Mental Health and Psychosocial Support Flying Manager – Nigeria – M/F Full Time

ALIMA ETHOS: ALIMA’s purpose is to save lives and provide care for the most vulnerable populations without any discrimination based on identity, religion, or politics, through actions based on proximity, innovation, and the alliance of organizations and individuals. We act with humanity and impartiality in accordance with universal medical ethics. To gain access to patients, we undertake to act in a neutral and independent manner.

Our CHARTER defines the VALUES and PRINCIPLES of our action:

1. The patient First
2. Revolutionising humanitarian medicine
3. Responsibility and freedom
4. Improve the quality of our actions
5. To trust
6. Collective intelligence
7. Environmental responsibility

ALIMA promotes and defends the principles of fundamental human rights. ALIMA has a zero-tolerance approach towards people guilty of acts of gender-based and sexual violence as well as towards inaction in the face of alleged or proven acts of violence. The protection of those benefiting from and impacted by our intervention is our top priority in everything we do. Anyone collaborating with ALIMA agrees to:

• Respect the charter, the code of conduct, the institutional policies, including the policy of protection against abuse of power and sexist and sexual violence, the policy of prevention of corruption and fraud;
• Report any violation of the policies, framework documents and procedures to a superior or a referent.

CARING – INNOVATING – TOGETHER:

Since its creation in 2009, ALIMA has treated more than 13 million patients and today deploys its operations in 12 African countries and extended to support the emergency in Haiti. In 2022, we developed 62 humanitarian medical response projects to meet the needs of populations affected by conflicts, epidemics, and extreme poverty. All of these projects are carried out in support to national authorities through nearly 511 health facilities. Whenever possible, we work in partnership with local NGOs to ensure that our patients benefit from the best and most relevant expertise wherever it is, whether within their own country or in the rest of the world. In addition, to improve the humanitarian response, we are carrying out operational and clinical research projects, particularly in the fight against malnutrition and viral hemorrhagic fevers on the field.

THE WORK WE DO: Primary and Secondary Health Care, with a main focus on children and women – including treatment and prevention of Acute Malnutrition, Maternal Health, Pediatric Care, Mental Health, response to Epidemics (Ebola, Cholera, Measles, Dengue, Lassa Fever), Surgery, Displaced Populations, and Gender-Based Violence, Covid-19.

COUNTRIES WHERE WE WORK: Mali, Burkina Faso, Central African Republic, Nigeria, Niger, Chad, Democratic Republic of Congo, Cameroon, Sudan, Mauritania, Ukraine, Ethiopia, Haiti.

ALIMA IN NIGERIA : ALIMA (The Alliance for International Medical Action) has been active in Nigeria since 2016, with interventions guided by a regional strategy addressing health and nutrition emergencies, maternal-infant care, mental health, epidemic response alongside operational research to enhance health outcomes for vulnerable populations—particularly internally displaced persons (IDPs) and host communities.

The organization operates across several states: North-East: Borno (MMC and Jere LGAs) and Yobe (Bade, Yusufari, Nguru and Karasuwa LGAs) North-West: Katsina (Kaita, Batagarawa, Batsari and Katsina LGAs), South-West: Ondo (Owo LGA).

PROTECTION OF BENEFICIARIES AND COMMUNITY MEMBERS

Level 3: As part of his/her duties, the incumbent will visit programs and come into contact with children and/or vulnerable adults. Therefore, a criminal record check or a certificate of good character will be required. In situations where a criminal record check or character reference is not possible, a declaration of honor will be requested.

FUNCTIONAL AND HIERARCHICAL LINKS

• He/she reports to the Medical Coordinator (line manager), and to the Mental Health referent at HQ (technical manager).
• He/she manages the mental health team.
• He/she works in close collaboration with the coordinators (medical, logistics, and projects).

MAIN MISSION

The Mental Health and Psychosocial Support Activity Flying Manager (MHPSS) is responsible for the mental health strategy and the implementation of the psycho-social support for patients, their families, the community, and the teams. He/she ensures the functioning of the mental health pole on the Nigeria projects.

1. Implementation of ALIMA programs

• Contributes to the implementation and evolvement of the mental health care strategy, care circuit and referral in each intervention site.
• Ensures the implementation and monitoring of psychological support for beneficiaries in the various projects, patients or isolated people and families.
• Organizes the mental health department in collaboration with the Mental Health project teams, Medical coordination and HQ.
• Ensures and follows the psychological support for the team on the field and on the mission.
• Supervises the organization of the psychological first aid sessions for patients and victims.
• Supervises and shares time of practices on specific situations.
• Ensures the effectiveness of mental health and psychosocial support activities in accordance with the defined action plan and according to the minimum package of mental health activities vs. the complete package, with a focus on psychological first aid, prevention and management of psychotrauma.
• Ensures the development of partnerships for the management, orientation, and referral of severe or chronic cases of mental disorders and/or psychosocial problems.
• Collaborates with partners to ensure the continuity of patients care.
• Assures the drafting of training modules and be in charge of training of trainers in the mental health department according to identified needs.
• Collects information on vulnerable audiences and ensures the establishment of focus groups and discussion groups.

2. Monitoring, analysis, and reporting

• Participates in external meetings and reports relevant information to the Medical Coordinator.
• Conducts a weekly summary of mental health activities and reports to the medical Coordinator and gives feedback on the mental health activities to the Mental Health Managers of the projects.
• Follows the issues and recommendations of the cluster.
• Produces a mission report and recommendations.

3. Representation, coordination with other teams

• Ensures networking with the various partners.
• Participates in meetings related to his/her field of intervention on the instructions of the Head Office Mental Health Referent.

4. Management of the mental health team

• Supervises the organization of the duties and schedules of the mental health team.
• Ensures the proper transmission of information, provides clinical supervision of teams.
• Ensures regular formative supervision for the teams.
• Analyses and puts into action the data collected for the department of mental health monitoring and activity report.

5. Capacity building and team facilitation

• Supports the set-up of a mental health team in collaboration with the project coordinator (the recruitment, training, and reinforcement).
• Ensures that the skills of the mental Health staff are updated according to the evolution of the technical platform and the protocols made available to the mission.
• Defines and updates job profiles and performance objective plans for team members and participates in the same documents for the Medical Coordinator.
• Carries out the assessments of its team in an approach of professional course.
• Identify the skills that team members need to acquire to master their positions and organize training to reinforce them.
• Ensures trainings in accordance with ALIMA’s minimum package of mental health activities, and if necessary according to the complete package (psychological first aid, psychosocial activities, psychological support in the practice of medical care, mental health staff, prevention and management of psychotrauma, the relationship between caregivers and patients, and other needs identified upstream).

6. Team health

• Supervises the organization of the briefing sessions / He/she supports the teams in case of critical incident.
• Ensures the implementation and follow-up of the psychological support of the teams on the different projects.
• Evaluates and validates mental health referral structures with the project’s Medrefs and Medco.

7. Implementation of prevention measures against abuse of power, gender-based and sexual violence

• Participates in training and awareness sessions.
• Applies standards for abuse prevention.
• Ensures that team members attend trainings and awareness sessions and follow abuse prevention rules.
• Contributes to creating and maintaining a nurturing and protective environment.

EXPERIENCE AND SKILLS

Experiences

• Professional Master’s degree in clinical and/or health psychology or equivalent
• Previous experience in humanitarian work
• Experience working with vulnerable people in an intercultural context
• A minimum of 3 years of Proven experience at psychological scope
• Proven experience in conducting training

Qualities of the candidate

• An ability to problematize and summarize the main psychological issues and be able to set priorities
• Good teamwork and delegation skills
• A good deal of autonomy and the ability to create one’s own position in line with the association’s objectives and resources
• Good writing skills
• A good knowledge of psycho-trauma

Languages

• English fluent
• Nigeria local languages could be an asset

CONDITIONS

Contract terms:

• Contract term: contract under French law, contract length: 6 months (renewable, based on funding availability and performance)
• Position to be filled: ASAP

Salary: according to ALIMA’s salary scale + valuation of experience + Perdiem.

ALIMA pays for :

• Travel costs between the expatriate’s country of origin and the mission location
• Accommodation costs
• Medical cover from the first day of the contract to a month after the date of departure from the mission country for the employee
• Evacuation of the employee

Tagged as: ALIMA, Nigeria