Psychosocial Support (PSS) Specialist At People in Need

Location: Home-based with travels to Country Programmes (approx. 2-3 months per year)

Starting date: as soon as possiblefor first assignment
Duration: 12 months framework contract, with a possibility of extension

Contract type: Daily-rate framework contract

We are looking for a Psychosocial Support (PSS) Specialist to ensure high quality of the PSS services delivered to affected population and PIN staff.

About the role:

People in Need (PIN) is an international, non-profit organization providing humanitarian and development assistance around the world. We are founded on the ideals of humanism, freedom, equality, and solidarity. We are the largest INGO working in Central and Eastern Europe with 22 offices worldwide, over 2400 employees, and a budget over 240 million Euros.

As part of our humanitarian programming, PIN provides multi-sectoral assistance tailored to needs of crisis affected people which usually covers the following sectors: nutrition-sensitive food security, shelter and non-food items including infrastructure rehabilitation, WASH, cash & vouchers assistance, education in emergencies integrating psychosocial support and child protection and recovery of livelihoods integrated with social safety nets and markets. We strive to integrate protection, gender equality and social inclusion considerations into all our interventions (protection and GESI mainstreaming) to ensure the highest standards of quality, safe, dignified and accountable programming. We look for a PSS Specialist to ensure high quality of the PSS services delivered to affected population and PIN staff.

POSITION OVERVIEW

The PSS Specialist will be responsible for supporting PIN Country Programmes (CPs) in defining and assuring technical quality of PIN PSS projects and the PSS components of PIN programmes in Moldova, Ukraine, Romania, Armenia, Syria and Turkey, with possibility to cover other Country Programmes, depending on needs and projects. The PSS Specialist will be line managed by the Head of the Humanitarian Unit and will be part of Protection and Gender and Inclusion (GESI) team that is coordinated by the Protection and GESI Lead Advisor to ensure that PSS programmes are designed, implemented, and evaluated in accordance with international best practices, principles and standards.

MAIN OBJECTIVES:

• Provide technical advice, support, guidance and capacity development to PIN Country Programme key staff and local partners.
• Develop and deliver a capacity development plan for PSS and other key staff, providing trainings and ToTs.
• Develop and/or revise internal tools and guidelines for providing structured PSS for children and adults in line with PIN processes and international best practices, standards and principles.
• Develop and/or revise PSS SOPs and implementation strategy.
• Design standard indicators and tools to monitor the quality and impact of PSS programming and train PIN teams on its use.
• Ensure integration of PSS in all relevant Programme interventions (e.g. education), in line with PIN internal procedures and systems (e.g. referrals).
• Coordinate with the Protection and GESI Lead Advisor while providing strategic direction to the CP and developing internal tools and guidelines.

SUPPORT TO PIN COUNTRY PROGRAMMES:

• Create PSS tools and training modules; Design and conduct PSS workshops and trainings for responsible colleagues within PIN country programmes, designing and implementing a capacity-building plan for the PSS staff, including PIN local partners.
• Provide technical support, guidance and monitoring to the PSS teams, establishing standard process and procedures for providing structured PSS for children and adults and developing tools for measuring progress.
• Contribute to the design of PSS materials and integrated approaches in cooperation with national and KLD technical advisors.
• Support PSS activities implementation, ensuring the highest level of quality, cohesion and harmonization of approaches and tools.
• Support needs assessment (especially in post-disaster contexts) in order to identify priority needs for mental health and psychosocial support in PIN programmatic areas, and lead/support design of PSS programme strategy.
• Ensure that PSS interventions and activities address CP, GBV and other protection issues in line with PIN referral systems and internal procedures and provide technical support to the psychologists for individual cases affected by crisis.
• Undertake regular field monitoring visits and provide support tools to monitor quality of programme implementation and to assess PSS needs and gaps of target populations in current and prospective areas of operations. This includes assessing post-disaster (human and/or nature made) and crisis onset to help design tailored PSS response for the affected teams and populations.
• Ensure that PSS interventions and activities are Gender and Inclusion (GESI) sensitive.
• Develop MEAL tools to measure the impact and effectiveness of PSS interventions considering age, gender, diversity (e.g. children, adults and people with disabilities).
• Support in the development of a Duty of Care/ Staff Care System for all staff.
• Participate in the preparation of new project proposals, contributing to parts related to PSS and PSS integration and supervise implementation of it during projects duration.
• Provide training on Psychological First Aid (PFA)or similar methodologies to PIN’s humanitarian surge team and/or Safeguarding and PSEA focal points.

YOUR PROFILE:

• Education: BA in relevant fields (Social Science, Psychology, Social Work)
• Proven excellent writing skills in English. Knowledge of additional languages would be an advantage
• Professional Experience: Previous work experience (minimum 5 years) in PSS (providing PSS), preferably with an INGO
• Demonstrated ability to work within a humanitarian and/or development contexts
• Strong theoretical, technical and practical knowledge in PSS
• Demonstrated training and mentoring skills and experience
• Very good understanding of applied PSS in different contexts
• Experience developing and facilitating training programmes and SOPs on PSS
• Analytical and problem-solving skills, with the ability to work to a high standard, manage stress while prioritising multiple tasks and meeting deadlines
• Excellent interpersonal and cross-cultural communication skills and ability to work and integrate into a multicultural team
• Adherence to principles entailed in PIN Code of conduct and Key policies, high standard of moral and personal integrity, and capacity to handle highly sensitive cases
• Diplomacy skills in networking with partners, authorities and donors

WE OFFER:

This position will be based on Framework contract for service provision with agreed daily/hourly rate. We estimate the deployments and home-based desk work could take approximately 40% of FTE on average per first year of the cooperation. PIN covers costs related to traveling abroad such as flights, accommodation, medical check-ups, vaccinations, travel insurance, etc.