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For every child, mental well-being

Background
In Suriname, as in many countries, the seriousness of mental health and (absence of) psychosocial support became even more evident during the COVID-19 pandemic. The worsening social economic situation created civil unrest and put extra stress and tensions on households, which negatively impacted children’s mental wellbeing and mental health especially the most marginalized children in the country. The burden of mental ill-health in Suriname, is most prominently noticeable in the growing suicide problem. In 2019, the number of suicides reached 148, which is about 4% of the total deaths. Suriname was globally in the 5th place of countries with highest suicide rates with a rate of 25.4 nationally (WHO). For adolescents (15-19 years) the rate was 15.2, with higher rates for males (16) than for Females (14.4) (WHO). In 2018, suicide was the second leading cause of death among persons aged 15-39 years. District Nickerie traditionally reports the highest suicide rates compared to other districts. As for the suicide attempts, unfortunately the last few years there is an increase in the number of children aged 10-14 that attempt to commit suicide. A national study in 2022 among adolescents (ages 16-25) by the Ministry of Labor, Employment, and Youth Affairs in collaboration with UNICEF, has shown that 36.2% (923) of young people in the 16-25 age group ever thought of suicide. Most young people (37%) have thought of suicide for the first time between the age of 15-17 years. Most young people, 76%, have indicated that they have experienced stress and/or depression in recent months. 64% of young people also indicated that they have experienced school and study problems.
In Nickerie mental health is still a “Taboo”, people are not open to talk about it. Awareness must be raised at all levels on mental health and psychosocial support (MHPSS) for better understanding of mental wellbeing, breaking the silence and avoiding stigmatization. UNICEF is supporting a set of interventions developed in collaboration with the municipality of Nickerie, led by the district commissioner, and collaboration with the Ministry of Health to strengthen the mental well-being of people in the district. A key element of the program includes resilience building of children and adolescents in Nickerie through a non-formal skills development program.

The goal of the skills development program for children and adolescents is to increase adolescents’ self-efficacy and resilience skills to improve their ability in navigating successfully in changing and adverse circumstances, to overcome the different difficulties that arise in daily life, regain emotional balance and to deal with adversity in a constructive way, recognize and take care of their mental well-being.

To achieve this, we aim to develop a mental well-being skills development bootcamp (non-formal learning setting) for children and adolescents, training of a group of young people for peer-to-peer support and (community) facilitators to implement the skills development bootcamp program.
School settings are important platforms for mental well-being interventions, including mental health education, awareness raising, and services given that children spend a great amount of time in schools and school staff can often serve as a first point of contact. Therefore, the secondary goal of this initiative is to draw lessons from the implementation of the skills program to identify program elements and best practices that can be successfully incorporated into existing subjects within the school curriculum.

How can you make a difference?

Scope of Work:

The consultant is expected to work under the guidance of UNICEF, supported by a key working group for mental health in Nickerie led by the District Commissioner.

Under the contractual supervision of UNICEF Suriname, the Consultant will perform the following tasks:
Inception report
• Development of a workplan, methodology and tools. The consultant is expected to make an inventory of relevant existing related mental health skills development programs, explore good practices and develop a workplan, methodology and tools for consultations.

Mental well-being skills development bootcamp
• Develop a non-formal 6-week mental well-being skills development program (curriculum, lesson plans and timeframes and covering aims, learning objectives, learning activities, content, teaching strategies, resources and assessment criteria) for children and adolescents aged 12-18, including scheduling for afternoon and weekend sessions. The provided concept serves as a direction. The consultant is expected to do a review of successful programs, develop, and present a program aligned to the local context and needs; and make the necessary adjustments based on the feedback from the project steering group.
• Develop a training program for capacity building of local persons as facilitators to execute the mental well-being skills development bootcamp program, including trainer’s handbook.
• Define a profile of requirements, recruit and train a group of selected 10-15 local persons as facilitators to implement the bootcamp skills training.
• Provide on the-job coaching and guidance to facilitators during the implementation of a first cohort of 100 adolescents participating in the 6-week mental well-being skills development bootcamp.

Skills development for mental well-being peer-to-peer agents
• Develop a training program for capacity building of young volunteers as peer-to-peer agents for conducting foundational level awareness in mental well-being, including trainer’s handbook.
• Define a profile of requirements for young volunteers, recruit and train a group of selected 20-30 young people as mental well-being peer-to-peer agents.

Evidence based development
Develop tools for the 6-week mental well-being skills development bootcamp for pre- and post-measurement of participant’s views related to:
• Pre- and post-measurement: participants (bootcamp) self-assessment of their level of resilience related to mental well-being. Data collection and reporting on participant’s skills development based on pre- and post-assessment.
• Tool for post assessment of the bootcamp experience: participant’s initial satisfaction with the experience; usefulness of the content of each skills module; facilitation process; support from their environment; use of new knowledge and skills. NO data collection and reporting required by the consultant. Data collection will be done by an independent party.

All training activities are expected to be completed face-to-face on site in Nickerie.

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

● Master’s degree in Pschology,/Education/Training & Counseling/Behavioral sciences or other related field
with 5 years of experience in developing capacity building programs/ training/ counseling/ coaching in the area of MHPSS
● Experience in working with adolescents;
● Excellent communication skills;
● Familiarity of the local context in Nickerie;
● Fluent in Dutch; professional working proficiency in English.
● The Consultant is expected to have research capacity and high level analytical and synthesis skills, together with personal and professional ethics and integrity, and basic skills in human rights and gender equity focus.
● Ability to work both independently and collaboratively.

For every Child, you demonstrate…

UNICEF’s values of Care, Respect, Integrity, Trust, Accountability, and Sustainability (CRITAS).

 

To view our competency framework, please visit  here.

Please access the complete Terms of Reference here:  Terms of Reference Skills development program mental well-being Nickerie.pdf

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.

UNICEF offers reasonable accommodation for consultants/individual contractors with disabilities. This may include, for example, accessible software, travel assistance for missions or personal attendants. We encourage you to disclose your disability during your application in case you need reasonable accommodation during the selection process and afterwards in your assignment.

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 also adheres to strict child safeguarding principles. All selected candidates will be expected to adhere to these standards and principles and will therefore undergo rigorous reference and background checks. 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.

Remarks: 

Only shortlisted candidates will be contacted and advance to the next stage of the selection process.

Individuals engaged under a consultancy or individual contract will not be considered “staff members” under the Staff Regulations and Rules of the United Nations and UNICEF’s policies and procedures, and will not be entitled to benefits provided therein (such as leave entitlements and medical insurance coverage). Their conditions of service will be governed by their contract and the General Conditions of Contracts for the Services of Consultants and Individual Contractors. Consultants and individual contractors are responsible for determining their tax liabilities and for the payment of any taxes and/or duties, in accordance with local or other applicable laws.

The selected candidate is solely responsible to ensure that the visa (applicable) and health insurance required to perform the duties of the contract are valid for the entire period of the contract. Selected candidates are subject to confirmation of fully-vaccinated status against SARS-CoV-2 (Covid-19) with a World Health Organization (WHO)-endorsed vaccine, which must be met prior to taking up the assignment. It does not apply to consultants who will work remotely and are not expected to work on or visit UNICEF premises, programme delivery locations or directly interact with communities UNICEF works with, nor to travel to perform functions for UNICEF for the duration of their consultancy contracts.