Staff Counsellor

Job Description

If you are a committed, creative professional and are passionate about making a lasting difference for children, the world’s leading children’s rights organization would like to hear from you.

For 60 years, UNICEF has been working on the ground in 190 countries and territories to promote children’s survival, protection and development. The world’s largest provider of vaccines for developing countries, UNICEF supports child health and nutrition, good water and sanitation, quality basic education for all boys and girls, and the protection of children from violence, exploitation, and AIDS. UNICEF is funded entirely by the voluntary contributions of individuals, businesses, foundations and governments.

Staff Counsellor, P-3, DHR, New York

Vacancy No: E-VN-2015-003507

Duty Station: New York

Country: United States of America

Region: NY HQ

Job Level: P-3

Position#: 00063071

Application Close: 08-Jan-16

Contract Type: Long-term Staff (FT)

Purpose of the Position

The incumbent of this post will provide expertise to the Organization and its management to support the well-being of UNICEF staff, their families and UNICEF teams and offices in New York and around the world. The incumbent will contribute towards a corporate framework for staff well-being and assist in promoting its implementation at the Regional and Country level. The framework will identify activities aiming at: raising awareness about healthy work practices; improving the care to staff suffering mental health disorders; facilitating the provision of assistance to staff/family experiencing work-related and/or personal problems; facilitating the provision of relevant support following a traumatic incident, assist better support structures and contribute to better quality of life for staff in emergency duty stations; among other activities. The incumbent will work in coordination with the network of UN counsellors globally. Frequent field missions and close collaboration with Regional- and Country Offices are required.

Key Expected Results

1. Facilitate effective psycho-social support for offices, managers and individual staff, aimed at mitigating chronic, work-related stress and booster protective factors by: a) Providing support and advice to managers on healthy work practices and how to effectively support staff; b) Providing staff with individual and/or group counselling (i.e. assessment, short-term intervention, referral), following self-referral or referral by the supervisor or another professional; c) Facilitating the treatment of psychiatric disorders primarily through referrals, including to the medical services division, and through guidance to supervisors and senior management, where appropriate; d) Provide case management to staff on long term sickleave for mental health disorders and assist in developing “back to work” programmes to staff returning from sickleave; e) Contributing to identifying creative ways of building a network of external mental health providers available to provide services to staff around the world, including for tele-psychiatry; f) Provide emergency psychosocial support to offices and individual staff who have been involved in critical incidents in CEE/CIS, LACRO and New York. 2. Facilitate the development, implementation and coordination of a corporate framework aiming at improved Staff Well-being globally: a) Assist in the development of the framework; b) Develop specific programmes outlined in the framework; c) Assist in implementation and coordination of the framework; d) Monitor the impact of the framework on regional and country levels, lobby and provide input for improvement. 3. Develop and provide training, tools and other awareness raising activities on Staff Well-Being related topics: a. Explore and develop new modalities, such as e-learning and webinars, that can make awareness raising material available and attractive to all staff; b. Cooperate with Regional and Country staff counsellors and/or offices to integrate subjects such as healthy work practices, managing stress and trauma, building resiliency, etc. into their learning strategies. 4. Coordinate the Peer Support Volunteer (PSV) Programme globally: a. Revamp the PSV programme by reviewing the function and updating the training manuals PSVs at the first and advanced level; b. Provide technical supervision of the PSVs in CEE/CIS, LACRO and New York; c. Prepare regular communication that can be shared with the network of PSVs through webinars and sharing of updates and tips for improving PSV skills. 5. Any other duties, as assigned by the supervisor.

Qualifications of Successful Candidate

- An advanced university degree (Master’s) in Counselling, Clinical Psychology or a directly-related technical field(s) is required. - Additional training or certification in occupational health, staff support and traumatic / critical incident stress as well as a broad range of related fields, such as alcohol/substance abuse, family counselling, training, stress management is considered an asset. - A minimum of five (5) years of relevant experience, at the national and international levels, in staff support, mental health, cross cultural communications, counselling, and/or a directly-related technical area(s) is required. - Previous experience within the UN system or international development/humanitarian aid sector is required. - Fluency in English (written and verbal) is required. Knowledge of Spanish is highly desirable. Knowledge of an additional UN Language (Arabic, Chinese, French and Russian) is considered an asset.

Competencies of Successful Candidate

- Creates and encourages a climate of team-working and collaboration in a multi-cultural environment. - Communicates effectively to varied audiences, including during formal public speaking. - Consistently achieves high-level results, managing and delivering projects on-time and on-budget. - Quickly builds rapport with individuals and groups. Actively nurtures good relationships with people across all organizational levels and boundaries, and with government leaders and stakeholders. - Demonstrates and shares detailed technical knowledge and expertise. - Translates strategic direction into plans and objectives. - Sets clearly defined objectives and plans activities for self, own team or department. - Actively identifies appropriate responses and approaches to changing circumstances and crisis situations. - Has good leadership and supervisory skills; co-ordinates group activities, ensuring that roles within the team are clear.

Remarks

This is an extension of the application deadline to expand the candidate pool. Previous applicants need not re-apply as their original application will be duly considered.

UNICEF is committed to diversity and inclusion within its workforce, and encourages qualified female and male candidates from all national, religious and ethnic backgrounds, including persons living with disabilities, to apply to become a part of our organisation.

About the Organization

For 60 years, UNICEF has been working on the ground in 190 countries and territories to promote children's survival, protection and development. The world's largest provider of vaccines for developing countries, UNICEF supports child health and nutrition, good water and sanitation, quality basic education for all boys and girls, and the protection of children from violence, exploitation, and AIDS. UNICEF is funded entirely by the voluntary contributions of individuals, businesses, foundations and governments.