Child Protection Specialist (Psychosocial Support) at United Nation Children's Fund (UNICEF)

UNICEF's mission in Nigeria is to help governments at all levels, organizations, communities and families provide every child with education, health, equality and protection.

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.

We are recruiting to fill the position of:

Job Title: Child Protection Specialist (Psychosocial Support)

Vacancy number: VN-NGR-40-2014
Locations: Abuja and Borno
Contract Type: Temporary Appointment (TA)

Job Summary

• The successful candidate will be responsible for strengthening the protective environment for children, reinforcing the resilience of children and adolescents and families living and ensuring severely affected children are appropriately referred to specialist support services in the three States of Emergency in the North East of Nigeria.

Major Duties and Responsibilities

• Manage the implementation and scale up of the PSS programme in the States of Emergency (Borno, Yobe and Adamawa)
• Manage the scale up training for key stakeholders and step down trainings on PSS, including the identification of training needs and skills gaps
• Deliver training for the trainers and support step down training for community volunteers
• Provide continued technical support to the training and supervision teams and the community volunteers, including establishing and managing a support system for community level volunteers
• Support the development of community based activities and delivery of psychosocial support services by the community volunteers
• Manage and quality ensure the work of the team of third party local consultants responsible for overseeing and monitoring the PSS programme
• Establish and strengthen relations with stakeholders in the affected State working on similar issues and promote and support coordination around similar initiatives.
• Support coordination of the mental health and psychosocial support reference working group at Federal level and establishment and support of a coordination mechanism for psychosocial support at State and Local Government Authority Level.
• Support the integration of psychosocial support programme in other key sectors such as education, health & nutrition and C4D
• Support development of an effective referral mechanism for mental health and psychosocial support at Local Government Authority Level and for inter-state referrals
• Undertake a psychosocial needs assessment to establish the psychosocial resources (formal and informal) and needs of the displaced population as a result of the conflict
• Develop and implement a monitoring framework to ensure implementation progress is as planned and to track whether the institutional capacity, community and religious leader's engagement, and training components are meeting the needs and producing the expected results.
• Overall programme management and coordination of the PPS programme, including developing workplans, budgeting, donor reports, etc

Qualifications and Competencies

• Advanced university Degree in Social Work, Psychology, Social Science or related field
• Minimum of 5 years demonstrable professional experience in implementing community based psychosocial support programmes. At least 3 years of experience in designing and delivering training in PSS, preferably in humanitarian crises/emergency settings
• Fluency in English
• Excellent training and communication skills
• Proven ability to work independently under difficult conditions
• Proven track records of taking initiative

Application Closing Date
19th November, 2014

How to Apply
Interested and qualified candidates should submit his/her application, accompanied by updated CV in English and a completed United Nations Personal History Form, to: [email protected]

Click here to download United Nations Personal History Form

Note: Please put the position title you are applying for on the subject line of your email.