Senior Protection Associate

The Senior Protection Associate leads and coordinates protection programming within the Country Office, managing a team of Protection Case Workers and ensuring compliance with IOM standards. The role involves overseeing case management services, coordinating with operational staff and partners, and contributing to protection assessments and reporting.

Responsibilities

• Lead and coordinate the work of a team of Protection Case Workers, managing workloads and assigning cases, providing technical support, monitoring implementation of the activities, analysing implementation difficulties and making recommendations.
• Oversee the case management services conducted by Protection Case Workers in line with IOM standards and tools, providing quality assurance, identifying and addressing challenges and gaps, and ensuring compliance with IOM standards.
• Ensure that Protection Case Workers remain up to date of all current guidance on case work/Protection standards and guidelines, advisories on communications with beneficiaries and partners, program-specific guidance, and all other relevant internal resources and guidelines.
• Ensure and oversee the maintenance of accurate data collection and case notes in IOM’s case management systems (such as MiMOSA or other approved tools), ensuring data protection and confidentiality standards are met.
• Coordinate with Head of Sub-Office and Protection Officer, and other operational staff (health, psychosocial, logistics) to ensure service provision is timely and that operational constraints or gaps are identified and escalated.
• Lead internal case coordination with other units in the mission (including Health, MHPSS, Case managers, Operations, and other teams) and with IOM in other missions (Regional Offices, IOM missions in other countries).
• At request of Head of Sub-Office and Protection Officer, participate in protection coordination forums at local level; collaborate with partners (NGOs, UN agencies, government) to enhance referral networks and services.
• Assist in preparing reports, summaries, outcomes of case work, and contribute to protection assessments, lessons learned and monitoring of protection related project indicators as required by programme.
• Carry out duty travel as required for field visits, monitoring of services or partner organization sites.
• Perform other duties as may be assigned by the Head of Sub-Office and Protection Officer.

Requirements

• School diploma with seven years of relevant experience; or, Bachelor's degree in Social Sciences, International Relations/Affairs, Research, Law or a related field from an accredited academic institution with five years of relevant professional experience.
• Experience in protection case management (including for survivors GBV and human trafficking, children at risk) in humanitarian or migration contexts.
• Experience working with vulnerable persons, ideally including returnees or deported migrants, who have complex needs.
• Experience with referrals and coordination with local protection actors, NGOs, or government services.
• Experience working in programs that include a movement operations component is an advantage.
• Experience with IOM or other UN agencies, particularly working on assisted voluntary return and reintegration programs, is preferred.
• Fluency in Spanish and working knowledge in English.
• Proficiency of language(s) required will be specifically evaluated during the selection process, which may include written and/or oral assessments.

Skills

• Protection Case Management
• SGBV Survivor Support
• Human Trafficking Protection
• Child Protection
• Vulnerable Population Assistance
• Referral Process Coordination
• Local Protection Actors Coordination
• NGO Coordination
• Government Services Coordination
• Assisted Voluntary Return Programs
• Reintegration Programming
• Protection Programming
• Team Management
• Protection Assessments
• Protection Reporting
• Humanitarian Experience
• Migration Context Knowledge
• Language Proficiency in Spanish
• English Language Knowledge

Languages

Spanish, English