Counsellor at Tushinde Children's Trust

Overview:

The Counsellor reports to the Social Work Manager, the Executive Director and the Board of Trustees.

The Counsellor works with the families in the community to ensure that the children beneficiaries of Tushinde Children's Trust are attending school and are being well cared for at home.

Job description:

To develop and grow the counselling service in line with need. This includes developing referral criteria, appropriate assessment tools and interventions (individual, group and family) as well as consent forms.
Develop a case management system in line with the existing system used by Social workers.
To provide psychosocial support to selected / referred cases of high risk or cases in need of specialised psychosocial support or mental health interventions in the following areas (not exhaustive):

• HIV diagnosis and disclosure
• Drug & alcohol abuse
• Cases of GBV and SGBV and other abuse cases
• Psychological First Aid
• To provide technical support to all forums / groups, this includes youth forums, teachers meetings, community days.
• To attend the above forums / days / training as required.
• Develop appropriate referral pathways to external partners.
• To participate in needs assessments and project evaluations aiming at contributing to the development of the child protection programme strategy for the Tushinde community.
• Under the supervision of the Social Work Manager, and with assistance from the designated safeguarding lead on the Board of Trustees, the counsellor will coordinate with the Child Protection Officer a response to cases of children and vulnerable adults in need of psychosocial interventions.
• To provide peer support to fellow social workers.
• Provide training and supervision to the team (and community based structures) on the techniques and management of children, vulnerable adults and their families with basic psychosocial and mental health concerns.
• Offering trainings, information and support to youths and ensure they access the right support to address concerns or challenges
• Recommending and sometimes making decisions about the best course of action for a particular youth or family
• To provide monthly / quarterly reports to the Social Work Manager and Executive Director
• To provide specialist HIV counselling (individual and group)
• With the help of the Social Work Manager, conducting interviews with individual youth to assess and review their situation with use of My Star Tool
• To support the development of intervention criteria for the psychosocial cases and design appropriate technical responses to psychosocial and mental health cases.
• Conduct individual mental health assessments, document case notes, referrals, and interventions, prepare monthly activity reports, and contribute to funder reports, as needed.
• Liaising with the Social work department team and programmes department team to identify youths in need of counselling support and to ensure confidential records regarding the youth are well managed.
• Perform any other duties assigned by the Social work manager and/or Executive Director.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in Counseling Psychology or a related field.
• 3-5 years of work experience as a counsellor, clinical psychologist or psychologist
• 3 years experience working with children and adolescents
• Must have exceptional attention to detail.
• Strong organisational and time management skills, and ability to prioritise.
• Must be a self-starter and driven.
• Excellent communication and interpersonal skills.
• Strong problem-solving skills and analytical abilities.
• Must be proficient with Microsoft Office and Google products.
• Must have a passion to work with vulnerable children, youth and adults.
• Must be able to work in a challenging environment.
• Must be conversant with child protection policy
• Must possess excellent team leadership skills.
• Related Short courses will be an added advantage.
• Must have a certificate of good conduct.
• Fluency in English and Kiswahili both verbal and written