Project Officer - Psychosocial Support (PSS)

Name

Job title

Project Officer - Psychosocial Support (PSS)

Working hours per week

40 hours per week

Contract period

6 months

Organisational unit

Humanitarian Response

Reports to

Team Leader – Emergency Response Project

Manager

Location

Kathmandu

Working Areas

Bhaktapur, Lalitpur, Dhading and Gorkha

Last revision

29th May 2015

Purpose of the job (brief)

The purpose of the job is to coordinate the community based psychosocial support activities within DCA Earthquake response on shelter, WASH and food security in DCA working districts.

Main Tasks

Short description

OR/MR/JR

Estimated time (%)

Coordination and Representative 

Understand the policies and guidelines of emergency response related to psychosocial activities in emergency in Nepal and coordinate DCA project activities at district and in communities.

Coordinate with project partners in the districts in the management of project cycle of psychosocial support to earthquake affected people.

Provide technical support to the partner staff to implement psychosocial support activities effectively in the target communities.

Coordinate with other clusters—Shelter, WASH, Food and Protection to integrate psychosocial support services wherever appropriate.

Coordinate the psychosocial counselling team and ensure that their work is according to core principles of humanitarian work and sphere standards.

Coordinate with other organisations through protection cluster to plan and implement psychosocial support activities in the project districts.

Identify existing coordination forums/meetings for MHPSS and PSS and attend these meetings.

Represent in the meetings of protection cluster and other meetings related to psychosocial support.

Liaise and collaborate with other CBPS actors when required.

Maintain positive coordination and relationships with partner organisations.

Policy  actions

Draft simple policy guidelines for DCA SARO to design and implement psychosocial projects.

Understand DCA policy and programs to ensure smooth coordination among team members and partners on the PSS activities.

Plan and ensure activities are done in accordance with DCA policy and in a timely manner to ensure the successful implementation of programs.

Need Identification

Carry out needs assessments of psychosocial support of the project districts—Lalitpur, Bhaktapur, Dhading and Gorkha in coordination with protection cluster.

Prepare needs assessment reports with the support of the partners and share with project management team.

Coordinate with other responses—shelter, WASH, Food while carrying out needs assessment, developing plan and implementation for mainstreaming CBPS.

Planning and implementation of CBSS Program

Develop psychosocial support action plan based on needs assessment with a particular focus to ensure that activities are participative, culturally sensitive, includes particularly vulnerable groups and builds on existing strengths and resources of the local community. 

Prepare CBPS plan and submit to the supervisor.

Involve target groups in the planning of CBPS action plan incorporating the input and ideas of target groups and community people.

Implement the action plan of psychosocial support plan through partners considering concerns of culture and gender and building the existing strengths of the local communities.

Disseminate the exercises and materials on stress management and colleagues support

Capacity building of partners

Assess the capacity of the partners in psychosocial support and find out the needs in capacity building among CBPS project staff and volunteers.

Develop capacity building plan of partner’s staff and provide training to them according to the work plan developed.

Mobilize community based persons if available for building their capacity in CBSP for sustaining this services at local level.

Conduct the awareness and training activities on CBPS to partners and psychosocial activities in the communities.

Collate/design PSS related learning materials for DCA and partners

Technical support

Provide strong technical support to local partners and project staff during the planning and implementation of CBPS activities.

Monitoring

Organize monitoring visit of donor in consultation with supervisor and in coordination with partners. 

Prepare monitoring report and share with partners and supervisors.

Follow up the ongoing activities based on monitoring report.

Reporting and documentation

Document the activities carried out through partners in terms of progress based on action plan.

Document the process, lesson learnt and best practices of CBPS activities along with partners.

Referral case

Identify the sever cases affected from the earthquake in the project communities.

Facilitate and support the establishing of local referral mechanisms for persons who need professional mental health support (incl. mapping of available resources and facilitate communication).