Child Protection Specialist- Mental Health and Psychosocial Support (MHPSS), #00128097, P-3, Temporary Appointment (364 days), Addis Ababa, Ethiopia

UNICEF Ethiopia is seeking a seasoned Specialist to strengthen MHPSS programming for UNICEF Ethiopia across child protection, education, and health sectors, including strengthening coordination and systems for providing MHPSS services aligned to UNICEF’s strategic guidance.

UNICEF works in over 190 countries and territories to save children’s lives, defend their rights, and help them fulfill their potential, from early childhood through adolescence.

At UNICEF, we are committed, passionate, and proud of what we do. Promoting the rights of every child is not just a job – it is a calling.
UNICEF is a place where careers are built: we offer our staff diverse opportunities for personal and professional development that will help them develop a fulfilling career while delivering on a rewarding mission. We pride ourselves on a culture that helps staff thrive, coupled with an attractive compensation and benefits package.

Visit our website to learn more about what we do at UNICEF.

For every child, love

Ethiopia is situated in the Horn of Africa and is the second most populous country on the continent with an estimated population of 115 million. It borders six African countries: Djibouti, Eritrea, Kenya, Somalia, South Sudan, and Sudan, and covers 1,104,300 square kilometers. Approximately 85 percent of the population lives in rural areas. Ethiopia represents a melting pot of ancient cultures with Middle Eastern and African cultures evident in the religious, ethnic, and language composition of its people.

Over the past two years, children and their families across Ethiopia faced multiple and complex emergencies, such as the conflict in the northern Ethiopia and the drought, which resulted in millions of people in need of urgent humanitarian assistance. UNICEF has programmes in Child Protection, WASH, Health, Nutrition, Social Policy, and Education and serves over 15 million children in Ethiopia. Join UNICEF Ethiopia to contribute to improving the lives of children and women.

How can you make a difference?

Roles and Responsibilities

1. Support strengthening coordination internally within UNICEF between Child Protection, Education and Health sections and externally strengthen coordination and collaboration between ministries of Education, Health, Women and Social Affairs, Ethiopian Public Health Institute (EPHI) for system strengthening and among other key UN and NGO including through MHPSS Technical Working Group. The incumbent will also support coordination between UNICEF CO, regional office, and headquarters on MHPSS.
2. Support capacity development of professional including through institutionalizing MHPSS training curriculum for workforce in social welfare, health, and education sectors.
3. Support the Rapid Deployment Model, which includes a roster of MHPSS professionals assigned to work in emergency areas or other locations with critical MHPSS service gaps.
4. Support strengthening of MHPSS in emergencies to meet UNICEF’s core commitments for children, including quality assurance of MHPSS material used by partners.
5. Support ensuring a cross-sectoral approach to case management. This includes review and inputs to the sector-specific capacity-building materials/sector and identifies strategies to help ensure linkages between MHPSS and case management in health, education, and child protection.
6. Identify target groups and existing evidence from across the three sectors and counterparts to develop a strategy to roll out focused advocacy messages on MHPSS to (a) raise awareness on mental health and psychosocial well-being across education, child protection and health sectors; (b) to strengthen self-care and childcare, and care-seeking behaviours of the target audience, and (c) reduce stigma for people with mental health conditions.
7. Strengthen knowledge management and development and improvement of monitoring and evaluation systems to better measure the impact of our MHPSS interventions.
8. Any other MHPSS strengthening activities related to advancing MHPSS across child protection, health, nutrition, and education systems in the above activities in consultation with the concerned supervisor, Chiefs, and technical specialists.

9. Programme management, monitoring and quality control of results.

   • Contribute to planning and reporting functions of the Child Protection Team, including development and monitoring of annual workplans.
   • Contribute to drafting of funding allocations, ensure timely fund disbursement to partners and proper utilization as per plans, reporting and liquidation of resources.
   • Monitor programs/projects to assess progress, identify bottlenecks and potential problems and take timely decisions to resolve issues and/or refer to relevant officials for timely resolution.
   • Serves as section focal point on MHPSS issues for children including in respect of legal reform for child protection, and migration.

To qualify as an advocate for every child you will have…

The following minimum requirements:

Education: Master’s degree in social sciences, psychology, international development, public health, or similar relevant discipline. Two additional years of relevant work experience may be accepted in lieu of a master’s degree.

Work Experience:

• At least 5 years of MHPSS programming, including in humanitarian contexts.
• Solid knowledge and experience in child protection programming, including in humanitarian contexts.
• Solid knowledge and understanding of health, education, and child protection, including social work systems, humanitarian principles, child safeguarding measures and established international standards on mental health and psychosocial support for children, including adolescents.
• Strong coordination, organisational, relationship building and facilitation skills, face-to-face or remotely, with diverse stakeholders involving senior government, UN and NGO/INGO and academics.
• Demonstrated experience with multi-sectoral programme design and knowledge management, including remote coordination.
• Comfortable to work independently while coordinating closely with different teams.t specific work experiences required).

Language  requirements:

For every Child, you demonstrate…

UNICEF’s Core Values of Care, Respect, Integrity, Trust and Accountability and Sustainability (CRITAS) underpin everything we do and how we do it. Get acquainted with Our Values Charter: UNICEF Values

The UNICEF competencies required for this post are…

• Nurtures, Leads and Manages People (2)
• Demonstrates Self Awareness and Ethical Awareness (2)
• Works Collaboratively with others (2)
• Builds and Maintains Partnerships (2)
• Innovates and Embraces Change (2)
• Thinks and Acts Strategically (2)
• Drives to achieve impactful results (2)
• Manages ambiguity and complexity (2)

Familiarize yourself with our competency framework and its different levels.

UNICEF is here to serve the world’s most disadvantaged children and our global workforce must reflect the diversity of those children. The UNICEF family is committed to include everyone, irrespective of their race/ethnicity, age, disability, gender identity, sexual orientation, religion, nationality, socio-economic background, or any other personal characteristic.

We offer a wide range of benefits to our staff, including paid parental leave, breastfeeding breaks, and reasonable accommodation for persons with disabilities. UNICEF strongly encourages the use of flexible working arrangements.

UNICEF does not hire candidates who are married to children (persons under 18). UNICEF has a zero-tolerance policy on conduct that is incompatible with the aims and objectives of the United Nations and UNICEF, including sexual exploitation and abuse, sexual harassment, abuse of authority, and discrimination. UNICEF is committed to promoting the protection and safeguarding of all children. All selected candidates will undergo rigorous reference and background checks and will be expected to adhere to these standards and principles. Background checks will include the verification of academic credential(s) and employment history. Selected candidates may be required to provide additional information to conduct a background check.

UNICEF appointments are subject to medical clearance.  Issuance of a visa by the host country of the duty station is required for IP positions and will be facilitated by UNICEF. Appointments may also be subject to inoculation (vaccination) requirements, including against SARS-CoV-2 (Covid). Should you be selected for a position with UNICEF, you either must be inoculated as required or receive a medical exemption from the relevant department of the UN. Otherwise, the selection will be canceled.

Remarks:

As per Article 101, paragraph 3, of the Charter of the United Nations, the paramount consideration in the employment of the staff is the necessity of securing the highest standards of efficiency, competence, and integrity.

UNICEF’s active commitment to diversity and inclusion is critical to deliver the best results for children. For this position, eligible and suitable female candidates and persons with disability are encouraged to apply.

Government employees who are considered for employment with UNICEF are normally required to resign from their government positions before taking up an assignment with UNICEF. UNICEF reserves the right to withdraw an offer of appointment, without compensation, if a visa or medical clearance is not obtained, or necessary inoculation requirements are not met, within a reasonable period for any reason. 

UNICEF shall not facilitate the issuance of a visa and working authorization for candidates under consideration for positions at the national officer and general service category.

UNICEF does not charge a processing fee at any stage of its recruitment, selection, and hiring processes (i.e., application stage, interview stage, validation stage, or appointment and training). UNICEF will not ask for applicants’ bank account information.

All UNICEF positions are advertised, and only shortlisted candidates will be contacted and advance to the next stage of the selection process. An internal candidate performing at the level of the post in the relevant functional area, or an internal/external candidate in the corresponding Talent Group, may be selected, if suitable for the post, without assessment of other candidates.

Additional information about working for UNICEF can be found here.