5 - Day Basic Counselling Skills Training for Peace Builders (afsc south sudan pilot program) at American Friends Service Committee (AFSC)

Terms of Reference for a Consultancy to conduct a 5- Day Basic Counselling Skills Training for Peace Builders (AFSC South Sudan Pilot Program)

Background

The American Friends Service Committee (AFSC) is a Quaker organization that includes people of various faiths who are committed to social justice, peace, and humanitarian service. AFSC promotes nonviolent approaches to conflict resolution. As such, we seek to promote the transformation of cultural and societal norms, values, and behaviors to reject violence, with Simplicity, Peace, Integrity, Community, Equality and Stewardship as our values.

The South Sudan Pilot Program

AFSC is implementing a trauma healing for enhanced peace building pilot program in South Sudan for a period of two years. The program aims to contribute to quality trauma healing processes for peaceful co-existence in South Sudan by ensuring that Peace builders of 8 CSOs/FBOs are sufficiently supported to care for themselves as well as others.

AFSC has undertaken substantial work in South Sudan to mobilize and train peace builders as Trainers of Trainers (ToT) in secondary trauma. Following the training, there has been increased demand for counseling services as the peace builders sought to heal their own primary and secondary trauma and that of their clients from the communities they work with. AFSC has recruited a counselor to offer counseling services to the peacebuilders. The counselor also offers clinical supervision support to the peacebuilders as they seek to help the communities. The project identifies the need to address current gaps in service provision, counseling, and referral services. The gap analysis identifies among other requirements, the need to train the peace builders in basic counseling skills to help them support the traumatized population better.

AFSC is seeking to recruit a highly qualified consultant trainer with a wealth of knowledge, skills, and experience to carry out a 5-day basic counseling skills training for the peace builders in South Sudan.

The consultancy scope:

The training is expected to exhaustively cover the following areas:

• Basic counselling skills concepts
• The role of a counselor,
• Qualities of a good counselor,
• Principles of counselling
• Psychological first aid,
• The various counselling therapies
• Practical scenarios on conducting one on one and group trauma counselling

The consultancy objective:

To train a team of 36 peace builders from the South Sudan project and 2 AFSC program staff. Specifically, the Consultant(s) is expected to:

• Develop and execute a five-day training on basic counseling skills for the 38 participants aimed at creating a pool of well-trained peace builders in Basic counseling skills in South Sudan
• Develop effective reference materials/tools for participants. The consultant is also expected to share a package of the training materials (handouts) for future reference.
• Conduct pre- and post-training assessment of the participants.
• Prepare a final training report.

The training workshop should:

• Engage participants in actual/practical exercises that enhance one on one and group counseling therapies.
• Engage participants in simulating relevant and realistic critical incident and trauma counseling scenarios for practicing and applying the skills acquired.
• Engage participatory training methodologies to encourage participants to fully contribute to interactive practical exercises with feedback, coaching on the relevant skills and processes and discussion exercises.
• Provide participants with a set of basic counseling materials and the workshop Resource Package/ handouts.

Applicant’s Requirements

The consultant should hold at least a master’s degree in psychology, psychiatry, clinical social or mental health from a recognized institution.

Experience and skill

• Minimum three years of demonstrable work experience in providing training, supervision and psychological counselling
• Experience of providing trauma counselling in conflict zones
• Experience on module/manual development on related training as well as expertise on implementation of participatory training methodologies
• Experience working in South Sudan is an added advantage
• Excellent writing and oral communication skills in English
• Good report writing skills
• Demonstrable ability to conduct virtual training