Islamic Relief Worldwide Hiring for Project Officer / PSS at Irbid, Jordan Full Time

ORGANISATIONAL PURPOSE:

Islamic Relief Jordan is a country branch of Islamic Relief Worldwide. Islamic Relief Worldwide is an internationally recognized charity (Charity No.: 328158), looking back on nearly 30 years of experience in humanitarian and developmental aid. It was founded in 1984 in Birmingham, UK, in response to the devastating famine in the Horn of Africa. Since then, Islamic Relief has grown into a charity that is active worldwide, putting development projects, emergency aid, and rebuilding projects into action in over 28 countries around the world.

Islamic Relief Jordan (IRJ) began its operations in 1997 with orphan’s sponsorship, sponsoring hundreds of orphans living in Jordan. IRJ extended its programs to seasonal projects with Ramadan and Qurbani distributions and In-Kind donations. IRJ has established strong partnership with international non-governmental organization and local one’s strengthening the overall response to the Syria crisis. At the onset of Syria humanitarian crisis in late 2011, IRJ provided emergency response to those affected by violence in Syria and has since then scaled up its capacity and operations with number of 110 staff across the country.

IRJ programme department works toward introducing relevant interventions to Jordanians as well as Syrians and Palestinians refugees that would impact their lives and improve their life conditions. IRJ programme act upon IRW mandate and in line with IR-Middle East and Eastern Europe strategy that aims to ensure Safe, dignified and peaceful living conditions for refugees, IDPs and vulnerable groups as well as communities at risk of disasters in the Middle East. IRJ office has expanded with the Syrian crisis in 2011, reaching more than 200,000 refugees by 2013 with an annual income of 35,000,000 GBP. 

The department has successfully introduced interventions in a multi-sectors response, being the lead agency responsible for humanitarian assistance in the north of Jordan, reaching more than 240,000 beneficiaries in 2021 and continue providing access to food, health care, cash for shelter and non-food items such as hygiene kits and winterization items in 2021. The programme department is now strategizing the Syrian crisis response in Jordan and working toward a holistic integrated approach with the host community and planning to move toward sustainable development through introducing innovative approaches in education promotion, community development and economic empowerment.

IRJ is committed to preventing any type of unwanted behaviour at work including sexual harassment, exploitation and abuse, lack of integrity and financial misconduct; and committed to promoting the welfare of children, young people, adults and beneficiaries with whom IRJ engages. IRJ expects all staff and volunteers to share this commitment through our code of conduct. We place a high priority on ensuring that only those who share and demonstrate our values are recruited to work for us.

The post holder will undertake the appropriate level of training and is responsible for ensuring that they understand and work within the safeguarding policies of the organisation.

All offers of employment will be subject to satisfactory references and appropriate screening checks, which can include criminal records checks. IRJ also participates in the Inter Agency Misconduct Disclosure Scheme.

In line with this Scheme, we will request information from job applicants’ previous employers about any findings of sexual exploitation, sexual abuse and/or sexual harassment during employment, or incidents under investigation when the applicant left employment.

KEY RESPONSIBILITIES:

• Provide individual counselling sessions for the beneficiaries
• Conduct group sessions and FGD for beneficiaries.
• Provide inputs on the children’s and women’s program.
• Supervise the children activities: PSS sessions , protection sessions, recreational activities and the  events.
• Ability to prepare content of PSS sessions for women and children. 
• Significant experience in working in child protection in emergencies, particularly in Child Friendly Spaces and psychosocial programs
• Assessed psychosocial needs of natural and man-made disaster-affected children of communities.
• Design a post-emergency psychosocial support program for children based on local context, culture, customs, and related considerations and implemented this program in four countries – in two natural disaster contexts and two conflict-affected contexts.
• Working more on the need-oriented themes like psychosocial and mental health, anger management and conflict resolution, ethic and professional standards, communication with children and interviewing adults and children, child development and basic counseling skills.
• Significant experience in capacity building and in strengthening various duty bearers understanding of and response to Child Protection and Psychosocial Support
• Experience in monitoring and evaluation of the psychosocial program, and feeding learning into program design
• Experience working on the inclusion of hard to reach groups of children
• Ability to communicate and maintain appropriate and productive relations with a range of actors, including children, parents, local and national authorities
• Self-awareness and proven ability to operate successfully in different cultural environments
• Good knowledge of and experience in using established inter-agency standards and guidelines in MHPSS and child protection, such as the IASC Guidelines on Mental Health and Psychosocial Support in Emergency Settings, the Minimum Standards for Child Protection in Humanitarian Action, Inter-agency Guidelines on Separated and Unaccompanied Children, the Paris Principles, SC Child Friendly Spaces Handbook and IASC Guidelines in Emergencies.
• Maintain data to ensure that is available for analysis and reporting.
• Ability to write situational and activities reports
• Ensure that refugees are not mistreated.
• Ensure that all implementation steps in the project are going well and as planned
• Submit reports and plans upon request
• Attend sector and referrals meetings
• Plan and provide children with PSS sessions
• Able to refer the cases to competent authorities (another NGOs)
• Manage and deal the children cases
• Ability to use computer software especially Word and Excel
• Perform any other task assigned by the project/line Manager.

KNOWLEDGE, SKILLS AND ABILITIES

• Bachelor Degree in social science, Psychology, counselling or related fields of study, preferably scientific field
• Knowledge of the political situation and cultural norms in Jordan in general is desired
• Minimum 2 – 4 years’ experience as psychosocial specialist or social studies preferably in NGO.
• Experience in psychosocial support, staff management, capacity building and training of workers

SKILLS AND COMPETENCE: All are required unless marked (D) as desired.

Technical skills and experience:

• Communication and Analysis skills of the needs
• Fast response and ability to respond to emergencies.
• Strong team and leadership skills and ability to manage diverse team with different background and skills.

Core humanitarian competencies:

• Understanding of humanitarian contexts and principles:
• Good understanding of humanitarian issues, with experience of/or ability to work directly with local NGOs or communities.
• Sympathy with the aims and objectives of organization and a commitment to humanitarian principles and the Red Cross and INGO’s code of conduct.

Achieving Results effectively:

• Ability to work in participatory manner with staff to assess needs, implement and monitor activities.
• Very good organizational and problem-solving skills.
• Participate in the design and implementation of effective activities and projects
• Consider the wider impact of the decisions you make in your work to achieve positive.

Developing and maintaining relationships:

• Excellent team management skills and the ability to lead a team from different background and skills.
• Establish and maintain clear communication and dialogue with disaster and conflict affected people and other stakeholders.

Managing yourself in a pressured and changing environment:

• Demonstrated ability at being flexible and adapt to changing situations.
• The ability to remain calm while dealing with conflicting priorities and working under pressure.

Operating safely and securely in a humanitarian response:

• Recognize stress and take steps to reduce it.
• Remain constructive and positive under stress to be able to tolerate difficult and sometimes threatening environments.

Leadership in humanitarian response:

• High-level interpersonal, influencing and communications skills.
• Consistently approaches work with energy and a positive, constructive attitude.

Languages:

• V. Good spoken and written English.