Call for Applications: Director of Safeguarding, Girl Up – Global Remote Leadership Opportunity|Application deadline: September 4, 2026
Girl Up is inviting applications for a senior global leadership opportunity for an experienced safeguarding professional who wants to help create safer, more inclusive, and youth-centered spaces for girls and young people around the world. The organization is recruiting a Director of Safeguarding to lead its global safeguarding strategy and strengthen systems that protect youth, staff, volunteers, partners, and wider community members.
The position is fully remote and offered on a full-time basis, making it an opportunity for an experienced professional interested in working across countries, cultures, and time zones. Applications must be submitted by Friday, September 4, 2026.
About Girl Up
Founded in 2010, Girl Up focuses on developing young leaders who advance gender justice globally. Through training, resources, advocacy, and community-building, the organization supports young people working on issues including education, climate justice, gender-based violence, and reproductive health.
Girl Up has built a global network of more than 430,000 youth leaders across 155 countries and all 50 U.S. states, with an ambition to reach one million girls by 2030.
The organization is fiscally sponsored by the Global Fund for Children, whose approach emphasizes shifting power toward youth-led and locally rooted organizations.
The Director of Safeguarding will therefore play an important role in ensuring that this growing international movement can expand while maintaining strong standards of safety, accountability, wellbeing, and inclusion.
About the Director of Safeguarding Role
The successful candidate will serve as Girl Up’s primary safeguarding expert and will join its Extended Leadership Team. The role involves providing strategic advice to senior leadership while also developing practical systems that can be implemented throughout the organization’s global network.
A major focus will be creating a safeguarding culture that is protective without being unnecessarily restrictive. Girl Up is particularly interested in approaches that balance accountability and care, protection and freedom, and structure and flexibility.
The Director will work closely with program, operations, partnerships, and regional teams to ensure safeguarding is integrated into organizational planning, events, partnerships, youth engagement, and everyday operations.
Key Responsibilities
The Director will lead the development and continuous improvement of Girl Up’s safeguarding framework. This includes policies, codes of conduct, reporting mechanisms, response procedures, and risk-management tools.
The position will also involve developing safeguarding protocols for online activities, including social media and networking platforms, which are particularly important for an organization working with a large global youth community.
Another major responsibility will be incident response and risk management. The Director will serve as the primary contact for safeguarding concerns and will oversee processes involving intake, assessment, documentation, escalation, and response.
Where necessary, the Director may coordinate with legal counsel, investigators, Global Fund for Children colleagues, and partner organizations.
Confidentiality, dignity, safety, and accountability will be central considerations when handling safeguarding matters.
Training, Capacity Building and Learning
The role goes beyond responding to safeguarding incidents. The Director will also help build organizational capacity and ensure safeguarding becomes part of everyday practice.
Responsibilities include developing and delivering safeguarding training for staff, youth leaders, volunteers, funders, partners, and other stakeholders.
The successful candidate will also provide coaching and guidance to managers and staff dealing with complex safeguarding situations.
They will contribute to assessments, audits, compliance reviews, and safeguarding reports, using lessons learned to strengthen organizational systems and practices.
Who Should Apply?
This is a senior-level position requiring substantial professional experience.
Girl Up is seeking candidates with approximately 10–15 or more years of experience in areas such as safeguarding, child protection, prevention of sexual exploitation and abuse, gender-based violence prevention, youth protection, or related fields.
Applicants should have demonstrated experience in:
- Designing and implementing safeguarding systems
- Developing policies and procedures
- Managing safeguarding concerns and investigations
- Leading incident-response processes
- Managing and supervising teams
- Delivering training and organizational capacity building
- Working with international or multicultural organizations
- Supporting organizations through growth or organizational change
- Managing sensitive information with discretion and sound judgment
Excellent written and verbal communication skills are also required. Fluency in a language other than English is considered an advantage.
An Opportunity for Global Impact
This position could be particularly attractive to professionals who want their safeguarding expertise to contribute directly to youth leadership and gender justice.
The successful candidate will help ensure that young people can participate, organize, advocate, and lead in environments where their safety and wellbeing are taken seriously.
Girl Up emphasizes values including being youth-centered, global, feminist, and decolonizing. Candidates are therefore expected to demonstrate a commitment to equity, inclusion, cultural responsiveness, and continuous learning.
The organization also encourages applications from people with diverse backgrounds and experiences, including individuals from underrepresented groups and persons with disabilities.
Remote Work and Compensation
The position is remote and full-time. Compensation will vary according to the candidate’s location and Girl Up’s global reward structure.
The organization states that it aims to offer competitive local compensation and provides a range of employee benefits in accordance with applicable policies and national laws. Flexible working arrangements and staff wellbeing are also highlighted as important elements of its workplace culture.
How to Apply
Professionals interested in this opportunity should prepare a strong application demonstrating their senior safeguarding experience, leadership abilities, international experience, and understanding of youth-centered safeguarding.
The application deadline is September 4, 2026.
This is a significant opportunity for an experienced safeguarding leader to help shape systems that support the safety, dignity, wellbeing, and participation of hundreds of thousands of young people worldwide.
If you have extensive safeguarding or child-protection leadership experience and are passionate about creating safer spaces for young people, this remote global role could be worth exploring.
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Disclaimer: Remote Job Opportunities (RJO) is not the organization offering this opportunity. For any inquiries, please contact the responsible organization directly. Please do not send your applications to RJO, as we are unable to process them. Due to the high volume of emails we receive daily, we may not be able to respond to all inquiries. Thank you for your understanding.
