Consultant Mental Health and Psychosocial Support Minimum Services Package

Duty Station: Remote-based assignment, supporting the Humanitarian Office. Purpose of consultancy: UNFPA is the United Nations sexual and reproductive health agency. Our mission is to deliver a world where every pregnancy is wanted, every childbirth is safe and every young person’s potential is fulfilled UNFPA’s new strategic plan (2022-2025), focuses on three transformative results: ● Ending unmet need for family planning ● Ending preventable maternal death ● Ending gender-based violence and harmful practices Increased recognition of Mental Health and Psychosocial Support (MHPSS) needs in emergencies has led to a proliferation of MHPSS activities across sectors. Lack of guidance on prioritization of activities can lead to ill-coordinated, inequitable, and ineffective responses that fail to utilize potential synergies between different sectors. In response, UNFPA collaborated with WHO, UNICEF and UNHCR to develop a Mental Health and Psychosocial Support Minimum Service Package (MHPSS MSP): a single multisectoral package of minimum activities, prioritizing activities with the greatest impact and promoting effective use of limited resources. The MSP will support humanitarian actors in designing and implementing a coordinated, predictable, and evidence-informed MHPSS response across sectors such as health, community-based protection, education, child protection, gender-based violence (GBV) and camp coordination & camp management (CCCM). It promotes close alignment of activities between UN agencies and humanitarian NGOs. Moreover, the MSP promotes the planning, rebuilding, and strengthening of sustainable government and civil society systems of care from the beginning of an emergency and can be used to attract further support for longer-term recovery, systems development, and peacebuilding. A field test version of the MHPSS MSP was released in September 2021 (mhpssmsp.org), and subsequently feedback was collected to inform the finalization of the MSP planned for the end of 2022. In a new phase of the project, UNICEF, WHO, UNHCR and UNFPA will jointly support humanitarian actors on the ground to scale up MSP implementation in humanitarian settings with high needs including in recent emergencies and in refugee settings. The new phase of the project has the following goals: • Provide remote technical support and organize knowledge sharing workshops for MHPSS Technical Working Groups and implementing agencies to facilitate MSP roll-out across different sectors. • Provide in-country technical support and mentorship to MHPSS Technical Working Groups and implementing agencies rolling out the MSP in four emergency contexts through field deployments by MHPSS MSP technical specialists.

• Conduct dissemination events to share good practices and recommendations for MSP implementation with humanitarian actors across sectors to inform, improve and further scale up MSP implementation. • Conduct field-level research documenting experiences implementing the MSP in different sectors and contexts to identify good practices, barriers to implementation, and effective implementation strategies (e.g. through interviews, focus groups, and analysis of data from the MSP gap analysis tool). • Work with MHPSS Technical Working Groups in humanitarian settings to collect and analyze data on MSP coverage, implementation and barriers in at least five humanitarian emergencies (e.g. using the MSP Gap Analysis Tool). • Identify which operational tools are most critically needed to implement MSP activities safely and effectively based on MSP expert consultations and field testing focusing on gender-based violence, and sexual and reproductive health. • Develop selected priority operational tools (e.g. templates for the dissemination of key MHPSS Messages, training curricula for staff implementing particular MSP activities). UNFPA’s contribution will focus on:

1. Supporting MSP introduction and implementation, with a primary focus on emergency response in humanitarian and refugee settings;
2. Developing operational tools with a primary focus on tools that are most relevant for emergency response in humanitarian and refugee settings focusing on gender-based violence and sexual and reproductive health response.
3. Working with the global MSP team consisting of specialists of UNFPA, UNICEF, WHO and UNHCR to support the implementation of the MSP and development of associated tools, including supporting research on the use of the MSP through the collection and analysis of data on MSP coverage, implementation, and barriers. The project will be governed by the Partner group consisting of representatives of the four UN agencies and the thematic sub-group on the MSP which is part of the IASC Reference Group for MHPSS in Emergencies). Scope of work : The consultant will support the implementation of the MSP in humanitarian settings, by building capacity and providing technical support, identifying good practices and implementation barriers, and developing needed operational tools. Given the mandate of UNFPA , two areas are important:
4. to ensure the applicability of the MSP, with a primary focus on gender-based violence (GBV) and sexual and reproductive health (SRH) in emergency response operations or refugee operations,
5. to ensure that the MSP contains implementation support tools to inform MHPSS implementation, with a primary focus on GBV and SRH in emergency response in humanitarian and refugee settings. The consultant will therefore: ● Support the implementation of the MSP through remote and in-country technical support, with a primary focus on refugee settings. With support from the UNFPA Senior MHPSS Officer, the consultant will organize knowledge sharing workshops to facilitate MSP roll-out across different sectors and provide in-country technical support and mentorship; ● Be deployed to provide implementation-support in at least two refugee operation and to identify good practices and implementation barriers in these contexts;

● Develop selected priority specific operational tools, particularly in the field of protection; The outline of specific operational tools to be developed will be defined in the early stages of the consultancy. The consultant will work closely with the MSP team (consisting of other consultants and staff from UNFPA, WHO, UNICEF and UNHCR) Required Expertise and Qualifications:

Education ● University degree (minimum master’s degree) in a relevant field such as psychiatry, psychology, or clinical social work. Knowledge and experience ● At least 7 years of relevant work experience for applicants with post-graduate university degree including at least 3 years of working experience with persons in humanitarian contexts in the field; ● Good knowledge of Mental Health and Psychosocial Support in Humanitarian Settings as demonstrated by successful completion of short courses in this field. ● Very good understanding and previous experience in programming around mental health and psychosocial support in humanitarian and/or displacement settings is essential; ● Experience in developing guidance and training materials; ● Previous experience in working in conjunction with UNFPA and other actors in the field on MHPSS programming is desirable; ● Organisational and planning skills, excellent writing/drafting skills, analytical thinking, monitoring skills are required. ● Stakeholder management, negotiation, networking skills are desirable ● Conversant with MS Word, SharePoint, PowerPoint, Excel (data visualisation skills an asset) and; can competently use platforms to hold online meetings Languages ● Fluency in English. Knowledge of an additional UN language, such as Arabic, French and/or Spanish is highly desirable.