Staff Support Consultant

Medicos del Mundo MdM is an international humanitarian organisation whose mission is to provide medical care for the most vulnerable populations, the world over, including Spain. It seeks to stimulate voluntary commitment from doctors, other health care providers, and from those whose expertise in other fields is needed for its activities, to enlist all competent support required for the achievement of its projects, and to seek at all times to encourage close working relationships with populations in its care.

MdM is currently implementing a project in the Luhansk and Donetsk Oblast - Ukraine since September 2015. MdM intervenes to improve access and quality of health care services for vulnerable conflict affected populations in Luhansk Oblast, namely internally displaced persons (IDPs) and host communities in government-controlled areas (GCA) and civilians remaining resident in non-government-controlled areas (NGCA). The field teams has been in place since June 2015 and is now implementing activities in government-controlled areas of Luhansk Oblast and starting activities in non-government-controlled areas in order to:

• Increase access to integrated quality Primary Health Care (PHC) services for vulnerable populations in conflict-affected areas of Donbass - including Sexual Reproductive Health (SRH), Gender-Based Violence (GBV), Mental Health and Psychosocial Support (MHPSS) and referral systems;
• Strengthen local health capacities (authorities, NGOs) to ensure access to health care services for vulnerable populations in GCA.

The understanding that a high level of stressful experiences is inevitable in most humanitarian work drives the need to offer psychological support for MdM teams. As a result, MdM aims to provide confidential, one-on-one telephone, video conference or in-person psychological consultations for the staff of the mission. This is especially important for those working in or supporting those in high-stress environments.

The consultancy scope will require hiring two national experts, who can deliver a individual MHPSS supports to the staff members.

Objectives of the Consultancy

At least two clinical psychologist experienced in staff support and emergency psychosocial interventions are identified, briefed by MHCo and available to provide remotely (through phone or Skype) or in person when needed in each base of the mission (Kiev , Bahmut, Severodonetsk and Stanitsa-Luganska). These specialists should be familiar with the nature of humanitarian work and the sources of stress that can affect staff. The identified psychologists will remain external to the organization and have no operational links with MdM other then the service contract.

Essential tasks

The contracted consultant is to provide a maximum of 10 individual sessions per year to the employee of MdM. Sessions can be implemented separately: for example, one every two months or consecutively, as identified by the request of the employee and following the clinical advice of a specialist. They should be conducted outside the office and not during office hours. A service contract will be signed with the recommended consultant to ensure his/her commitment in providing the service when requested with an agreed amount of hours (all included, the contract is be an open-end contract without a precise termination date).

Expected Results and Deliverables

The external consultant will not share information with the organization, unless requested to do so in generalized manner in a form of a report on organizational stressors which will be used by the Coordination team to implement measures for stress prevention and respond by improvement of management practices. Additionally, generalized analysis of the MHPSS wellbeing can be requested.

Payment schedule per deliverables

Procedurally, each employee directly contacts the Staff Care Psychologist. After preset period, the external consultant sends an invoice to MDM (Att: AdminCo) with the identification of the number of counseling hours and established coding method of the individuals received the service. The external consultant will not share other information with the organization, the only exception defined for the following rule: confidentiality can be broken if there is a danger for the employee to hurt oneself or others and/or the organization's operations.

Qualifications and Experience

Potential providers will be interviewed and the following information should be assessed or requested:

• Credentials: amount of training, level of professional certification, professional memberships in psychology.
• Degree of experience, including experience with different kinds of critical incidents (e.g., sexual assault, death)
• Brief description of the individual's approach or "philosophy" to psychological and critical incident support
• Amount of experience working with humanitarian staff
• Availability and response time for immediate and longer-term critical incident response and support; the number of cases to be led simultaneously.
• Any individual MHPSS wellbeing measurements applied
• Cost
• One or more examples of past work or recent engagements, related to staff support
• References.

Please note: registration as a Self Employed Person is a strong advantage.

Compensation

The cost per each session per each individual is to be negotiated prior to the contracting.

Candidates should provide price per one session including all taxes and charges.

We offer:

• Service contract until the 30/04/2021 with possible extension (pending of funding).

HOW TO APPLY:

Please submit a cover letter and resume in one document (Word/PDF) and a proposed budget to Отправить резюме no later than 14th of June 2020.

Applications will be considered on a rolling basis.