Re-Advertisement: Regional Staff Counsellor, P4, Fixed Term Position, ECAMENA RO - Amman, Jordan, #136999

 This is a re-advertisement, candidates who have already applied do not need to re-apply.

UNICEF works in over 190 countries and territories to save children’s lives, defend their rights, and help them fulfill their potential, from early childhood through adolescence.

At UNICEF, we are committed, passionate, and proud of what we do for as long as we are needed. Promoting the rights of every child is not just a job – it is a calling.

UNICEF is a place where careers are built: we offer our staff diverse opportunities for professional and personal development that will help them reinforce a sense of purpose while serving children and communities across the world. We welcome everyone who wants to belong and grow in a diverse and passionate culture, coupled with an attractive compensation and benefits package.

Visit our website [link removed] to learn more about what we do at UNICEF.

For every child, the right to a Future

The ECAMENA Regional Office leverages expertise and scale across a diverse and rapidly evolving region that is playing an increasingly important role in shaping global agendas on the realization of child rights, human capital, migration, climate, equity, and digital transformation. It supports the achievement of UNICEF’s Strategic Plan results in the context of rising needs and constrained resources. The region encompasses all country typologies, including high-income, middle-income, and low-income contexts, as well as fragile and conflict-affected settings, each with distinct development trajectories and policy drivers. This requires differentiated approaches, agile business models, strategic partnerships, and strengthened risk management. The region is further shaped by ongoing challenges such as conflict, migration, economic volatility, and varying degrees of political openness and reform. At the same time, countries across the region are connected by shared challenges and opportunities, including investment in the early years, addressing learning gaps and equipping adolescents and young people with 21st-century skills, the need for resilient national systems, and the imperative to strengthen child rights governance.

In this context, the ECAMENA Regional Office acts in line with the organization’s value proposition for Regional Offices through: (i) strategic leadership and governance; (ii) regional and political representation and engagement; (iii) programme oversight, knowledge, and foresight; (iv) digital transformation and innovation; (v) people-centered management; (vi) financial and risk management; (vii) supply and logistics; (viii) emergency preparedness and response; (ix) communication and strategic advocacy; and (x) partnerships and financing.

UNICEF is committed to fostering a workplace culture in which staff wellbeing, resilience, psychological safety, and healthy work practices are integral to organizational effectiveness and the delivery of results for children. In ECAMENA, this mandate is shaped by a uniquely complex operating environment spanning a large and diverse regional footprint, multiple emergency and high-risk contexts, and a period of significant organizational transition. The Staff Wellbeing function reports directly to the Regional Director, preserving the operational independence of the counselling function and ensuring direct access to senior leadership on systemic wellbeing concerns, while operating with strong technical guidance from the global Staff Wellbeing function. Within this context, the Regional Staff Counsellor leads the regional staff wellbeing and counselling function across ECAMENA, serving the Regional Office, Centres of Excellence, and Country Offices across development, emergency, and high-risk settings. The function contributes to UNICEF’s broader institutional framework for staff wellbeing through regional governance, psychosocial risk management, monitoring, and reporting aligned with relevant UN-system standards, including the UN Mental Health Scorecard.

How can you make a difference? 

Under the direct supervision of the Regional Director (D-2) and the technical guidance of the Global Chief of Staff Wellbeing (P-5), the Regional Staff Counsellor (P-4) provides strategic, clinical, and organizational leadership for the staff wellbeing and counselling function across ECAMENA. The incumbent serves as the Regional Director’s senior adviser on staff wellbeing and psychosocial risk, while ensuring the provision of confidential counselling, critical incident support, strategic staff care in emergencies across the employee deployment lifecycle, and region-wide wellbeing strategies that strengthen resilience, psychological safety, and organizational effectiveness across the Regional Office, Centres of Excellence, and Country Offices. The post leads the regional staff counselling team, provides professional supervision to two multi-country Staff Counsellors, and promotes a coherent, accessible, and high-quality system of support for staff and managers across the region, including in emergency and high-risk settings.

Key functions, accountabilities and related duties/tasks:

1. Lead equitable access to staff wellbeing and counselling services across the ECAMENA region
2. Institutionalize psychosocial risk management as part of organizational governance
3. Position staff care as a core pillar of emergency preparedness and response
4. Strengthen accountability, monitoring, and system oversight for wellbeing
5. Promote a compassionate, inclusive, and psychologically safe workplace culture
6. Lead and professionally supervise the regional staff counselling team

If you would like to know more about this position, please review the complete Job Description here: JD - Regional Staff Counsellor_P4_136999.pdf [link removed]

To qualify as an advocate for every child you will have…

Minimum requirements:

• Education: Advanced university degree (Master’s degree or equivalent) in counselling, clinical psychology, psychotherapy, psychiatry, mental health counselling, or another related mental health profession is required.
  A Bachelor or equivalent (First Level University Degree) in a relevant area combined with 2 additional years of relevant work experience may be accepted in lieu of an advanced university degree. This is applicable to internal (FT, Continuing and Permanent) staff only.
• Work Experience: A minimum of eight (8) years of progressively responsible national and international professional experience in staff support, mental health, counselling, psychosocial support, cross-cultural communications, or related areas is required.
• Relevant professional experience should include:
• Counselling and mental health support in multicultural settings
• Staff wellbeing support in international organizations, humanitarian contexts, or development settings
• Trauma-informed practice and critical incident support
• Advising managers and leadership on staff wellbeing and organizational stress
• Designing and facilitating wellbeing, resilience or psychologically safe workplace interventions
• Supervision, mentoring, or professional support to other counselling staff
• Experience in psychosocial risk management, organizational wellbeing, or mental health governance systems is required.
• The incumbent is expected to maintain professional standards, ethical conduct, confidentiality, and appropriate professional boundaries in line with recognized practice requirements.
• Skills: Mental health support, psychosocial risk management, staff care, stigma reduction, awareness-raising, trauma-informed.
• Language Requirements: Fluency in English is required. Knowledge of Arabic is highly desirable.

Desirables:

• Language: Knowledge of another official UN language (Chinese, French, Russian or Spanish) or a local language is an asset.
• Additional training or certification in staff support, psychosocial support, traumatic or critical incident stress management, psychological first aid, trauma-informed care, family counselling, substance abuse, training, remote counselling, or related fields is highly desirable.
• Experience in emergency or high-risk contexts is highly desirable.
• Valid and unrestricted professional registration, certification, licensure, or membership in a recognized professional body relevant to the practice of counselling, clinical psychology, psychotherapy, psychiatry, or a related mental health discipline is highly desirable.
• Relevant experience at country level, particularly in development, fragile settings and humanitarian contexts.

For every Child, you demonstrate...

UNICEF's Core Values of Care, Respect, Integrity, Trust and Accountability and Sustainability (CRITAS) underpin everything we do and how we do it. Get acquainted with Our Values Charter: UNICEF Values [link removed]

The UNICEF competencies required for this post are…

(1) Builds and maintains partnerships
(2) Demonstrates self-awareness and ethical awareness
(3) Drive to achieve results for impact
(4) Innovates and embraces change
(5) Manages ambiguity and complexity
(6) Thinks and acts strategically
(7) Works collaboratively with others
(8) Nurtures, leads and manages people

Familiarize yourself with our competency framework [link removed] and its different levels.

UNICEF promotes and advocates for the protection of the rights of every child, everywhere, in everything it does and is mandated to support the realization of the rights of every child, including those most disadvantaged, and our global workforce must reflect the diversity of those children. The UNICEF family is committed to include everyone, irrespective of their race/ethnicity, disability, gender identity, sexual orientation, religion, nationality, socio-economic background, minority, or any other status.

UNICEF encourages applications from all qualified candidates, regardless of gender, nationality, religious or ethnic backgrounds, and from people with disabilities, including neurodivergence. We offer a wide range of benefits to our staff, including paid parental leave, breastfeeding breaks and reasonable accommodation for persons with disabilities. UNICEF provides reasonable accommodation throughout the recruitment process. If you require any accommodation, please submit your request through the accessibility email button on the UNICEF Careers webpage Accessibility | UNICEF [link removed]. Should you be shortlisted, please get in touch with the recruiter directly to share further details, enabling us to make the necessary arrangements in advance.

UNICEF does not hire candidates who are married to children (persons under 18). UNICEF has a zero-tolerance policy on conduct that is incompatible with the aims and objectives of the United Nations and UNICEF, including sexual exploitation and abuse, sexual harassment, abuse of authority and discrimination based on gender, nationality, age, race, sexual orientation, religious or ethnic background or disabilities. UNICEF is committed to promote the protection and safeguarding of all children. All selected candidates will, therefore, undergo rigorous reference and background checks, and will be expected to adhere to these standards and principles. Background checks will include the verification of academic credential(s) and employment history. Selected candidates may be required to provide additional information to conduct a background check, and selected candidates with disabilities may be requested to submit supporting documentation in relation to their disability confidentially.

UNICEF appointments are subject to medical clearance.  Issuance of a visa by the host country of the duty station is required for IP positions and will be facilitated by UNICEF. Appointments may also be subject to inoculation (vaccination) requirements, including against SARS-CoV-2 (Covid). Should you be selected for a position with UNICEF, you either must be inoculated as required or receive a medical exemption from the relevant department of the UN. Otherwise, the selection will be canceled.

Remarks:

As per Article 101, paragraph 3, of the Charter of the United Nations, the paramount consideration in the employment of the staff is the necessity of securing the highest standards of efficiency, competence, and integrity.

UNICEF is committed to fostering an inclusive, representative, and welcoming workforce. For this position, eligible and suitable candidates are encouraged to apply.

Government employees who are considered for employment with UNICEF are normally required to resign from their government positions before taking up an assignment with UNICEF. UNICEF reserves the right to withdraw an offer of appointment, without compensation, if a visa or medical clearance is not obtained, or necessary inoculation requirements are not met, within a reasonable period for any reason.

UNICEF does not charge a processing fee at any stage of its recruitment, selection, and hiring processes (i.e., application stage, interview stage, validation stage, or appointment and training). UNICEF will not ask for applicants' bank account information.

Mobility is a condition of international professional employment with UNICEF and an underlying premise of the international civil service.

Humanitarian action is a cross-cutting priority within UNICEF's Strategic Plan. UNICEF is committed to stay and deliver in humanitarian contexts. Therefore, all staff, at all levels across all functional areas, can be called upon to be deployed to support humanitarian response, contributing to both strengthening resilience of communities and capacity of national authorities.

All UNICEF positions are advertised, and only shortlisted candidates will be contacted and advance to the next stage of the selection process. An internal candidate performing at the level of the post in the relevant functional area, or an internal/external candidate in the corresponding Talent Group, may be selected, if suitable for the post, without assessment of other candidates.

Additional information about working for UNICEF can be found here [link removed].