Caring for staff and volunteers delegate, Ukraine

Danish Red Cross is looking for a highly qualified Caring for staff and volunteers delegate to be stationed in Chernivtsi, Ukraine.

DRC’s main partner in the Ukraine is Ukrainian Red Cross Society (URCS) and a psychosocial component was introduced in the URCS in the aftermath of the crisis in 2015 and DRC has supported PSS capacity development since 2018, becoming a core service of the NS. The URCS needs to continue to increase its technical capacities to ensure qualitative services, as well as to define a sustainable strategy for the long-term development. During the emergency phase, however, the focus is on supporting URCS to mainstream psychological first aid (PFA) and protection gender and inclusion (PGI) minimum standards into other sectors e.g. Relief and CASH, conduct assessments, and train volunteers on providing psychosocial support (PSS) in emergencies.

DRC will also focus on supporting URCS to establish a staff and volunteer support system. The mental health and psychosocial wellbeing of volunteers and staff responding to the emergency in Ukraine is being affected. They have been increasingly exposed to stressful conditions and traumatic events in their work. Therefore, DRC and URCS are working on providing support and care for the staff and volunteers in the response so that they do not burn out and can carry out their work. Like the rest of the population, URCS also has thousands of internally displaced staff and volunteers who are working under very difficult circumstances whilst being separated from their families.

URCS is providing remote support through the PSS team to volunteers across the country and working with ICRC and other organizations to ensure staff and volunteers have access to psychosocial and psychological services.

The DRC Caring for Staff and Volunteers delegate will work closely with the DRC PS delegate and provide technical support to URCS and Movement partners on the development of a sustainable staff and volunteer support system in line with the capacity and needs of the URCS. The Caring for Staff and Volunteers Delegate is part of the DRC EURASIA team and reports to the Head of Programme (HoP) on the long-term programme and the DRC Operation Manager on the humanitarian project until end of September. In addition, the Delegate will be part of the DRC MHPSS matrix with cross cutting global technical tasks/responsibilities and technical reporting line to the MHPSS matrix coordinator.

Job Duties and Responsibilities:

• Support URCS to develop a staff and volunteer care system including development of ToR, SoPs, guidance documents, training material, referral system and supervision system.
• Provide project and technical support in planning, development and implementation of humanitarian and long term program activities, including trainings, mentoring, and undertaking monitoring and evaluation in relation to staff and volunteer care.
• Provide appropriate mentorship, capacity building and technical support to URCS counterparts and volunteers including in assessment and identification of needs, protection risks, priorities, objectives, outputs and core components and activities related to staff and volunteer care capacity building.
• Promote and contribute to coordination on staff and volunteer care among MHPSS/NSD RC/RC Movement partners including the ICRC and other partners together with DRC Branch and Volunteer Development Delegate.
• Support needs and protection risk assessment, stakeholders and URCS capacity analysis.
• Conduct needs and capacity baseline in target areas, in close coordination with URCS, other RC Movement partners, and other actors, and monitor trends throughout the project period.
• Monitor programme progress including regular field-visits with URCS counterparts.
• Develop new programme ideas and concepts together with URCS and partners.

• Provide technical inputs to development of programme documents.

• Support the immediate DRC response in case of a disaster.

• Ensure progress on programme implementation by providing programme management support to URCS including development and revision of yearly and quarterly adjusted action plans and budgets.

About You

Education and background:

• Technical expertise within psychosocial, mental health, protection, and community-based programming.
• Experience working with staff/volunteer care in emergency settings.
• Minimum of 5 years of relevant experience of which 3 years in the field with good knowledge of issues relating to MHPSS in humanitarian and development programs

Proven skills within:

• Previous experience managing PSS projects with strong technical, programme mentoring, and management skills
• Experience in capacity building and providing supervision to staff and volunteers, preferably within a setting of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies
• Experience in working with partners at national and sub-national levels
• Work experience in in measuring and reporting on indicators through innovative qualitative data gathering techniques and other type of surveys
• Experience in utilizing the following internationals tools: IFRC PSS toolboxes and IASC MHPSS Guidelines
• Fluency in written and spoken English language, knowledge of Ukrainian or Russian an advantage
• Experience within the Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement mandatory

Personal skills:

• Values: Integrity; Commitment to the Red Cross mission and values; Valuing diversity
• Managing Relationships: Working in teams; Communicating information and ideas; Conflict and self-management; Knowledge sharing/Continuous learning
• Working with people: Empowerment/Developing people/Performance management
• Personal Leadership and Effectiveness: Strategic and analytical thinking, Result orientated
• Able to work in politically complex environment
• Strong and empathetic personality, able to mentor teams in challenging contexts

Employment conditions

The ideal starting date is as soon as possible and the length of the contract is 12 months with the possibility to extend. Your duty station will be Chernivtsi, Ukraine. The position is a non-family duty station. Travelling to the programme areas will take place to the degree that the security situation in-country allows.

The salary including all allowances and pension will be between DKK 43,800 to 46,300 pending on qualifications and experience.

Further information

For more information on the position, please contact DRC Senior MHPSS advisor and matrix coordinator Louise Kryger at [email protected]

Please send you application as soon as possible as interviews for the position will be conducted between April 19^th and April 21^st 2022.