Referrals Assistant

All NRC employees are expected to work in accordance with the organisation’s core values: dedication, innovation, inclusivity and accountability. These attitudes and beliefs shall guide our actions and relationships.

1. Role and responsibilities

The Referrals assistant will be primarily responsible for sending and receiving referrals internally to other programmes or externally to specialized agencies, in addition to maintaining a proper follow up on the cases referred, whether it is referred externally to specialized agencies or internally within the organization.  They will support field staff to ensure an appropriate response to protection cases, in line with internal procedures and guidelines.

NRC programmes have designated programme focal points/assistants to handle referrals to and from different agencies within their duty stations. Referrals vary depending on the type of case and sector. For the purpose of this ToR there are two types of referrals:

• Internal Referrals between programmes
• External Referrals to specialized agencies and referral partners

Generic responsibilities

1. Send referrals to other Programmes or designated agencies, in line with NRC’s procedures and guidelines.
2. Receive, support and process cases referred by other programmes or designated agencies, in line with NRC’s procedures and guidelines.
3. Maintain proper follow up on cases referred to other programmes or other designated agencies, in line with NRC’s procedures and guidelines.
4. Maintain an updated referral database/tracking sheet, and ensure all steps taken are documented in a confidential and safe manner, in coordination with MEAL (Monitoring, Evaluation, Analysis, and Learning) unit, Information Management unit and Protection Coordinator.
5. Build up and maintain good working relationships with specialised agencies in their areas of operation and ensure that updated referral pathway is well-respected and followed in the relevant duty station, in line with NRC’s procedures and guidelines.
6. Maintain an up-to-date version of map of services tool, and share it with field staff.
7. Source and collect information materials to be distributed among front liners (leaflets, posters, bulletin boards, radio broadcasts and others) according to the needs.

Specific responsibilities

• Ensure programme staff provide transparent and accurate information about available services, and obtain beneficiaries’ informed consent and/or assent before referring the case.
• Commit to providing a feedback to the referring programmes or other designated agencies, in line with NRC’s procedures and guidelines.
• Conduct regular analysis of referral workload within the programme, and update programme staff on the latest findings, under the support of the Protection Advisor, Protection Coordinator and Project Managers.
• Commit to finalizing data entry to the Referral Database, by the end of each month or according to other internal deadlines agreed with the Protection Advisor and Coordinator and/or Project Manager.
• Report or raise major challenges or concerns related to referrals, to the Protection Advisor, Protection Coordinator and Project Managers.
• Attend internal programme Referral Focal Points’ meetings facilitated by the Protection Team.

Critical interfaces

By interfaces, NRC means processes and projects that are interlinked with other departments/units or persons. Relevant interfaces for this position are:

• Protection Advisor
• Protection Coordinator
• Programme Staff
• MEAL unit
• External organisations and agencies

NRC referral focal point/assistant will receive support and technical guidance from Protection Advisor, Protection Coordinator and IM staff. This includes referral focal points meetings in each duty station to discuss challenges and best practices. Meetings will be used to draw any trends in the field and share best practices, challenges and lessons learnt.

2. Competencies

Professional competencies

• Good networking and connection building skills
• Good communication skills, oral and written
• Good working relationships with internal staff across different departments
• Good knowledge of the assigned services and stakeholders.
• Relevant experience
• Good level of computer literacy
• Good understanding of protection principles and referral systems

•     Knowledge of the humanitarian context in Lebanon.

•     Fluent Arabic and English, both written and spoken