Psychosocial Support (PSS) in Emergency Consultancy (with focus on adolescents)

OVERVIEW

The psychological impact of conflict-related violence coupled with the ongoing challenges related to internal displacement can have a significant impact on the mental health and psychosocial well-being of Syrian adults, adolescents and children. Some of these ongoing challenges include lack of resources, increased risks of exploitation, violence, forced and early marriage, child labour, discrimination, disruption of social networks, lack of livelihood options and reliance on negative coping skills. As the conflict shifts into a protracted crisis, it is important to gain and understanding of Syrian culture-specific expressions of distress, healing practices, and coping strategies particularly adolescents that too often they are invisible and unheard in decisions that influence their lives. Understanding the way in which Syrians and specifically adolescents may experience and cope with psychological distress and mental health problems can make more effective our PSS activities and offer insight into how to be the most helpful. This can be used to develop CARE protection programming that is most effective for Syrian adolescents, shaping community initiatives to promote adolescent resilience, increase the use of positive coping mechanisms and increase the capacity of CARE partners to target adolescents.

Adolescent participation remains essential in crisis settings, even though the favorable conditions that encourage adolescents’ participation - including time, funding and commitment - might be limited by the emergency circumstances[1].

Purpose

In line with the IASC guidance on MHPSS in emergency settings, the Whole of Syria protection cluster strategy on adolescent girls programming (2017-2022) and CARE community centers approach with the focus on the PSS services (conducted through recreational activities, case management, non-formal education, etc.) the consultant will provide technical guidance in defining effective and cultural-sensitive PSS strategies focus on adolescent and will develop PSS capacity building modules on PSS and adolescents. Gender, age and diversity will be mainstreamed throughout the designing process.

Specifically, the objectives of the consultancy are:

· To lead on the development of CARE psychosocial support strategy (with a focus on adolescent) for North Syria programs harmonized with the other CARE Syria hubs.

· To ensure the strategy is representative of CARE and Partners ambition, commitment and capacity in Syria.

· To ensure CARE and its partners strengthen their capacity to carry out specialized PSS programs with focus on Adolescent.

Scope of consultancy

The consultant or a team of consultants in close coordination with north Syria protection team will be work partially work in Turkey and partially from home for a period of 1 months with possible extension. This will include also frequent skype calls with key staff inside Syria, bilateral meetings with protection cluster leads and other key relevant sector leads, and consultations with CARE MENA office based in Jordan.

The PSS consultancy will conduct the following activities:

Development of a CARE North Syria PSS strategy focus on adolescents

Step 1: Inception report - Desk review and Consultations

Develop an inception report detailing the process, data-collection methodologies, questionnaires and tools to be used for this assignment, included budget. The inception report should include a detailed workplan with time frame for various consultations, workshops, one to one interviews, FGDs, training sessions on the strategy plan. This is due within 5 days upon signing the contract and must be first discussed and agreed with CARE key staff before commencing any activities.

Literature review of the tools and resources that have been successful in supporting partners to address the needs of adolescent girls in Syria.

Literature review of the tools and resources that have been effective in building the capacity of staff working with adolescents (youth clubs, sport activities, non-formal education, etc.) in Syria.

Use different ways of collecting data: Skype calls with key CARE partner team inside Syria, FGDs with community centers beneficiaries, consultations with CARE partners and CARE staff through workshops and one to one meetings with CARE partners.

Rapid analysis of knowledge, adolescent-friendly attitudes, and practices of CARE/partner staff at field and managerial levels on adolescent programs and analyses of strengths, weaknesses, threats ad opportunities and gaps to be addressed.

Step 2: PSS Strategy development, Strategy validation and finalization

Based on the consultation process and desk review the consultant will draft the PSS strategic plan (objectives, outcomes, outputs/results, activities, costs including target groups and target areas/location) and share with key CARE/partners staff for validation.

Validation exercise workshops in Gaziantep to validate the PSS strategic plan.

Consolidation of inputs from the validation workshop and submit a final PSS strategy document with recommendations on the way forward (10 pages maximum) in the agreed format and quality as per recommendation and inputs from the key CARE staff.

CARE north Syria PSS strategy 2-pager for external communication.

CARE North Syria PSS Strategy PowerPoint presentation.

Develop PSS activities package focus on adolescents

Step 1: Develop PSS training package and deliver 5 days training sessions.

Based on the findings the consultant will work on developing a specific PSS training manual package focused on adolescents in emergency as follows:

Desk review of the existing PSS in emergency training manuals focus on adolescent.

Designing PSS training package and general guidance for specific groups such as adolescents and their parents and families. The training package should include modules for staff engaged in recreational activities such as youth clubs, sports and non-formal education.

Social cohesion activities targeting host and IDP communities will be also included in PSS training package.

Develop specific modules for PSS workers working with young girls, young mothers on issue related to early/forced marriage and child labour.

Facilitating 4 days ToT training for CARE and partner staff on the training package developed in Gaziantep. The trainees will be enabled to replicate the tailored training to the field staff inside Syria.

Follow up support for partners on the implementation of the guidance (via skype calls)
Develop and share the final report after the conclusion of each training

Additionally, if requested the consultant will support the development of monitoring and evaluation tools for PSS in Syria in collaboration with CARE and partner’s MEAL team

Guidance and training modules could be developed remotely. Guidance and training modules will then need to be translating into Arabic language.

At the end of the assignment, the consultant is expected to:

Deliverables:

· inception report

· CARE North Syria PSS strategy document

· CARE North Syria PSS strategy 2-pager for external communication.

· CARE North Syria PSS Strategy PowerPoint presentation.

· PSS guidance

· PSS training modules

· Final report

QUALIFICATIONS AND EXPERIENCE

● Advanced university degree or equivalent in psychology

● Proven capacity to carry out the assignment and previous experience of successful completion of similar consultancies.

● 5 to 8 years of humanitarian experience in protection and/or MHPSS related work carried out in humanitarian, transition, or fragile field contexts.

● Strong background in MHPSS Programming/interventions in emergency settings

● Proficiency with qualitative and quantitative research and evaluation methods (including FGDs, structured and semi-structured interviews etc.).

● Ability to work independently with minimal supervision.

● Excellent knowledge of spoken and written English.

● Good understanding of the Syria context, with understanding of protection principles, GBV and women’s empowerment.

● Arabic language is an important asset.

[1] Whole of Syria strategic framework on adolescent girls, 2017

Applicants are requested to send a CV, cover letter, detailed proposal and time frame and two examples of previous similar work.

If interested please send you CV to the below mentioned E-mail :

Southsyriahr@care.org