Ashraf Albkour

Northern Ireland Co-operation Overseas (NICO) is a not-for-profit public body dedicated to the pursuit of building efficient, accountable, and sustainable public sector institutions across the world. NICO’s role in Jordan is to support the implementation of Jordan’s National Social Protection Strategy. The project’s responsibilities focused on Governance and Leadership, De-Institutionalisation, and the Professionalisation of Social Work.

Responsibility:
• My primary role in the team was to lead the professionalisation of social work in Jordan. This included working on draft legislation for the MOSD (including articles relating to the professionalisation of the social work workforce) supporting the introduction of a national ‘code of conduct’ for social work and social care, promoting the registration of social workers, developing a common core curriculum for university social work courses, planning and ensuring the delivery of a comprehensive in-service training programmes. One of the key principles that we adopted as a project was to work in close partnership with others involved in social protection. During this period, I worked with the MOSD, MOJ, NCFA, Expertise France, UNOPS, UNICEF, UNHCR, IMC, Universities, AQACHEI, and the Jordanian Association of Social Work. This was in recognition of the teams belief that social protection could only be improved by cooperating with the INGOs and the statutory bodies. In addition to my primary responsibilities, I also assisted the rest of the team that worked on the De-Institutionalisation and the Governance/Leadership components. I was able to provide professional advice and utilise my project management, IT, and communication skills (including translation and interpretation skills) for the entire project.

Legislation and Policy:
I worked alongside international experts and key personnel in the MOSD, including the head of legal affairs and the Secretary-General to draft primary legislation. The legislation covered the functions and responsibilities of the MOSD but my focus was to provide advice and guidance on the professionalisation of social work that is now contained in the draft legislation. Related to this part of my work was my support in developing the ‘codes of conduct’ for social workers and social care workers. These have been signed off and are now fully operational. Currently, I am working with the MOSD to create a registration system for social work.
In-Service Social Work Training Programme: enhanced by this programme.
General Project Management:
Throughout the last two years, I have played a central role in the NICO team. My role was not only to work on my key areas of responsibility but to promote the work of the entire team. The ultimate aim of our work was to improve life chances for vulnerable Jordanians by improving the social protection systems. As such, we believe we achieved many of these objectives

1. Provide supervision and management to a team of Child Protection Case Managers
2. Provide effective leadership by modeling positive behavior and working in partnership with the Child Protection Technical Team and other IMC departments
3. Assist and provide guidance to Child Protection Case Managers to complete all steps of Child Protection Case Management including comprehensive assessment, planning, implementation, coordination, monitoring, and overall evaluation of individual children's needs
4. Supervise and endorse the assessments, care plans, and case closures of individual cases allocated to Child Protection Case Managers
5. Ensure involvement in the development and review of care plans, related to strengthening families and promoting a child's safety, stability and development. Ensure that child protection case management procedures are in line with child protection minimum standards Advocate for and ensure that caseloads allocated to Child Protection Case Managers are manageable and permit high-quality planning, service provision, and evaluation of case management services
6. Actively promote collaboration among colleagues and other organizations to enhance service delivery
7. Identify the training and capacity-building needs of team members, and communicate these needs to technical support staff and program managers
8. Evaluate client satisfaction and quality of care provided
9. Ensure the involvement of local authorities, community leaders, and community groups in creating community-based protection mechanisms
10. Establish and maintain effective working relationships, ongoing communication and successful negotiations with all key stakeholders both internal and external
11. Take on team coaching and mentoring of team members.
12. Take the lead on new hire orientation and on-the-job training of Child Protection Case Managers
13. Provide regular updates and reports to senior management staff as required; contribute to donor reports and internal IMC reports as required
14. Ensure high-quality documentation of case records, case reports, and communication with other organizations
15. Ensure appropriate and effective use of CPIMS+ for all case management records and document approvals.
16. Perform other job-related duties as requested by Supervisor.
17. This job description is subject to periodic review and adjustment in order to achieve IMC's goals in Jordan.

Case Management Officer
Key Responsibilities

• Support the planning and implementation of program activities
• Assist in the management of the cash side of the program in Jordan to reach the goals of the program in a timely manner
• help in the planning of the program and schedule of activities including community outreach, registration of beneficiaries, and preparing the charging of beneficiary bank accounts.
• Preparing household visits for the assessment of household conditions used for beneficiary selection. Additionally, coordinate the household visits conducted for follow up
• Maintain a transparent, honest, and supportive communication structure with beneficiaries and their communities
• Work closely with the Project Manager for the development of new projects (including providing support in technical areas such as Education, PSS, Child Protection, Case Management, and other areas of focus)
• Represent Medair externally with partner NGOs and other stakeholders (including in PM absence).
• Influence the organization for (Protection, Inclusion, and safeguarding) SOP and main internal policies and templates.
• Data management, reporting, and creation of ODK surveys
• Maintain and analyze Excel databases for exporting household-level information used for the selection of beneficiaries, reporting, and for monitoring and evaluation
• Track the payment of cash transfers using bank reports and prepare the charges of the next payments
• Prepare reports and up-to-date status of beneficiary selection and payments received, used for official reporting and for use by Medair’s Feedback and Complaints Mechanism operator.
• To use reporting tools such as UNHCR’s RAIS database and Activity Info
• Creation, update, and coordination of ODK forms in Excel used for surveys to beneficiary households
• Adhere to data security and privacy procedures reporting on activities targets, adherence to SOPs, and relevant checks
• Share appropriate information with potential and confirmed beneficiaries and the host community about the case management project and its comprehensive inclusion of thematic areas and be available to answer related questions and concerns.
• Conduct assessment, verification, and follow-up visits with potential and selected families throughout the length of the project.
• Be the main focal point for families in your designated caseload, which includes telephone contact with families or direct visits to their homes, during working hours.
• Support beneficiaries in addressing concrete needs (such as gaining access to public services, gaining awareness, or expanding their support network), either through direct intervention and accompaniment or through in-depth referral to other organizations.
• Identify, understand the services provided by, liaise with and promote linkages to relevant project stakeholders (such as landlords, local CBOs, banks, and public institutions in your area of responsibility) and appropriately call on the collaboration/engagement with these organizations in the management of individual cases, in consultation with the Project Manager and other functional links for this position.

The Center for Victims of Torture (CVT)
Social service department

Psychosocial Services

Main External Linkage
Beneficiaries and their families
The project partners
Other stakeholders/MHPSS service providers in the related field in the project area of implementation

Responsibilities
Responsibility 1: Conduct the initial assessment of the beneficiaries, and respond to the identified needs, by referring internally and externally respecting confidentiality and the right of the beneficiary

Aim: Ensure the beneficiaries receive the receive relevant services based on identified needs

Activities:
•Assess and analyses beneficiaries’ needs (including vulnerabilities) in collaboration with the team
•Assessing all protection issues at individual and family levels in order to be able to refer appropriately
•Case management of beneficiaries linking with the other members of the multidisciplinary team to develop a personalized action plan for each beneficiary, achieving the objectives of this action plan
•Delivering appropriate items, specifically, the discharge kits according to need, following the appropriate process
•Referring beneficiaries to an external partner and monitoring these referrals
•In collaboration with a multidisciplinary team, assess and implement beneficiaries’ discharge from

HI care, according to set internal procedures.

Responsibility 2:
Developing and reinforcing the relationships with international and local non-governmental organizations, community focal points, and any other stakeholders to improve the identification and referral system, with the support of the project officer
Aim: Enhance access to services for vulnerable populations by being proactive in network building and promoting people with disability’s access to basic services

Activities:
•In collaboration with the project officer, identify and regularly contact the focal points to get information about the general situation of the most vulnerable population affected by the Syrian crisis, and especially within the refugee communities
•Develop a good understanding of each NGO focal point’s work, and identify what synergies can activate within the project in order to contribute to the diversity of, and access to services
•Maintaining a flexible system of (internal/external) referrals from focal points to the HI team, while respecting the focal point’s constraints
Responsibility:
Reporting data on beneficiaries’ follow-up and on case management activities

Aim: Ensure up-to-date information on the status of service delivery according to cases and clear planning of work.

Activities:
•Contribute to a qualitative follow-up of the beneficiaries and fill in the follow-up according to the monitoring plan
•Contribute to daily quantitative and qualitative reporting through tools and systems in place and monitoring tools.
•Reporting on other issues as requested by the line manager, providing details and actionable information for improved services

Responsibility 4
Participate in the analysis and reporting of global issues in the refugee population, with a focus on rehabilitation.

Aim: To contribute to the orientation of response by providing relevant and updated information on the evolving context

Activities:
•Participating in formal and informal meetings with the team, qualitative analysis of various issues at individual, family and community level
•Sharing with the team, formally and informal the information you collect regarding actors (humanitarian and development) activities and constraints
•Participating in the report of all relevant issues identified using the tools and the internal system provided