Mental Health Psychosocial (MHPSS) Project Officer at International Rescue Committee

Key Responsibilities:

• Co-ordination of the Teach wells school based MHPSS interventions for teachers. S/He will be charged with the responsibility of conducting needs assessment and provision of appropriate interventions, for female teachers in the schools.
• Prepare annual and quarterly work plans and budgets for all MHPSS activities and ensure implementation is within the donor requirements, guidelines and timelines.
• Support the development, review, and dissemination of the MHPSS technical modules in the teacher professional development curriculum.
• Organize and conduct all capacity building activities for teacher trainers or trainers, peer educators, teachers and male champions.
• Render psychosocial support services to individual teachers, and teacher support groups to assist them to process, deal and recover from the effects of traumatic events.
• Coordinate and strengthen linkages of teachers to other MHPSS services outside school i.e. health facilities, social protection, gender-based violence recovery centres, police, etc, through a defined referral pathway
• Oversee and conduct psychosocial assessments & plan individual case management of teachers on follow up at the mental health department & ensure case management goals are properly achieved.
• Facilitate group counseling sessions with teachers including selection of group members, planning the group sessions & facilitating group sessions.
• Collaborate and network with other and or all relevant implementing partners in teacher MHPSS, line ministries, hospital departments and community stake holders through active participation in periodic coordination forums.
• Lead the Teachwell project Health sub working group in her/his area of jurisdiction.
• Provide mentorship and coaching for the teacher trainers or trainers supporting MHPSS in schools through continuous education, guidance, supervision, and support.
• Attend project and Consortium partners and camp meetings related to teacher MHPSS to improve service delivery to female teachers.
• Ensure that all work with client teachers is kept confidential and that ethical practices are always observed.
• Lead the timely development of all required project reports for sharing with the consortium and the donor.
• Assist with any other related activities/duties as deemed by the supervisor.            

Key result areas

• Improvement in overall quality of MHPSS care for all the teachers in Kakuma refugee camp.

Minimum Qualifications:

• Degree in Medical psychology, counselling or a related field.
• Working knowledge of English and Kiswahili.
• Excellent written, verbal and interpersonal communication skills.
• At least 3-5 years in field programming experience within schools, teachers, Humanitarian, NGO/Agency in the same or similar position.
• Extensive experience providing psychotherapy to teachers and groups.
• Flexibility and adaptability to the changing environment.
• Skilled at working as a team member.
• Demonstrate flexibility to adapt to changing requirements and needs.
• Working knowledge of Microsoft office suite (Outlook, Word & Excel).
• Able to work in a stressful refugee environment.