Psychologist Field Officer

Assignment: Participate to assessments on IYCF/Mental Health and Care Practices and identification of implementing sites. Implement and monitor the nutrition and psychological activities provided to beneficiaries. Required skills: Sense of confidentiality – Skilled activity leader - Good listening, good communication and adaptation capacity – Good relations with people – Empathetic and patient - Good team spirit and ability to work in a team. Autonomy, creativity, flexibility. Good knowledge of the area and local customs. Fluency in Arab and English. Due to the specific context and the sensitiveness of the topics, females are especially encouraged to apply. Objective 1: Needs analysis and adapting approaches to cultural context: Activities: -       In collaboration with the nutrition team, assess on a regular base Mental Health and Care Practices among the community settled in the intervention area. -       Determine which are the good practices and the practices that need improvement among beneficiaries community. Objective 2: Implement psychosocial support sessions: Activities: -       Implement psychosocial support sessions for the beneficiaries for adequate care practices and according to their need on psychosocial support, -       Evaluate the level of comprehension of the beneficiaries. -       Participate to any other psychosocial/psychological activities who could be identify according to the beneficiaries needs or linked to the mental health situation of the beneficiaries Objective 3: Organize group discussion groups and working groups with the beneficiaries about Mental Health and Care practices Activities: Improve play sessions and child stimulation. -          Implement as many play sessions as possible and provide appropriate games for children based on their ages and abilities; -          Provide children and attendants with opportunities to play together to improve the mother / child relationship; -          Conduct regular inventories of toys and request new ones if necessary; -          Ensure that toys are clean and do not present a danger to the children. Care practices and Breastfeeding: -          Actively collaborate with nutritionist and social workers and participate in activities to support breastfeeding as often as possible; -          Take advantage of the activities time to observe and encourage the mother-child relationship; -          Assist mothers with breastfeeding difficulties as much as possible. Implement basic health care practices activities in order to improve these practices at home. -       Stimulate exchange between beneficiaries in discussion /working groups on a particular theme and make them more dynamic. -       Observe and analyse the content of group sessions and evaluate it on the basis of an evaluation grid -       Receive and restrain expressions of strong emotions. Objective 4: Identification of families in need of specific monitoring and ensure individual or group monitoring for identified beneficiaries. Activities: -       Assess needs by talking to the mother (or the attendant) to determine problems encountered, then identify with the team members (nutritionist and social workers) who should be referred for monitoring, either individual or group; -       Visit, if necessary, at their living place, the families identified in an attempt to understand the family situation which could explain the difficulties and to assist the family to find possible solutions (working on the mother/child relationship, assessing the resources, etc.). -       Carry out individual or group monitoring with the identified beneficiaries, according to the ethical rules of the profession. -       Refer to partners beneficiaries in need of psychiatric support or any beneficiary needing extra-support Objective 5: Participate in collecting information on the beneficiaries’ needs in terms of nutrition and IYCF Activities: -          Be capable of identifying the under nutrition through screening, of informing the parents of the nutritional status of their child and referring malnourish cases to the nearest Primary Health Care (PHC) centers or the Hospital. -          Observe and collect information during the programme activity sessions on the beneficiaries’ needs in terms of nutrition and IYCF. -          Include this information systematically in each activity report. Objective 6: Reporting and coordination Activities: Participate to creation/revision of project tools -          Realize a weekly and monthly report -          Participate to external reports if needed -          If required, attend meetings with other nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) on the one hand, to inform them of ACF work on care practices, psychosocial and mental health interventions and, on the other hand, to be informed of the progress of other NGOs in this field.   All activities must be carried out in close collaboration with the Assistant head of project and the Head of Project The implementation of this project requires a strong and continuous collaboration and coordination between the psychologists and nutritionists team members. Due to the emergency context, the psychologist can be requested to participate to any other mental health and care practices activities who could be identify according to the beneficiaries needs and the humanitarian situation