Youth and Psychosocial Support Officer Needed

Position: Youth Support and Counselling Officer

We're looking for a consultant to work with us as we help provide TEGAs (Technology Enabled Girl Ambassadors) in Nigeria with counselling service to support their emotional wellbeing throughout their engagement as researchers for Girl Effect. 

This is a consultancy contract for an initial duration of 3 months.

Once the service is set up and running for 3 months - to test its validity and value added to the experience of TEGAs - we then hope to continue the support if the pilot goes well and may possibly extend and replicate for an additional 9 month period.

The counselling service will include two components:
Regular sessions with all TEGAs face-to-face (ideally once a month)
On demand one-to-one support through a phone service provided at a pre-established time (ideally once a week)

Background:
Technology Enabled Girl Ambassadors (TEGA) is a girl-operated mobile-enabled research tool that delivers accurate, rapid insight into girls' lives.

When it comes to understanding girls and attitudes to girls in hard to reach communities, conventional research methods have limitations. TEGA uses certified data-collection techniques and mobile technology to teach girls aged 17-26 how to collect meaningful, honest data about their world in real time. TEGA's bespoke research qualification equips girls with employable skills for the future, and it provides us and partners with authentic peer-to-peer insights to inform our work.

While being a TEGA is an incredibly enriching experience for girls and young women the issues that they investigate as part of different projects can be quite difficult and emotional. Girl Effect, as part of its commitment to preserving the wellbeing of the girls we work with, would like to ensure that not only physical but also psychological safety and wellbeing is granted. This is true especially now that TEGA is becoming a popular research methodology and more and more is used to dig deeper into the lives of community members touching on sensitive issues such as violence, discrimination, etc.

For all these reasons, in addition to a number of safeguarding protocols already in place, Girl Effect would like to offer TEGAs the opportunity to discuss any issue that might upset or shock them with a professional figure that can provide counselling and psychological support.

Quick Facts on TEGA:
We have two TEGA Networks
Age of TEGAs: 17-26 years old
Location of TEGAs: Northern Nigeria
Length of engagement: one year (with 3 months pilot)
Nature of research: TEGAs engage with: issues around education, water and sanitation, gender-based violence, sexual and reproductive health, livelihoods, internally displaced people, etc.

Deliverables:

• Initial proposal with articulation of TEGAs needs and the approach chosen to adequately address them
• Induction meetings with relevant staff members of Girl Effect and partners working on TEGAs
• Consultations with TEGAs to better understand their needs
• Finalized proposal and activities work plan
• Implementation of the activities
• Support the evaluation of the pilot
• Final report with an overview of the activities conducted (i.e.. Number of sessions, number of face-to-face/telephone sessions); the main themes / issues raised by the TEGAs but without names or details; any learning for Girl Effect & implications for support provided to TEGAs and recommendations for scale up.

Skills and Experience required:

• Professional training in counselling, social or psychological services
• Previous experience in providing counselling and psychosocial support to young people, in particular girls
• Ability to listen
• Have good overall communication skills
• Ability to work autonomously, planning and running support sessions
• Knowledge of the Northern Nigeria context
• Knowledge of Hausa, Kanuri and English language

Application Requirements:
Please include the following in your application

CV

• A proposal of maximum two pages outlining the following:
• your experience as counsellor
• your individual approach to counselling and psychosocial support
• how you view clients and how you envisage to structure counselling for TEGAs
• the importance of confidentiality and ethical behavior in working with TEGAs
• an estimated budget

Use the link below to apply:

http://www.girleffect-jobs.org/vacancies/360