Mental Health and Psychosocial Support Officer (Kassala) – UNHCR
Job Description
| Organization | United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees |
| Job Title | Mental Health and Psychosocial Support Officer |
| Location | Kassala, Sudan |
| Hardship Level | E (most hardship) |
| Job ID | JR2450018 |
| Family Location Type | Non Family with Residential Location |
| Closing Date | November 26, 2024 |
1. Organizational Setting and Work Relationships
Sudan experiences a severe and prolonged crisis due to armed conflict, political instability, economic fragility, food insecurity, and natural disasters. The situation worsened significantly in April 2023, leading to massive displacement, with over 10 million internally displaced people and over 2 million fleeing the country. Approximately 24.8 million people, half of Sudan’s population, require urgent humanitarian aid in 2024. The crisis has severely damaged systems, services, and infrastructure, with long-term impacts expected. The humanitarian needs, particularly in health, protection, education, and livelihoods, are immense and unmet. Sudan still hosts one of the largest refugee populations in Africa, mainly from South Sudan, Ethiopia and Eritrea. Many of them are hosted in refugee camps in Gedaref, Kassala and White Nile, while others reside in urban settings.
Amidst all needs, mental health and psychosocial support (MHPSS) needs are massive in all population groups: refugees, internally displaced persons and other conflict-affected people. The crisis caused immense psychological distress among children (potentially impacting their long-term mental health and education progress) as well as among adults, with GBV survivors being at high risk. UNHCR identified mental health and psychosocial support as a priority area for its work in Sudan. Within the work of UNHCR and partners, MHPSS activities do not constitute a separate sector, but are mainly realized within existing sectors and work fields such as health, community-based protection, child protection, GBV and education. However, the existing national systems to respond to mental health and psychosocial issues were, even before the current conflict, poorly developed. Many local MHPSS professionals have fled the country, and many humanitarian organisations have reduced their activities.
Within this context, UHHCR Sudan seeks an MHPSS specialist whose main task is to build and maintain capacity for MHPSS interventions within UNHCR and partners, both for refugees in Sudan and surrounding host communities (as part of UNHCRs refugee response) as for internally displaced populations (as part of UNHCR’s protection response for IDPs). The MHPSS specialist will promote MHPSS activities within UNHCRs programmes in health, protection and education, provide technical guidance and training to partners, monitor and evaluate programmes and provide partners with supportive feedback to improve the MHPSS activities.
The MHPSS Officer will also foster MHPSS coordination within UNHCR and will establish appropriate consultative mechanisms for MHPSS integration within health, protection and education and will represent UNHCR in interagency MHPSS technical meetings.
The MHPSS Officer supports UNHCR’s efforts to comply with internal guidance such as the Operational Guidance for Mental Health and Psychosocial Support Programming in Refugee Operations (2013) and the Focus Area Strategic Plan for Protection and Solutions for Internally Displaced People 2024-2030. The MHPSS officer will also promote the use of interagency guidance and standards such as the Mental Health Standard in the Sphere Handbook (2018) and the interagency Minimum Service Package for MHPSS (2022).
The MHPSS Officer will report to the Senior Operations Officer and will work very closely with the Public Health Officer and relevant protection units. Close functional linkages for technical guidance and support will be established with the Senior MHPSS Officer in Geneva.
All UNHCR staff members are accountable to perform their duties as reflected in their job description. They do so within their delegated authorities, in line with the regulatory framework of UNHCR which includes the UN Charter, UN Staff Regulations and Rules, UNHCR Policies and Administrative Instructions as well as relevant accountability frameworks. In addition, staff members are required to discharge their responsibilities in a manner consistent with the core, functional, cross-functional and managerial competencies and UNHCR’s core values of professionalism, integrity and respect for diversity.
2. Duties
– Provide technical assistance to UNHCR and partners within in development, integration and mainstreaming of appropriate and cost-effective MHPSS activities.
– Foster capacity building and supervision around MHPSS for UNHCR staff, partner staff and refugee workers, e.g. community health workers, peer educators, peer counsellors, refugee outreach volunteers.
– Develop training plans for MHPSS, organise and act as resource person in workshops, trainings and on the job coaching.
– Ensure MHPSS activities by UNHCR and partners are executed in line with internal UNHCR guidance and according to international and interagency standards.
– Support the integration of MHPS into strategic planning for Sudan.
– Conduct assessment missions and implement evaluation activities around MHPSS.
– Promote inter-sectoral coordination outside and within UNHCR in all matters related to MHPSS programmes and improve coordination among partners.
– Support the Public Health staff and partners around capacity building and supervision of health staff on identification and management of mental and substance use conditions in primary care.
– Support partners in training outreach volunteers (in health, protection) in Psychological First Aid and Basic Psychosocial Helping Skills.
– Strengthen, in close collaboration with community-based protection partners, participatory approaches and community-based psychosocial work within the work of protection partners, including through technical support and supervision to partners, for example by developing training curricula for MHPSS training to refugee volunteers.
– Promote the use of psychosocial approaches within the work of protection partners (including GBV and Child Protection) in e.g. case management and in Women and Girl Friendly Spaces / child friendly spaces and strengthen capacity of partners in identifying people in need of more specialized MHPSS.
– Capacity building of scalable psychological interventions such as Problem Management Plus in collaboration with other partners such as WHO, and MoH.
– Ensure that mental health data are integrated in the Health Information System (HIS) and that reports for MHPSS activities by partners and UNHCR staff will be systematically assembled and assessed.
– Ensure that national and internationally accepted and relevant standards and policies around MHPSS are applied and adapted in close coordination with the host country and relevant UN agencies and partners.
3. Minimum Qualifications
Education & Professional Work Experience
Years of Experience / Degree Level
For IICA- 2, 6 years relevant experience with Undergraduate degree; or 5 years relevant experience with Graduate degree; or 4 years relevant experience with Doctorate degree
Field(s) of Education
*Clinical Psychology; *Psychiatry; *Clinical Social Work;
Public Health; Mental Health; Psychotherapy;
or other relevant field.
(Field(s) of Education marked with an asterisk* are essential)
Certificates and/or Licenses
Not specified.
(Certificates and Licenses marked with an asterisk* are essential)
Relevant Job Experience
Essential
Work experience in the relevant field, of which at least 3 years of professional experience in the humanitarian or refugee field. Extensive knowledge of public mental health and MHPSS models of promotion/prevention and treatment. Experience in integrated health responses, providing mental health services integrated with primary or secondary health services. Strong understanding of and working experience with refugee protection (such as community based protection, child protection and GBV prevention and response). Experiences and knowledge in the psychological and psychosocial response to survivors of gender-basel violence. Experience with capacity building around MHPSS (training, workshops). Work experience with technical tools in around: 1) mental health integration in primary health care (such as the mhGAP Humanitarian Intervention Guide for Clinical Management of Mental, Neurological and Substance use Conditions in Humanitarian Emergencies, WHO/UNHCR, 2015), 2) Scalable psychological interventions (brief evidence based psychotherapies, such as Problem Management Plus, Interpersonal Therapy for Depression) ), 3) community-based psychosocial work. Ability to promote good working relationships among colleagues, supervisors, and the persons s/he supervises.
Desirable
Experience with MHPSS coordination in humanitarian settings.
Functional Skills
*WB-Psychiatry
WB-Psychosocial risk assessment and recommendation of mitigating measures
CL-Needs Assessment and Response Analysis
WF-Community Services-Social Work/Counselling
CO-Cross-cultural communication
CL-Multi-stakeholder Communications with Partners, Government & Community
CL-Protection & Solutions Awareness
PR-Community-based Protection
MD-Health Information Systems (HIS)
MS-Networking
*EX-Field experience with UNHCR and/or with other humanitarian organizations
MG-Managerial experience
MS-Standard Operating Procedures (preparation of)
(Functional Skills marked with an asterisk* are essential)
Language Requirements
For International Professional and Field Service jobs: Knowledge of English and UN working language of the duty station if not English.
For National Professional jobs: Knowledge of English and UN working language of the duty station if not English and local language.
For General Service jobs: Knowledge of English and/or UN working language of the duty station if not English.
4. Competency Requirements
All jobs at UNHCR require six core competencies and may also require managerial competencies and/or cross-functional competencies. The six core competencies are listed below.
Core Competencies
Accountability
Communication
Organizational Awareness
Teamwork & Collaboration
Commitment to Continuous Learning
Client & Result Orientation
Managerial Competencies
Empowering and Building Trust
Judgement and Decision Making
Managing Performance
Cross-Functional Competencies
Analytical Thinking
Planning and Organizing
Stakeholder Management
All UNHCR workforce members must individually and collectively, contribute towards a working environment where each person feels safe, and empowered to perform their duties. This includes by demonstrating no tolerance for sexual exploitation and abuse, harassment including sexual harassment, sexism, gender inequality, discrimination, and abuse of power.
As individuals and as managers, all must be proactive in preventing and responding to inappropriate conduct, support ongoing dialogue on these matters and speaking up and seeking guidance and support from relevant UNHCR resources when these issues arise.
