Mental Health and Psychosocial Support Technical Advisor, Asia

ROLE PURPOSE:

The Regional MHPSS Technical Advisor (RO MHPSS TA) is to use in-depth contextual understanding of in MEEE region, technical expertise, and relationship building skills to provide a critical link between the Save the Children’s global and country level technical work, strengthening our technical support at the regional level. The purpose of the RO MHPSS TA is to continue to build a cohesive, well-coordinated and high quality response across multiple Save the Children country offices in order to provide a holistic and integrated approach to addressing the MHPSS needs of children and families in the region, with a focus on contexts and children affected by adversity. The role supports regional advocacy and influencing, while driving strategic partnerships for new business development. It supports the design and implementation of monitoring and evaluation systems to demonstrate impact, while sharing learning across country offices, and ensuring quality of our programmes. The Regional MHPSS TA supports the sourcing of technical assistance for country offices in both emergency and development programming.

The role is expected to foster relationships with a wide range of internal and external stakeholders including country office teams, Save the Children Members, the SCI central Programme Quality & Impact (PQI) team, advocacy colleagues, Regional Advisors across the three Breakthroughs as well as other cross-thematic Advisors (e.g. gender, children on the move, disabilities) and Initiatives (e.g. the Migration and Development Initiative and the MHPSS Collaborative for Children and Families in Adversity), technical counterparts in other organisation and donors. In particular, it is expected to maintain close contact with and accountability to the global thematic Child Protection (CP) team and cross-thematic MHPSS Working Group.

In the event of a major humanitarian emergency, the role holder will be expected to work outside the normal role profile and be able to vary working hours accordingly.

KEY AREAS OF ACCOUNTABILITY :

Strategy & Leadership:

• Defines vision and strategic priorities for MHPSS in the region, and works to develop, update and operationalize Regional MHPSS Steer
• Support country offices in the design of their thematic strategies (program and advocacy), ensuring alignment to Save the Children’s global thematic priorities and breakthroughs
• Facilitate collaboration between Save the Children members, regional and country offices to strengthen the MHPSS portfolio in the region and create a community of practice among MHPSS Specialists in the region.
• Coordinate the MHPSS work of Save the Children in the region, including facilitation of information sharing and learning, in liaison with the MHPSS TWG.

Programme Development

• Foster regional strategic partnerships for new business development, e.g. strategic positioning with donors at regional level, and positioning Save the Children as a leader in a technical area.
• Provide strategic and technical assistance to the development of MHPSS programming across the region, and ensure that COs have access to, and use internal and external best practice and evidence in the design of new programmes
• Lead the design of regional/multi-country programmes, facilitating collaboration between COs and ensuring high quality, coherent technical design.
• Be available to country offices to support review of MHPSS-specific components of proposals.

Programme Quality and Technical Support

• Facilitate access to high quality, appropriate technical assistance by COs from across the movement, drawing on expertise from members, global thematic leadership and country office expertise.
• Support CO with implementation and monitoring of regional/multi-country/and country specific MHPSS programmes, to ensure high quality delivery, monitoring and evaluation
• Oversee regional MHPSS programmes funded by members or other donors, complete and submit interim and final regional programme reports to donors and support regional office awards and finance teams in reporting back monthly, quarterly and end of year budget spending on regional programmes.
• Providing interim (‘gap filling’) technical assistance to specific COs or programmes when in-country capacity is not available
• Support the ongoing mapping of existing MHPSS technical tools and programmes in use in the region, and provide guidance on best use in line with quality standards and benchmarks (e.g. IASC Guidelines on Mental Health and Psychosocial Support in Emergencies).
• Identify gaps of tools and programming and address these through consolidating material from other regions or create new material as appropriate.
• Provide technical backstopping for major humanitarian responses and emergency preparedness planning

Technical Capacity Building & Mentoring

• Support the mapping of MHPSS capacity needs and gaps across countries in the region, and the development of capacity building plans
• Identify and support opportunities for regional capacity building, based on CO strategic priorities and needs, including facilitating face to face and online trainings, webinars, simulations etc.
• Support recruitment and talent management of CO MHPSS technical staff
• Provide technical mentoring to CO technical colleagues to support learning, professional development and engagement in country level inter agency MHPSS coordination mechanisms
• Facilitate cross-Country Office learning between Child Protection technical experts in the region; identify creative ways to build capacity, share learning, best practices and collectively address challenges
• Bridge the Global-County divide by supporting technical experts to understand and contextualise global guidance, learning and evidence whilst also supporting CO technical experts to join discussions and forums, to contribute to global guidance, learning and evidence to ensure that learning from the region informs our global evidence and strategic direction in Child Protection

Representation and Advocacy

• Maintain oversight of the MHPSS sector in the region, regularly sharing relevant information with Save the Children COs and members; also, representation on regional interagency MHPSS coordination working group,
• Trigger advocacy efforts related to MHPSS programming and drive learning and innovations in liaison with other key stakeholders and in close collaboration with RO Advocacy team.

MEAL, Innovation & organisational learning

• Provide support to country programmes in the formulation of MHPSS Theories of Change, and milestones, and in the selection, measurement and reporting against MHPSS indicators
• Provide support for quality benchmark development and monitoring
• Provide support to country programmes to conduct impact and process evaluations of the MHPSS activities.
• Develop operational research ideas and supports implementation at the regional and country office levels

QUALIFICATIONS AND EXPERIENCE
Essential

• At least 7 years’ experience of working in MHPSS area in emergency or development settings.
• Excellent knowledge and experience in using key tools and approaches, including the IASC Guidelines on Mental Health and Psychosocial Support in Emergencies.
• Significant experience working in emergency response, protracted crises or fragile state contexts (experience from the region is a strong advantage)
• Experience of context, capacity and policy analysis, and influencing and advocacy at regional/international level in order to hold duty bearers to account to realise children’s rights.
• Skilled at networking, representation and partnership development in order promote learning, strengthen civil society and mobilise resources.
• Able to generate and use data and evidence to innovate, deliver, learn and share what works and what doesn’t work for children
• Demonstrated program design, monitoring and evaluation skills, including designing pathways to sustainable impact at scale.
• Track record in successful business development/fundraising
• Significant experience in training, capacity building, and mentoring
• Experience of strategy development and planning
• Fluent in English and high level of English writing skills.

Desirable

• Language skills in English essential an additional Asian language desirable.
• Experience of contributing to successful funding proposals for donors
• Experience or knowledge of working and living in relevant regions/contexts

The Organisation

We employ approximately 25,000 people across the globe and work on the ground in over 100 countries to help children affected by crises, or those that need better healthcare, education and child protection. We also campaign and advocate at the highest levels to realise the right of children and to ensure their voices are heard.

We are working towards three breakthroughs in how the world treats children by 2030:

• No child dies from preventable causes before their 5th birthday
• All children learn from a quality basic education and that,
• Violence against children is no longer tolerated

We know that great people make a great organization, and that our employees play a crucial role in helping us achieve our ambitions for children. We value our people and offer a meaningful and rewarding career, along with a collaborative and inclusive workplace where ambition, creativity, and integrity are highly valued.

Application Information:

Please submit a full application using a cover letter and up-to-date CV as a single document. Please also include details of your salary expectations.

Closing Date: 19 Mar 2023

Save the Children International is a child-rights based organization. Safe recruitment is central to the safeguarding of children and young people that we come into contact with, and support through our programmes. We need to keep children safe so our selection process, which includes rigorous background checks, reflects our commitment to the protection of children from abuse.

Save the children is an equal opportunities employer, qualified females, persons with disability and candidates from diverse cultural backgrounds are encouraged to apply.
All employees are expected to carry out their duties in accordance with our global anti-harassment policy.