National Consultancy - Staff Counsellor

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UNICEF - United Nations Children's Fund

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Application deadline 1 year ago: Tuesday 24 Jan 2023 at 23:55 UTC

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Contract

This is a Consultancy contract. More about Consultancy contracts.

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, resilience.

Please access UNICEF Sierra Leone information here

How can you make a difference?

Sierra Leone has undergone series of disasters in the past few years, ranging from the past civil war to Ebola, flooding, mudslide and COVID-19, which, to a great extent has affected the mental health of staff/personnel and their dependents. As part of UNICEF strategy of ensuring work life balance and taking care of the whole person, we seek the services of a consultant Staff Counsellor to provide psychosocial counselling services to staff/personnel. The consultant counsellor will be responsible for the overall assessment of the psychological needs of staff members with the aim of preparing them mentally and building their resilience to manage and cope with stress, while remaining productive in their work. The Staff Counsellor will work closely with the Regional Staff Counsellor to seek clarification and support as well as provide feedback.

Major duties and responsibilities

Facilitating effective stress management interventions for all staff/personnel addressing work-related stress, and critical incidents.

The staff counsellor will be responsible for providing counselling services one day per week, which involves, but is not limited to the following: -

Monitors environmental factors that could lead to stress, with particular focus on stress related to critical incidents including low staff morale and advises Management on appropriate measures to be taken.

  • Plan, develop and implement stress management training for all staff/personnel of the office.
  • Performs Psychological first aid (e.g., individual and/or group) when required.
  • Facilitating the treatment of psychiatric disorders primarily through referrals, including to the medical services division, and through guidance to supervisors and senior management.

Providing staff and dependents with individual and/or group counselling (i.e., assessment, short term intervention, referral) following self-referral or referral.

  • Identify competent local resources for referrals whenever necessary.
  • Contacting the affected staff member by e-mail(s) or phone offering information about typical stress reactions, disorders, support, and referral information.
  • Recommending and arranging for individual and/ or group follow-up support to staff/personnel and their dependents.

Methodology and Technical Approach

The assignment will involve meeting with staff/personnel of the office and their dependents to identify specific issues affecting them. The consultant is expected to communicate general issues as reported by staff/personnel and proffer solutions to management.

Specific Objectives, Deliverables, and timeline

Assessment of sources of difficulties leading to work related stress and chronic incident stress. Deliverable: Weekly report of work-related issues as reported by staff members submitted to the HR Manager. Timeline: Throughout the consultancy

Advise on strategies to improve interpersonal relations at work and build resilience. Deliverable: Provide prompt support to affected Staff/Personnel. Timeline: Throughout the consultancy

Training on basic mental health knowledge using WHOs mhGAP. Deliverable: Trainings conducted. Timeline: Quarterly.

Training on stress management, self-care and wellbeing in groups. Deliverable: Trainings conducted. Timeline: Quarterly

Provide monthly progress reports. Deliverable: All major issues, as observed during engagement with staff/personnel and dependents reported. Timeline: Monthly

Final evaluation report. Timeline: At the end of the consultancy

Please see attached ToR for detailed information. Terms of Reference - Staff Counsellor 2023_Final updated.pdf

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

  • Advanced University degree required in counselling, clinical psychology, or related mental health profession.
  • Knowledge and experience in staff support and traumatic and critical incident stress, as well as mental health, cross cultural communications, counselling, and related areas.
  • Fluency in English is required.

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.

Added 1 year ago - Updated 1 year ago - Source: unicef.org