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Job Description
Job title Staff Counsellor
Job Number: 550155
Location: United States
Work Type: Short-term contract assignment
Description: For every child, hope How can you make a difference? Reporting to the Chief of Staff Wellbeing, you will provide expertise to the Organization and its management to support the wellbeing of UNICEF staff, their families and UNICEF teams and offices in New York and around the world. You will contribute towards the implementation of the UN Mental Health and Wellbeing Strategy and the development of the new UNICEF Staff Wellbeing Framework. 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/families experiencing work-related and/or personal problems; facilitating the provision of relevant support after traumatic incidents, assist better support structures and contribute to better quality of life for staff in emergency duty stations; among other activities. You will work in close coordination with other Staff Counsellor in New York and collaborate with colleagues in UNICEF’s global staff counselling team to develop and deliver prioritized wellbeing programmes and toolkits. More specific tasks include: 1. Facilitate effective psycho-social support for offices, managers and individual staff, aimed at mitigating chronic, work-related stress and booster protective factors by:
Providing support and advice to managers on healthy work practices and how to effectively support staff;
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;
Facilitating the treatment of psychiatric disorders primarily through referrals, including to the UN medical services team (DHMOSH), and through guidance to supervisors and senior management,
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
Provide emergency psychosocial support to offices and individual staff in New York who have been involved in critical incidents.
Design and deliver tailored workshops for specific teams in New York as requested
2. Facilitate the provision of wellbeing support and counselling to staff in New York throughout the Headquarters Efficiencies Initiative (HQEI) process:
Providing support and advice to the leadership and managers in New York office on healthy work practices and approaches on how to effectively support staff and encourage resilience throughout the HQEI process
Provide staff wellbeing and counselling services to reduce stress and equip staff and managers to better deal with the change, including individual counselling and the design and delivery of relevant workshops/webinars.
Assess and monitor psychosocial needs and issues affecting the wellbeing of staff.
3. Develop and provide training, tools and other awareness raising activities on Staff Wellbeing related topics:
Explore the use of new modalities to develop a range of engaging materials
4. Play key role in designing and delivering the initiatives and programmesin the framework of the UN Mental Health and Wellbeing Strategy and the UNICEF Humanitarian Review recommendations, and contribute to the development of the new UNICEF Staff Wellbeing Framework:
Work with project teams on the development of the various UNICEF initiatives
Develop specific programmes outlined in the framework
5. Contribute to the advancement of the Peer Support Volunteer (PSV) Programme globally:
Play a key role in helping to manage the PSV Programme in New York
Be a key member of the PSV working group who are leading the revamp of the current global PSV programme
To qualify as an advocate for every child you will have…
Advanced University degree (master’s or equivalent) in counselling, clinical psychology or related mental health field 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 an asset.
Minimum of five years of national or preferably international work experience in staff support, mental health, cross cultural communications, counselling, and related areas, preferably gained within the UN system or international development/humanitarian aid sector.
The successful applicant must hold a valid licence/registration to practice counselling or psychology, or be eligible to hold a licence/registration to practice from an accredited academic institution
Experience working in an emergency duty station is an asset.
Fluency in English (oral and written) is required. Knowledge of another official UN language (French, Arabic, Chinese, Russian or Spanish) is an asset.
Deadline: Eastern Daylight Time
About the Organization
UNICEF is out to change the world for children vaccination by vaccination, blanket by blanket, biscuit by biscuit, book by book. In most of America, these things are considered completely ordinary. But in many parts of the developing world, they can save a child's life.
UNICEF is unique among world organizations and unique among those working with young people. As a global movement, we use our authority to influence decision makers and diverse partners to turn the most innovative ideas into reality. In 155 countries and territories, UNICEF's field staff uses hard-won expertise to meet the challenges facing children and those who care for them.
Our history has given us a profound understanding of development and the importance of child health, education, equality and protection in advancing humanity. All that we do helps children realize their full potential.
In support of UNICEF's work, the U.S. Fund for UNICEF focuses on five major priorities: education, emergencies, HIV/AIDS, immunization and malnutrition.
