Staff Counsellor (P-3), (TA) – 364 Days, ECARO o/p Budapest - Hungary

Mid Senior Human Resources Crisis & Emergency Response

Overview

Provide psychosocial support to UNICEF staff in ECAR region during the Ukraine crisis.

You have:

• An Advanced University Degree (Master’s) in counseling, clinical psychology, organizational psychology, or a field related to mental health is a minimum requirement.
• Certification or country specific licensure authorizing the incumbent to deliver mental health services is considered an asset.
• A minimum of five (5) years of professional work experience – among which three at international level in psychological counselling, training skills, with special emphasis on managing critical incident stress is required.
• Additional training experience in a broad range of related fields, such as alcohol/substance abuse, stress management, critical incident stress, and cross-cultural communication would be an asset.
• Work experience with developing and delivering online and face-to-face workshops and webinars on a range of well-being and mental health is desirable.
• Experience either working in a hardship location or providing counselling services to staff working under very difficult and insecure environments is an asset.
• Experience in United Nations System or international development/humanitarian aid sector is desirable.
• Knowledge of UN/UNICEF Staff Well Being policies, procedures, tools and systems is an asset.
• Demonstrated ability to work in a multi-cultural environment.
• Demonstrated ability to plan, organize, prioritize, and deliver under pressure is a requisite.
• Proficiency in English, written and verbal, is required. Working knowledge of Russian is desirable. Knowledge of another official UN Language (Arabic, Chinese, French, or Spanish) and/or regional language as needed to perform the role is an asset.

Contract

This is a P-3 contract. This kind of contract is known as Professional and Director staff. It is normally internationally recruited only. It's a staff contract. It usually requires 5 years of experience, depending on education. More about P-3 contracts and their salaries.

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

Significant escalation of the armed conflict in Ukraine has resulted in increased humanitarian needs and population displacement within and outside of the country. The situation is rapidly evolving; and hostilities have led to destruction of key infrastructure and disruption of basic social services and economic activity. A number of children have been caught in the crossfire and have been injured and killed, highlighting the extremely vulnerable situation children are in. The conflict in Ukraine poses an immediate and growing threat to the lives and well-being of the country’s 7.5 million children.

UNICEF is rapidly scaling up its multi-sectoral response to the increasing humanitarian needs in Ukraine and among refugees in neighboring countries. Ensuring the protection and well-being of women and children is central to UNICEF's response efforts. Multi-purpose cash transfers will be undertaken to support vulnerable households with children. UNICEF will also provide safe water, sanitation, and hygiene, as well as the resumption of primary health care and nutrition services and will work to enroll displaced children in local education programmes.

The protracted armed conflict, widespread displacement, and over-stretched national systems and services will leave thousands of children in need of humanitarian assistance. To support the humanitarian response, Operations and Human Resources scale-up is required to provide dedicated technical support and oversight to the affected countries, in addition to providing quality assurance, and support to the Programmatic scale-up to respond to the rapidly multiplying Humanitarian needs.

Within this context, the key objectives of the ECAR wellbeing strategy are to mitigate the impact of chronic stress on staff, raise awareness about resiliency, trauma, stress and stress management, facilitate the provision of assistance to staff/family experiencing trauma and/or work related and/or personal problems, facilitate the provision of immediate support following a traumatic incident, and promote social support and other strategies aimed at improving the overall wellbeing of UNICEF staff in ECAR.

How can you make a difference?

The Staff Counselling Unit is committed to the promotion of psychological health and wellbeing with the goal of building the resilience of staff so that they can continue to be productive in order to meet the mandate of the organization. This is accomplished through the provision of counselling services to staff members and their dependents and by identifying and addressing psychological risk factors in the workplace. ECA region has recently scaled up the response significantly due to the Ukraine crisis, which continues to impact many lives, including our staff. The work will be done from the preventative and curative perspective at the individual, team and organizational levels.

Under the supervision of the Regional Staff Counsellor (P4), the Staff Counsellor (P3) TA will provide support to staff and collaborate with Country Management Teams, Emergency Coordinators, HR, Staff Association, Peer Support Volunteers (PSVs), the UN Medical Clinic and UN Staff Counsellors. This post is part of the Regional office but with regional remit and thus frequent remote support with possible field missions to the designated countries of coverage will be required. This will include:

1. Preventative and protective psychosocial support: • Facilitate the provision of effective psychosocial support to managers and individual staff prioritizing emergency locations with the aim to mitigating stress and increasing protective factors. • Provide a safe and confidential environment where staff members are able to address professional and personal problems, either individually or in groups (modality: assessment, short-term intervention, referral). • Provide support and advice to the leadership and managers in offices on healthy work practices and approaches on how to effectively support staff and encourage resilience. Recommend suitable staff support strategies to managers during and following emergencies and other crises. • Deliver preventative psychoeducational programmes/training to address systemic issues and recurrent problems within teams and offices; develop and deliver tailored workshops and webinars for staff; raise awareness on common mental health themes and act as an advocate for anti-stigma programming. • Provide pre/post-deployment briefings to new staff • Develop a creative system to build a network of external mental health providers available to provide services to staff. • Coordinate the Peer Support Volunteer (PSV) Programme for the country offices.

2. Provide Critical Incident Stress Management to groups and/or individual staff following critical incidents:

A holistic approach to critical incident management is used and may include services such as practical support, psychoeducation, psychological first aid, strategic advice to leadership, family support and individual or group interventions. The Staff Counsellor will be responsible for: • Contacting the affected staff member(s) and offering information about typical stress reactions, support and referral information. • Facilitating appropriate traumatic stress interventions, following a critical incident or traumatic event. • Recommending and arranging for individual and/or group follow-up support to staff and their dependents. • Regular follow-up contact and visits to staff in field offices. • Coordination with UNDSS counsellors, agency counsellors and PSVs, to ensure the provision of adequate psychosocial support during emergencies.

3. Monitoring and oversight:

• Providing on a regular basis statistics and trends on issues related to staff well-being, whilst maintaining confidentiality. • Alert the Regional Staff Counsellor and/or Country Office management team on trends that may be of concern in offices or offices requiring targeted support or managerial intervention. • Capture lessons learnt and best practices for dissemination as appropriate.

4. Other:

• Undertake regular travels to the countries under coverage as per the Regional wellbeing strategy and demands from the country offices. • Identify and recommend prevention measures for systemic issues and trends. • Facilitate interface with the various services and resources of the organization. • Ensure the adherence to the professional standards of the UNSSCG as well as the Code of Ethics for UN Staff Counsellors.

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

• An Advanced University Degree (Master’s) in counselling, clinical psychology, organizational psychology or a field related to mental health is a minimum requirement.
• Certification or country specific licensure authorizing the incumbent to deliver mental health services is considered an asset.
• A minimum of five (5) years of professional work experience – among which three at international level in psychological counselling, training skills, with special emphasis on managing critical incident stress is required.
• Additional training experience in a broad range of related fields, such as alcohol/substance abuse, stress management, critical incident stress and cross-cultural communication would be an asset.
• Work experience with developing and delivering online and face-to-face workshops and webinars on a range of well-being and mental health is desirable.
• Experience either working in a hardship location or providing counselling services to staff working under very difficult and insecure environments is an asset.
• Experience in United Nations System or international development/humanitarian aid sector is desirable.
• Knowledge of UN/UNICEF Staff Well Being policies, procedures, tools and systems is an asset.
• Demonstrated ability to work in a multi-cultural environment.
• Demonstrated ability to plan, organize, prioritize, and deliver under pressure is a requisite.
• Proficiency in English, written and verbal, is required. Working knowledge of Russian is desirable. Knowledge of another official UN Language (Arabic, Chinese, French, or Spanish) and/or regional language as needed to perform the role is an asset.

For every Child, you demonstrate…

UNICEF's values of Care, Respect, Integrity, Trust, Accountability and Sustainability (CRITAS) underpin everything we do and how we do it. Get acquainted with Our Values Charter: https://uni.cf/UNICEFValues

The UNICEF competencies required for this post are:

Demonstrates Self Awareness and Ethical Awareness (1) Works Collaboratively with others (1) Builds and Maintains Partnerships (1) Innovates and Embraces Change (1) Thinks and Acts Strategically (1) Drive to achieve impactful results (1) Manages ambiguity and complexity (1)

Familiarize yourself with our competency framework and its different levels: here.

UNICEF is committed to diversity and inclusion within its workforce, and encourages all candidates, irrespective of gender, nationality, religious and ethnic backgrounds, including persons living with disabilities, to apply to become a part of the organization.

We offer a wide range of benefits to our staff, including paid parental leave, breastfeeding breaks and reasonable accommodation for persons with disabilities. UNICEF strongly encourages the use of flexible working arrangements.

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:

This is a re-advertisement to expand upon the candidate pool with a minor change in the VA. Previous applicants need not re-apply as their original application remains under consideration.

Please note that this role is aimed at supporting UNICEF response to the Ukraine emergency in neighboring and surrounding countries with the refugees from Ukraine. The successful candidate for this emergency recruitment MUST be available to commence work within four weeks of receiving an offer.

Mobility is a condition of international professional employment with UNICEF and an underlying premise of the international civil service.

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

UNICEF appointments are subject to medical clearance. Issuance of a visa by the host country of the duty station, which will be facilitated by UNICEF, is required for IP positions. Appointments may also be subject to inoculation (vaccination) requirements, including against SARS-CoV-2 (COVID). Government employees that are considered for employment with UNICEF are normally required to resign from their government before taking up an assignment with UNICEF. UNICEF reserves the right to withdraw an offer of appointment, without compensation, if a visa or medical clearance is not obtained, or necessary inoculation requirements are not met, within a reasonable period for any reason.

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Potential interview questions

Added 3 years ago - Updated 1 year ago - Source: unicef.org