Psychosocial Support Counselor

Role: Psychosocial Support Counselor (PSS Counselor)                               Supervisor:   Senior Child Protection Program Manager                               Time Frame of Assignment: Till end of December 2016       Location:  Akkar- Kouwaykhat Main road- Hayek Building   Project background  SCL aims to address the needs of the most vulnerable children in Akkar and T+5 through a multi-layer approach looking at enhancing community capacity to prevent and respond to the needs of vulnerable children and their families whilst also ensuring more specialized services are provided to the most at-risk children. This will also be coupled by national-level capacity building to reinforce the child protection system. Therefore SCL has on board a CP technical team composed of personnel specialized in psychosocial Support in emergency and others specialized in providing case management and referrals to high and medium risk cases of children. Responsibilities of the Psychosocial Support Counserlor To support Child Protection Staff and empower their wellbeing through dealing with emotions linked to internal or external challenges facing during their work environment and emergency responses. Moreover, to empower and counsel Child Protection Staff to deal with stress and burn-outs resulted from/in their daily work, through exploring alternative positive ways in responding to psychological distress, and enhancing their personal care and development.  Objectives and Output  With a strong sense of neutrality and confidentiality, conduct 20-25 minutes of individual sessions with 18 CP Caseworkers, once per 3weeks (4 times till December) possible. This is in order to support caseworkers to deal with emotions and distress linked to challenging cases and explore alternate ways to respond. With a strong sense of neutrality and confidentiality, conduct 15 minutes of individual sessions with 12 CP PSS staff, 1 time till December Organize and conduct 2 (1.5 hours) support group therapy sessions for 18 case workers, who are in daily contact with cases, implementing self-care PSS activities mainly focusing on expression and coping mechanism techniques. Division of the groups will be 6 staffs in each group (3 groups in Total) Upon request or if necessary, advise or debrief the Senior Program Manager about the work atmosphere or dynamic in the team and resolving problems of a work-related or personal issues that adversely affect job performance and productivity. In case of severe responses and emergency Intervention, the PSS Counselor will apply direct intervention through advising and guiding, in coordination with the Project Senior Manager, on a staff who may have severe psychological or intense work related problems resulting to negative professional, vocational and/or counseling effect. In case of severe responses and emergency Intervention, the PSS Counselor will monitor upon informed consent, environmental factors that could lead to stress of a staff, with particular focus on stress related to critical incidents including emergency and crisis situations Perform additional individual Psychological first aid whenever a staff may face additional psychological outcome during their direct contact with cases (This is for Caseworkers). In case of severe responses and emergency Intervention, the PSS Counselor will perform individual assessments, upon informed consent, in case of a staff members experiencing difficulty in coping with frequent psychological distress and/or presenting mental health-related symptoms which is hindering the performance of the staff or  harming the beneficiary.   Other Tasks -          Schedule (calendar and time) of the groups’ and individual’s sessions. -          Share Deontological Ethics of Psychology: This includes the norms and values applied on all Psychological domains. -          Plan, develop and implement stress management and resilience building PSS Activities to all staff members. -          To produce progress reports to the Senior Program Manager highlighting only general outcomes and work related problems which are causing stress and burnt out of the stress. -          Issue an invoice for the consultancy according to the payment scheme  Essential Competencies required Valid Master’s Degree in Social Science or related fields, Valid License permit to conduct counseling or therapy. Proficient knowledge of Child Protection psychosocial wellbeing and child resilience Experience as trainer in social programs. To be fully aware of, and endear to, Save the Children’s Code of Conduct and Safeguarding policies and procedures and ensure their implementation. Commitment to and understanding of Save the Children’s aims, values and principles including rights-based approaches.