Mental Health and Psychosocial Support (MHPSS) Mapping Consultant

Background of the project: 

The International Rescue Committee helps people whose lives and livelihoods are shattered by conflict and disaster to survive, recover, and gain control of their future. Founded in 1933 at the request of Albert Einstein, the IRC works with people forced to flee from war, conflict and disaster and the host communities that support them, as well as with those who remain within their homes and communities. At work today in over 40 countries and 22 U.S. cities, we restore safety, dignity and hope to millions who are uprooted and struggling to endure.

As a global humanitarian organization, the IRC has unique capabilities – and is particularly known for rigorous research and evidence-based programs. A key initiative that supports this strategy is the Airbel Impact Lab, aimed at investing in the design, development, and scaling of new humanitarian interventions and delivery models. The lab seeks to apply best practices from human-centered design, behavior science, multi-disciplinary problem-solving, and an innovation portfolio management function in the humanitarian context.

In 2017, in concert with the IRC’s Middle East Regional team, Airbel created a regional innovation “hub” with the objective of building a portfolio of breakthrough solutions for the problems facing Syrian refugees and host communities in Jordan and Lebanon. We’re now seeking a highly effective, entrepreneurial team with the grit and determination to identify and bring 4-5 new innovations to scale in the next 3 years—new solutions that will help millions of Syrians living in displacement survive and recover.

In 2019, the Middle East Hub launched work in the area of Mental Health and Psychosocial support as one of the ME Hub’s main priorities. Work to date has been related to leveraging existing practice to provide critical information to people experiencing distress to encourage help-seeking behavior. While this work seeks to address critical barriers to people getting the support they need, it does not address numerous access issues such as transportation, availability of trained professionals, etc.  Given the current widespread shift to digital delivery of MHPSS services in response to the COVID lock-down, the ME Hub would like to learn from this practice to understand the challenges and benefits of remote delivery of services.  This will substantially contribute to our ability to design new solutions targeting issues of access.

Scope of Work:

1. Map organizations doing remote delivery of MHPSS services in Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, Turkey, and Iraq:

• Liaise with relevant staff at GIZ and the IRC to do outreach through various cluster coordination mechanisms.
• Working with IRC team, desk review of regional service providers acting outside of traditional humanitarian space.

2. Conduct an online survey with organizations providing remote MHPSS services:

• Work with relevant organizations to identify frontline staff for completion of survey targeted at formal care providers
• Work with relevant organizations to identify manager/ strategy level staff for completion of survey targeted at those designing and overseeing digital program delivery.
• Develop and distribute survey targeted at formal care providers and survey targeted at strategy/manager level staff.

3. Conduct key Informant Interviews with organizations providing remote MHPSS services:

• Conduct six KIIs with frontline care providers to capture their experiences on what works and what is challenging about remote delivery of services.Respondents should represent a range of types of providers (i.e. community volunteer, psychiatrist) and a range of countries.
• Conduct six KIIs with strategy/ manager level care providers to capture their experiences on what the opportunities and constraints are in remote delivery of services.Respondents should represent a range of types of providers and a range of countries.

4. Synthesize and communicate results:

• Analyze quantitative and qualitative data.
• Present data to GIZ and IRC team to help contextualize results.

5. Ensure survey results are well represented in workshop and workshop deliverables:

• Review design artefacts developed for workshop and ensure survey data is well represented.
• Review 2 page output paper for first workshop and ensure survey data is well represented.
• Review final recommendations paper from second workshop and ensure survey data is well represented.

Deliverables:

1. Create list of organizations in the region doing remote service delivery of MHPSS services, with contact at each organization
2. At least 20 frontline staff respondents and 20 strategy/ manager level respondents, representing a range of services in all relevant countries (Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, Turkey, and Iraq).
3. At least 6 finalized KIIs with frontline care providers, and 6 KIIs with strategy/ manager level.
4. Slide deck summarizing data presented to GIZ and IRC
5. Notes integrated into final products