Overview

To design and coordinate the delivery of counselling services across WFP and provide professional and effective counselling and stress management services that enable staff to maintain positive health, performance and outlook.

Tasks Summary

• Contribute to the development of the Global Wellness Division Strategic Plan and implement the psychosocial wellbeing strategy for the region/country.
• Provide active psychological support and advice on strategic developments in the region/country involving the major implications on staff.
• Provide culturally sensitive counselling services to individuals, groups of staff and/or their immediate family members.
• Design, develop and roll-out a range of general and context specific trainings related to resilience, conflict resolution, team-building and cultural sensitivities.
• Develop and deliver tailored training sessions and workshops on relevant topics.
• Provide a summary and materials of all training sessions and workshops conducted, along with feedback and evaluations from participants.
• Provide psychosocial support on demand and during emergency operations, critical incidents, and office rightsizing.
• Provide pre and post-deployment briefings to staff being deployed to emergency or hardship duty stations.
• Partner with all the functions within WFP and also with institutions outside to address psychological risks.
• Identify and liaise with high quality local and regional mental health resources.
• Lead initiatives to promote a healthy workplace including partnering with Staff Counsellors at other UN agencies.
• Support and maintain the WFP Peer Support Volunteer Network (PSV) through training and supervision.
• Design and maintain the content for the Wellbeing App.
• Contribute to the development of policies and guidelines, as well as written and visual materials.
• Provide coordination, guidance and leadership to the country-based Staff Counsellors in the region.
• Take an active role in the implementation of the psychosocial wellbeing strategy and the UN Mental Health strategy across the region.
• Maintain at all times, high standard of professional ethics and confidentiality.
• Take responsibility for an equitable and inclusive workplace.
• Complete administrative duties such as maintaining statistics or activities and completing reporting requirements.
• Provide regular reports on trends in the support needed, successful interventions, examples of staff cases handled, and suggested improvements for future responses.
• Participate and collaborate in UNSSCG activities, and relevant working groups.

Experience Requirements

• Typically (8) years (of which three international) of progressively responsible professional post graduate experience relevant to the field is required.
• 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 working in the Latin America region is an asset.

Qualification Requirements

• Advanced university degree (Doctorate, Masters) in Clinical or Counselling Psychology, Psychiatry, Psychotherapy, Clinical social work, psychiatric nursing or demonstrably equivalent studies from a recognized institution.
• Registration/ Licensure as a mental health professional with a college, board, association or other regulatory body.
• Additional training or certification in a broad range of related fields, such as alcohol/substance abuse, resilience, cross-cultural communication, conflict resolution, mediation, trauma etc. will be an advantage.