Psychosocial Counsellor At Center for Victims of Torture

Summary: To assist individuals, groups, and communities to recover from the effects of torture and war trauma, and enable them to rebuild their lives and their communities.

Organization: CVT is an international nonprofit dedicated to providing trauma healing services to survivors of war and other violations. CVT works toward a future in which these violations cease to exist and victims have hope for a new life. We are headquartered in Minnesota, USA with offices in Africa and the Middle East. We work locally, nationally and internationally through programs that provide trauma rehabilitation, conduct technical assistance and capacity building to human rights activists, civil society organizations, and local service providers around the world who can prevent and treat gross human rights abuses, and advocate for human rights and an end to gross human rights violations.

Job Responsibilities:

Provision of Psychosocial Services

• Providing comprehensive psycho-social support to survivors of war trauma and torture who have sought assistance by completing an initial screening and intake assessment; individual and group treatment plans; case management including timely referral, follow-up, and advocacy if necessary; home visits; and follow-up assessments.
• Carrying out individual or family counseling sessions with clients affected by war trauma or torture.
• Facilitating of group counseling processes, including selection of group members, planning the group process, and group facilitation.
• Providing interpretation between clients and other CVT staff members when needed.
• Ensuring that all required documentation is competed in a timely and professional manner.
• Ensuring that all work with clients is confidential and that ethical practices are observed at all times.
• Upholds the highest humanitarian standards, including the Inter-Agency Standing Committee (IASC) six key principles related to prevention of sexual abuse and exploitation.

Multi-disciplinary Collaboration

• Case manage clients’ interdisciplinary care through regular communication with CVT’s (senior) physiotherapists (PTs), (associate) physiotherapist/trainers, and social workers to best identify clients’ on-going needs.
• Consistently communicate prior to and throughout client sessions with other disciplines to supply and receive relevant information about the background and progress of clients as well as refer those who require other specific medical attention.
• Provide and attend internal trainings to orient new staff and provide on-going interdisciplinary understanding and discussion.
• Recognize and respect boundaries between disciplines and establish regular communication mechanisms to address client urgent and/or on-going concerns.

Community Awareness, Understanding and Engagement

• Assist with CVTs community outreach and awareness, education, and sensitization campaigns and programs when needed.
• Identify children, teenagers, men, and women whose psycho-social functioning may have been affected by torture or war related experiences and encourage them to approach CVT for support.
• Assist in designing, planning, logistics, implementing and facilitating external training programs for local decision makers, community members and local and international NGO’s, and government/ministry staff on trauma and health issues in order to develop a more supportive environment for people whose physical functioning has been affected by experiences of torture and war trauma.
• Assist with developing referral systems and encourage collaboration between local groups and leaders, local and international NGOs, and government ministries.
• Attend interagency meetings to improve service delivery to our client groups and access opportunities to forward CVT’s work.
• Ensure that the reporting and documentation of these processes is completed and minutes of meetings are filed.

Promoting Self-Care

• Attend regular support, debriefing, case conferences, and/or supervision meetings to ensure information and skill-sharing.
• Set and follow through on a personal self-care schedule to avoid burnout and vicarious traumatization.
• Provide formal feedback to colleagues when requested for on-going performance evaluation and development.
• Attend trainings provided by CVT and other agencies as directed by (Associate) Psychotherapist/Trainers, implement their recommendations and training in day-to-day clinical work, and provide them with feedback on training and supervision.
• Recognize and seek support when needed from internal and/or external resources to address concerns of secondary trauma in an expedient manner.

Other Responsibilities

• Participate in and contribute to organizational discussions as appropriate.
• Perform other duties as required.

Qualifications:

Required education, experience, certificates, licenses or registrations

• Minimum BA degree in Psychology or Counseling or similar.
• At least 2 years of relevant experience.
• Required: Excellent Oral and written communication skills in English & Arabic
• Required: Computer literacy in Microsoft Office (Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Outlook).
• Required: Excellent interpersonal skills.
• Excellent interpersonal skills.
• Good communication and problem solving skills.
• Required: Strong organizational and analytical skills.
• Required: Commitment to the ethical and sensitive implementation of project activities, including a commitment to confidentiality, diversity, equity, and inclusion, quality service provision, and the prevention of sexual exploitation, abuse, and harassment (including online)
• Required: Ability to work independently and as a team member.

Competencies (Knowledge, Skills and Abilities)

Supervisory Responsibilities: No supervisory responsibilities in this position.

Internal Collaboration: Primary line of reporting to Psychotherapist/Trainer or Associate Psychotherapist/Trainer, as assigned. In addition, Psychosocial Counselor (PSC) works closely with other PSCs, Senior PSCs, IDT team members, M&E staff, and Clinical Advisor for Mental Health.

External Collaboration: Other service providers in the field, including staff of partnering orgnaizations/institutions.

Work Environment:

• Under normal conditions, work will be completed in a typical office environment with off-site meetings
• Remote working from home when necessary due to public health conditions or other reasons
• Time spent on the computer is approximately 40%
• Regular work week is Sunday through Thursday

Physical Demands: While performing the duties of this job, the employee is regularly required to talk, hear and see. The employee frequently is required to sit, stand, walk and climb stairs; use hands to finger, handle or feel; and reach with hands and arms. This position requires the ability to occasionally lift and carry heavy supplies. This position requires car travel up to 2 hours per one-way journey.

Travel: Occasional travel to sites in and outside of Amman

Reasonable accommodations may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform the essential functions.