching diverse groups. We would be grateful if you would complete it. It would be helpful if you could indicate your age, gender, religious belief or creed, sexual orientation, and ethnic origin by either ticking, or specifying, in one of the boxes or spaces, below, and return this slip with your application: