POSITION : Wellbeing Specialist

Description

Save the Children is seeking a Wellbeing Specialist for an anticipated USAID-funded project for Education in Emergencies programming in the Northeast states of Nigeria.

The Wellbeing Specialist will provide strategic technical guidance and support to ensure that students’ and teachers’ psycho-social and social emotional wellbeing are central in the design and implementation of the education project.

Working closely with the core technical team, s/he will support the project to build a base of understanding and supporting specific capacity building and interventions that support the psycho-social, social emotional learning, and wellbeing needs of children and teachers impacted by the ongoing crisis in the Northeastern states.

Additionally, the Wellbeing Specialist will work with the project’s senior management and field teams to identify opportunities to strengthen education and protection systems to respond to the specific needs of students and teachers as well as coordinate with protection colleagues to understand opportunities to connect with community and health support structures as relevant.

This position is contingent upon donor approval and funding.

Requirements

• Bachelor's degree, and preferably post-graduate University degree, in subject related to Emergency Education, Social Sciences or Public Health.
• At least seven years demonstrated experience providing psycho-social support, guidance and counselling or child protection particularly in a humanitarian context with a minimum of two years in senior management level as Advisor or Project/Program Manager.

Essential:

• Excellent communication skills.
• Strong influencing skills and experience in advocacy.
• Politically and culturally sensitive with qualities of patience, tact and diplomacy
• Fluency in English.
• Good interpersonal skills with the ability to communicate and negotiate clearly and effectively at all levels, taking into account cultural and language difficulties.
• Cross-cultural sensitivity, flexible worldview, emotional maturity, and physical stamina.
• Substantial progressive, professional-level experience at the management level with background in providing psychosocial and/or social emotional learning within education or child protection programs.
• Demonstrated understanding and application of humanitarian principles and guidelines, including INEE’s Minimum Standards, Sphere, Red Cross Code of Conduct, and Minimum Standards for Child Protection in Humanitarian Action.
• Ability to work both in an advisory and a hands on implementation capacity.
• Ability to write/ review and input into clear and well-argued assessment and project report.
• Ability to liaise and effectively coordinate with government, local NGOs and community initiatives.

Desirable:

• Experience of representation, including Cluster coordination, and ability to represent effectively in external forums
• Commitment to working through systems of community participation and accountability
• Proven capacity to supervise, train, coach, and mentor staff
• Previous experience managing a team
• Preferred area of expertise may include psychosocial support within Education in Emergencies programs.
• Post graduate degree with hands on experience in providing technical support in protection and psychosocial interventions.
• Technical expertise in principals, theories, concepts and techniques in the area of social service systems strengthening, including knowledge of and ability to integrate across related disciplines.

Responsibilities

• The Wellbeing Specialist will liaise closely with other technical advisors, as well as the Chief of Party (COP), Deputy Chief of Party (DCOP), and partners.
• Lead the review of existing psychosocial and social emotional learning resources available from the Nigeria Ministry of Education and partner organizations.
• Identify additional needs, if any, and lead on the adaption or creation of technical resources and training materials to meet objectives set by the project.
• Ensure the technical resources and process of implementation adhere to best practices in education and protection as established by relevant international and national standards, including the INEE Guidance Notes on Psychosocial Support and Social Emotional Learning.
• Design and support a capacity building plan to orient, provide essential knowledge and skills, and assist relevant project team members, teachers, and selected SBMC members to support classroom/center-based interventions and activities.
• Collaborate with the Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning (MEL) Advisor to establish and implement a MEL system that allows the project to understand impact of content and process as relevant to wellbeing, including both the psychosocial and social emotional learning content as well as the additional inputs meant to impact wellbeing.
• Stay abreast of political, social, economic, and cultural developments that have an impact on the wellbeing of students and teachers and provide advice to the project team.
• Ensure implementation of high quality conflict sensitive interventions throughout the project cycle and make sure that the Do No Harm principle is upheld at all times by being sensitive to factors that can cause conflict and ensure that education is not manipulated to promote exclusion and hate.
• Support policies to protect children from abuse and exploitation and support emergency preparedness and readiness through Conflict and Disaster Risk Reduction planning.
• Support the preparation of timely and quality program and donor reports on project activities in compliance with relevant donor requirements.
• Ensure close engagement of and partnerships with related government Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs), donor-funded programs, private/commercial entities, and NGOs.

Capacity Building:

• Provide continuous support to project team in, program implementation, reporting, staff capacity building and management, sector coordination and key technical areas

Sub-Sector Coordination Representation & Advocacy:

• Document lessons learned for wider dissemination with Emergency in Education stakeholders at field level and at national level
• In collaboration with senior project staff, assist in advocacy activities that target decision-makers at all levels.
• Identify opportunities and material to contribute to emergency education communications and media work.