How can you make a difference?
Under the supervision of the Representative and the Technical Supervision of the Regional Staff Counsellor, the South Sudan Staff Counsellor is expected to provide expertise to the management and staff, to support the overall well-being of UNICEF staff, as well as teams in UNICEF sub offices in South Sudan.
Major Duties and Responsibilities:
Under the general guidance and day to day management supervision of the Representative and technical guidance of the Regional Staff Counsellor, the Staff Counsellor will facilitate the provision of effective psycho-social support to staff leadership, managers and individual staff members prioritizing the most isolated locations within South Sudan to mitigate stress and boost protective factors by providing 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. Providing staff with individual and/or group counselling as needed (i.e. assessment, short-term intervention, and referral).
Facilitating the treatment of psychiatric disorders primarily through referrals, including to the medical services division, and through guidance to supervisors and senior management, where appropriate;
Coordinate with the Security Advisor and UNDSS, agency counsellors and PSVs, to ensure the provision of adequate psychosocial support during emergencies.
Assess and monitor psycho-social needs and issues affecting the wellbeing of staff.
Identify activities aimed at raising awareness about healthy work practices; improving the work-life balance of UNICEF staff; facilitating the provision of assistance to staff experiencing work-related and/or personal problems; facilitating the provision of immediate support following a traumatic incident.
Work in coordination with the network of other UN counsellors available in the duty station. Frequent field missions and close collaboration with Chiefs Field Offices, HR Managers, Deputy Representative – programme and operations respectively. are required.
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, psycho-education, psychological first aid, and strategic advice to leadership.
Contact the affected staff member(s) and offering information about typical stress reactions, support- and referral information; Facilitate appropriate traumatic stress interventions, following a critical incident or traumatic event.Recommend and arrange for individual and/or group follow-up support to staff.
Training and awareness raising on Staff Well-Being related topics:
Explore and contribute to the development of new modalities, such as e-learning and webinars, which make awareness raising material available and attractive to all staff;
Cooperate with the Regional office to integrate subjects such as healthy work practices, managing stress and trauma, building resiliency etc. into learning strategies.
Monitoring and oversight: Provide on a quarterly basis statistics and trends on issues related to staff well-being, whilst maintaining confidentiality. Alert the Representatives and HR Managers on trends that may be of concern in the office requiring targeted support or Managerial intervention. Capture lessons learnt and best practices for dissemination as appropriate.
8.Any other duties, as assigned by the supervisor.
To qualify as an advocate for every child you will have…
An advanced university degree (Master’s or higher) in counselling, clinical psychology or related mental health profession. Additional training or certification in staff support and traumatic/critical incident stress as well as a broad range of related fields, such as alcohol/substance abuse, family counselling, training, stress management.*A first University Degree or professional certification in a relevant field combined with 2 additional years of professional experience may be accepted in lieu of an Advanced University Degree.
A minimum offive years of national and especially international professional experience in staff support, mental health, cross cultural communications, counselling, and related areas.
Developing country work experience and/or familiarity with emergency is considered an asset.
Fluency in written and spoken English. Knowledge of other UN language is desirable.
For every Child, you demonstrate…
UNICEF’s core values of Commitment, Diversity and Integrity and core competencies in Communication, Working with People and Drive for Results.
The competencies required for this post are:
Core Values
Commitment
Diversity and Inclusion
Integrity
Core Competencies
Communication
Working with People
Drive for Results
Functional Competencies
Leading and Supervising
Formulating Strategies and Concepts
Analyzing
Relating and Networking
Persuading and Influencing
Creating and Innovating
Remarks:
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.
