Home-based (February 2023 - Jan 2024) full-time consultancy: USupport Project Consultant with UNICEF ECARO section of Adolescent Development and Participation (ADAP)

Contract

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UNICEF works in some of the world’s toughest places, to reach the world’s most disadvantaged children. To save their lives. To defend their rights. To help them fulfill their potential.

Across 190 countries and territories, we work for every child, everywhere, every day, to build a better world for everyone.

And we never give up.

For every child, hope

The purpose of this consultancy is to provide overall coordination to the USupport project which aims to increase access to quality MHPSS care and support for adolescents and young people in the Europe and Central Asia region. The consultant will work under the supervision of the UNICEF Europe and Central Asia Regional Office (ECARO) Adolescent Development and Participation (ADAP) team and will support various phases of project implementation, including design-build-test-learn agile production cycle, promotion, MVP launch, roll-out and subsequent scale-up to new countries.

How can you make a difference?

The UNICEF ECARO seeks a Project Coordinator to provide overall coordination to the USupport project. He/she will also work in close collaboration with UNICEF country/regional teams and technical and non-profit partner organizations. This is an individual consultancy contract to work remotely full-time the next 11.5 months.

Adolescents today are facing a compounding mental health crisis: more young people than ever are struggling with anxiety, depression, and other negative emotions. 50% of all mental health conditions start by age 14 and 75% by age 24. Most cases are undetected and untreated.

The USupport platform aims to make psychosocial support counselling more affordable, timely, inclusive, and accessible to all adolescents and young people. It will launch a digital platform for on-demand psychosocial support services in ECAR.

The USupport product vision, in summary, is to increase:

• access to psychosocial support for adolescents and youth by meeting them where they are; providing them with opportunities to connect with peer and professional counsellors, offering flexible payment options, fast response times, etc;
• increase demand for quality MHPSS, reduce barriers to care-seeking, improve information and uptake of services by young people;
• increase quality of care through professional and vetted counsellors that adolescents can trust;
• increase engagement of young people with lived experiences in programme design and in developing approaches/methodologies that would empower them as actors in their own care (by providing access to eMH tools such as self-assessments, self-monitoring etc.)
• improve integration between the online MHPSS services and the local care system supported by the Ministry of Health, national MH professional associations and local service providers through improved collaboration with local care providers (e.g. youth friendly health services, student policlinics) and exploring future integration with the national health insurance schemes.

The USupport approach aims to bring a paradigm shift in how adolescents receive psychosocial support for the most common and prevalent behavioral and development problems covering key areas of emotional health and well-being, and compromised peer and family relations.

The approach will blend social media engagement, online counselling tools for MHPSS of adolescents combined with advocacy with governments, national and international development partners to create new frameworks for adolescent e-mental health and support young people in accessing care and improving self-management.

The USupport project aims to ensure that there are strong user benefits for choosing the USupport platform; including, for example: ease of use, privacy and security, response time, affordability, quality online counselling through a variety of options including texting, phone calls and video conferencing.

The UNICEF Regional Office for Europe and Central Asia is working with international partners and partners at country level in Kazakhstan and other selected countries to launch the USupport platform for the provision of services to adolescents and young people in the Region.

Key responsibilities/outputs:

Overall coordination of the USupport project:

• Work closely within internal cross-functional team which includes UNICEF staff members (ADAP, T4D, Office of Innovation, Legal, Data Protection, Child Protection, Communications), Technical Product Manager, e-Mental Health Expert, M&E and Youth Engagement Consultants to coordinate the work of the team and meet project objectives throughout the process of developing and rolling out the USupport platform (including website and app design-build-test-learn agile production cycle).
• Facilitate and document action items from weekly housekeeping meetings and daily-standups with IT contractor and UNICEF team in collaboration with the Technical Product Manager
• Collaborate closely with the IT company and Technical Product Manager to design and test the functionality of the platform based on research and analysis. Document key findings from the development process. Provide feedback to UX designs on Figma. Coordinate with the UX writer on the USupport website and mobile app.
• Facilitate knowledge management on Notion and Jira for internal team and Sharepoint for external audience
• In collaboration with the Technical Product Manager, update project implementation plan. Update RACI matrix throughout the new phases of the project
• In collaboration with ADAP, identify and review key content materials on the USupport platform.
• In close collaboration with the Youth Engagement Consultant and the USupport team, understand how the app needs to be positioned, framed and branded in order to have impact and relevance to young people representing different groups. Collaborate with the Marketing partner to achieve Promotional campaign objectives
• In collaboration with M&E Consultant, collect input for M&E framework from to monitor the status and process of the platform development
• In collaboration with the team, document key risk areas and risk mitigation strategies in Risk Assessment matrix
• Document project learnings in collaboration with the Office of Innovation for Mental Health Innovations Portfolio
• In collaboration with the Partnerships Team, support the platform promotion campaign and development of presentations for fundraising

Coordination and support to frontline COs implementing USupport and other e-mental health projects:

• Pilot USupport launch in Kazakhstan CO: collaborate closely with Kazakhstan CO ADAP, Communications, Health, Child Protection, Partnerships teams and care providers advisory and youth advisory groups on USupport pilot implementation
• Interim USupport launch in Poland CO as part of the humanitarian response: collaborate with Poland CO ADAP, MHPSS, U-Report, SBC, health focal points, care providers advisory and youth advisory groups on content and digital mental health instruments
• Monitor and review progress of Serbia Country Office, Bulgaria CO, Belarus CO and other COs that are in the process of developing e-mental health initiatives focussed on young people
• In collaboration with ADAP, Technical Product Manager, e-Mental Health Expert and a designer, support the development of deployment kit to ensure scale-up to other COs

Support in preparation for the Regional e-Mental Health Learning Collaborative:

• In collaboration with the e-Mental Health expert and ADAP, support preparation for Regional e-Mental Health Learning collaborative meetings
• Support a strong knowledge management function for the project (e.g. by preparing information materials, updates and briefing notes related to the various aspects of the project, including those related to progress in project development, onboarding of workforce, addressing policy/legal aspects, and other aspects related to overall management, challenges and solutions encountered in the project.
• Support documentation and sharing of best practices in e-Mental Health with UNICEF within the regional SharePoint knowledge-exchange site to facilitate inter-country learning

Support for development of supportive policy environment to ensure viability of online platform:

• In collaboration with ADAP and T4D, identify and document key policy issues to be addressed (e.g. data protection, privacy, confidentiality)
• In collaboration with ADAP, identify and document key financing issues to be addressed (e.g. payment of online counsellors and service providers through national MOH schemes)
• In collaboration with ADAP, identify and document key enabling environment issues (e.g. legal, parental consent, access to services etc.)

Work Assignment Overview/Tasks/Milestone:

Overall coordination of the USupport project

• Work closely within internal cross-functional team which includes UNICEF staff members (ADAP, T4D, Office of Innovation, Legal, Data Protection, Child Protection), Technical Product Manager, e-Mental Health Expert, M&E and Youth Engagement Consultants to meet project objectives throughout the website and app design-build-test-learn agile production cycle to insure the timely delivery of all project related tasks.
• Facilitate and document action items from weekly housekeeping meetings and daily-standups with IT contractor and UNICEF team in collaboration with the Technical Product Manager with deliverance of reports, minutes and action points as required.
• Facilitate knowledge management on Notion and Jira for internal team and Sharepoint for external audience to make the reports available for the team use at any time.
• In collaboration with the Technical Product Manager, update project implementation plan. Update RACI matrix throughout the new phases of the project.
• In collaboration with ADAP, identify and review key content materials on the USupport platform for the use by the pilot countries as necessary.
• In collaboration with M&E Consultant, collect input for M&E framework to monitor the status and process of the platform development at the stage of planning, testing and piloting.
• In collaboration with the team, document key risk areas and risk mitigation strategies in Risk Assessment matrix
• Document project learnings in collaboration with the Office of Innovation for Mental Health Innovations Portfolio
• In collaboration with the Partnerships Team, support the development of presentations for fundraising including concept notes, presentations, briefing brochures and other assets as necessary.

Feb 2023 – Jan 2024

• Collaborate closely with the IT company and Technical Product Manager to design and test the functionality of the platform based on research and analysis. Document key findings from the development process. Provide feedback to UX designs on Figma. Coordinate with the UX writer on the USupport website and mobile app.

Feb 2023 –

Mar 2023

• In close collaboration with the Youth Engagement Consultant and the USupport team, understand how the app needs to be positioned, framed and branded in order to have impact and relevance to young people representing different groups. Collaborate with the Marketing partner to achieve Promotional campaign objectives. Results to be reflected in the monthly report.

Mar 2023 – Jan 2024

Coordination and support to frontline COs implementing USupport and other e-mental health projects:

• Pilot USupport launch in Kazakhstan CO: collaborate closely with Kazakhstan CO ADAP, Communications, Health, Child Protection, Partnership teams and care providers advisory and youth advisory groups on USupport pilot implementation

Feb 2023 – Mar 2023

• Interim USupport launch in Poland CO as part of the humanitarian response: collaborate with Poland CO ADAP, MHPSS, U-Report, SBC focal points, care providers advisory and youth advisory groups on content and digital mental health instruments. Provide regular updates on progress and challenges to the USupport team.

Feb 2023 – Mar 2023

• Monitor and review progress of Serbia CO, Bulgaria CO, Belarus CO and other COs on e-mental health initiatives. Provide regular updates on progress and challenges to the USupport team.

Feb 2023 – Jan 2024

• In collaboration with ADAP and a designer, support the development of deployment kit to ensure scale-up to other Cos.

Mar 2023 – Aug 2023

Support in preparation for the Regional e-Mental Health Learning Collaborative:

• In collaboration with the e-Mental Health expert and ADAP, support preparation for Regional e-Mental Health Learning collaborative meetings (prepare draft presentation for the review by the USupport team).
• Support a strong knowledge management for the project by documenting key aspects and developing briefing notes and updates on progress, and on key challenges and critical issues and solutions.

Feb 2023 – Jan 2024

• Share best practices in e-Mental Health with UNICEF within the regional SharePoint knowledge-exchange site to facilitate inter-country learning

Feb 2023 – Jan 2024

Support for development of supportive policy environment to ensure viability of online platform:

• In collaboration with ADAP and T4D, identify and document key policy issues to be addressed (e.g. data protection, privacy, confidentiality)
• In collaboration with ADAP, identify and document key financing issues to be addressed (e.g. payment of online counsellors and service providers through national MOH schemes)
• In collaboration with ADAP, identify and document key enabling environment issues (e.g. legal, parental consent, access to services etc.)

Feb 2023 – Jan 2024

To qualify as an advocate for every child you will have…

• A requirement of minimum bachelor’s degree in social sciences and/or Technology for Development, Public Health, Project Management, etc. Focus on psychology and technology studies will be an asset.
• A minimum of 5 years of relevant professional experience in social development planning and management with focus on adolescent/youth development and MHPSS related areas is required.

• Work experience in South/East Europe, the Caucasus, and/or Central Asia would be an asset.

  • Ability to plan and manage, e.g. by summarising meeting decisions and highlighting key tasks, issues and people responsible with due dates.

  • Must have a passion for project coordination and following up on pending items with the team and partners.

  • Excellent written and verbal skills in English; knowledge of another language spoken in the ECA region would be an asset.

  • Adaptable and collaborative working stype with good communication and interpersonal skills capable of maintaining strong relationships.

  • Ability and patience to navigate through administrative processes.

  Developing country work experience and/or familiarity with emergency is considered an asset.

• Fluency in English is required. Knowledge of another official UN language (Arabic, Chinese, French, Russian or Spanish) or a local language is an asset.

For every Child, you demonstrate…

UNICEF's values of Care, Respect, Integrity, Trust, Accountability, and Sustainability (CRITAS).

To view our competency framework, please visit here.

UNICEF is here to serve the world’s most disadvantaged children and our global workforce must reflect the diversity of those children. The UNICEF family is committed to include everyone, irrespective of their race/ethnicity, age, disability, gender identity, sexual orientation, religion, nationality, socio-economic background, or any other personal characteristic.

UNICEF offers reasonable accommodation for consultants/individual contractors with disabilities. This may include, for example, accessible software, travel assistance for missions or personal attendants. We encourage you to disclose your disability during your application in case you need reasonable accommodation during the selection process and afterwards in your assignment.

UNICEF has a zero-tolerance policy on conduct that is incompatible with the aims and objectives of the United Nations and UNICEF, including sexual exploitation and abuse, sexual harassment, abuse of authority and discrimination. UNICEF also adheres to strict child safeguarding principles. All selected candidates will be expected to adhere to these standards and principles and will therefore undergo rigorous reference and background checks. Background checks will include the verification of academic credential(s) and employment history. Selected candidates may be required to provide additional information to conduct a background check.

Remarks:

Only shortlisted candidates will be contacted and advance to the next stage of the selection process.

Individuals engaged under a consultancy or individual contract will not be considered “staff members” under the Staff Regulations and Rules of the United Nations and UNICEF’s policies and procedures, and will not be entitled to benefits provided therein (such as leave entitlements and medical insurance coverage). Their conditions of service will be governed by their contract and the General Conditions of Contracts for the Services of Consultants and Individual Contractors. Consultants and individual contractors are responsible for determining their tax liabilities and for the payment of any taxes and/or duties, in accordance with local or other applicable laws.

The selected candidate is solely responsible to ensure that the visa (applicable) and health insurance required to perform the duties of the contract are valid for the entire period of the contract. Selected candidates are subject to confirmation of fully-vaccinated status against SARS-CoV-2 (Covid-19) with a World Health Organization (WHO)-endorsed vaccine, which must be met prior to taking up the assignment. It does not apply to consultants who will work remotely and are not expected to work on or visit UNICEF premises, programme delivery locations or directly interact with communities UNICEF works with, nor to travel to perform functions for UNICEF for the duration of their consultancy contracts.