Mental Health and Psychosocial Support National Specialist

Volunteering Medical & Health Crisis & Emergency Response

Overview

Support MHPSS programming for children and families affected by conflict.

You have:

• A minimum of 3 years of relevant and proven experiences in MHPSS programming and leading child protection program in development/humanitarian context.
• Experience in child-focused and community-based MHPSS using the IASC MHPSS guidelines and relevant IASC endorsed and promoted tools.
• Experience in delivering capacity building trainings, coaching and self-care, strengthening various duty bearers’ understanding and implementation of MHPSS.
• Culturally sensitive and able to adapt to difficult contexts.

Contract

This is a UNV contract. More about UNV contracts.

Non-Family Duty Station

Under the direct supervision of Child Protection officer, Child Protection Section, the national UN Volunteer will carry out the following tasks:

MHPSS (Mental Health and Psychosocial Support) programming under Child Protection

Strengthening capacity of UNICEF partners on MHPSS, specifically to promote metal health wellbeing of children, adolescents and caregivers who are impacted by the prolonged armed conflict.

• Based on the findings from the impact assessment, contribute to the design and refinement of MHPSS program interventions for UNICEF partners. Ensure interventions are contextually appropriate and aligned with UNICEF and IASC MHPSS guidelines.

• Establish and support the implementation of clear quality standards and minimum service requirements for MHPSS programming. Conduct regular monitoring and oversight mechanisms to ensure adherence to quality standards. Systematically capture, analyze on service quality to inform program improvement.

• Provide technical inputs to the development of age and audience- appropriate MHPSS key messages for children, adolescents, youth, parents and caregivers.

• Support the finalization of parenting manual, ensuring alignment with positive parenting principles and MHPSS best practices. Develop and adapt practical coping strategies and tools for parents and caregivers to manage stress, strengthen caregiving capacity and support child wellbeing. Work closely with Education sector to ensure existing resources on parenting are coordinated in the manual.

• Design and facilitate self-care and wellbeing sessions for UNICEF colleagues and partners as needed, to promote resilience and prevent burnout.

• Develop practical monitoring tools, checklist to monitor performance with strong emphasis on service quality. Ensure mechanisms are placed to collect and use feedback from children, parents and caregivers to improve MHPSS services and accountability.

• Develop, maintain and regularly update MHPSS service mapping to strengthen referrals and effective use of existing services and receive feedback from the partners on the services received.

• Work closely with Child Protection team and engage with other program sectors and UN agencies to ensure MHPSS services for children and caregivers are well-coordinated and complementary. Promote integration of MHPSS across sectors such as education, WASH, health and nutrition and social protection

• Support in organizing regular UNICEF MHPSS focal point meetings and promote knowledge sharing.

Expected Results

• Contributed to the design and refinement of MHPSS program interventions based on the findings from impact assessment.

• MHPSS interventions are systematically integrated across project design, implementation, monitoring, and evaluation processes.

• Strengthened capacity of UNICEF staff and partners to deliver high-quality MHPSS services reflecting the needs of children and families.

• Improved coordination of MHPSS services across UNICEF program sectors to ensure a holistic and integrated approach.

• Parenting manual finalized and training provided for UNICEF partners.

• Organized and actively participated in MHPSS focal point meetings to support information sharing and program alignment.

• MHPSS resource mapping is available for staff and partners.

• Contributed in developing quality MHPSS key massages in consultation with child protection colleagues and partners.

☒ Accountability ☒ Adaptability and Flexibility ☒ Building Trust ☒ Client Orientation ☒ Commitment and Motivation ☒ Commitment to Continuous Learning ☒ Communication ☒ Creativity ☒ Empowering Others ☒ Ethics and Values ☒ Integrity ☒ Judgement and Decision-making ☒ Knowledge Sharing ☒ Planning and Organizing ☒ Professionalism ☒ Respect for Diversity ☒ Self-Management ☒ Technological Awareness ☒ Working in Teams

• A minimum of 3 years of relevant and proven experiences in MHPSS programming and leading child protection program in development/ humanitarian context.

• Experience in child-focused and community-based MHPSS using the IASC MHPSS guidelines and relevant IASC endorsed and promoted tools

• Experience in delivering capacity building trainings, coaching and self-care, strengthening various duty bearers’ understanding and implementation of MHPSS.

• Culturally sensitive and able to adapt to difficult contexts

Myanmar is second largest country in terms of land area after Indonesia in the South East Asia Region. It has population of over 54 million living across seven States and Seven Regions plus Union Territory, where all central government departments are located. On 1 February 2021, following the Myanmar Military took over a state of emergency was declared. Following the takeover, the security situation in the country worsened, leading to a “Level 2” emergency designation and in keeping with the relevant protocols triggering the activation of cluster system to respond to the worsening humanitarian situation. Increased security measures due to the deteriorating security situation, has led to many-fold increase in internally displaced persons (IDP) to more than 1,703,900 from 328,000 before February 2021.

The country has since experienced a protracted humanitarian situation characterised by sub-optimal access to health services, increasing malnutrition due to deteriorating food security situation and worsening protection risks including risks to mine and other explosive remnants of war injuries. Apart from this, education services access has deteriorated, and the COVID-19 pandemic induced restrictions led to an almost continuous nationwide school closure from March 2020. The closures left over 12 million school aged children in Myanmar with limited access to materials for their learning and overall well-being, including education, mental health and psycho-social support and Covid-19 prevention materials. Following the military takeover in February 2021 the humanitarian crisis further worsened, and other dynamics such as an increasingly difficult economic situation continue, high inflation leading to reduced purchasing power of the local currency and access to markets. Generally, this disproportionately affected children and other vulnerable persons’ access to health, nutritious foods, protection, and education services. In this context, the humanitarian wide support needs to be strengthened, and this includes information management functions to monitor the situation, evaluate response progress as per the humanitarian response plans targets and activities, promote advocacy and evidence-based program response.

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Potential interview questions

Added 4 months ago - Updated 3 months ago - Source: unv.org