2 volunteer placements for Clinical psychologist or Psychiatric nurse, with experience working with to address the issues of domestic and sexual violence, based in Papua New Guinea for 24 months

Background

On average two-thirds of wives in Papua New Guinea have been beaten by their husbands with figures reaching as high as 97% and 100% in the Highlands Region (Report on Domestic Violence, 1992). Papua New Guinea has some of the highest rates of violence against women in the world for a country not at war, however the government has responded by establishing Family Support Centres (FSCs) for women and children affected by domestic violence. VSO will place two professional volunteers, one in each province, who will be based in Family Support Centres and provide support to target FSCs and communities. Another member of the team will be a community development worker. As the health professional (clinical psychologist/psychiatric nurse), you will work closely with the National Family and Sexual Violence Action Committee (FSVAC) and National Department of Health (NDoH) to develop systems and tools for timely collection, analysis and reporting of data. As a team of three volunteers, you will work together to provide mentoring, needs-based training and supportive supervision to the staff in the FSCs and will work with the local communities to engage in addressing and preventing violence against women.

What does the role involve?

• assess the functionality and current level of FSC services, benchmarked against the NDoH's operational guidelines
• use findings to develop and implement a capacity building plan for FSC staff with measureable indicators and a performance appraisal system.
• work closely with others to identify, establish and maintain effective referral networks with different sectors

• provide on-going clinical mentoring to FSC staff as they put training into practice
• coach FSC staff to incorporate prevention messages throughout contact with survivors of violence
• carry out regular outreach visits with FSC staff to district hospitals to provide quality and appropriate services to survivors of gender-based violence
• support the VSO Country Office to carry out an external impact assessment on the services provided by the FSCs at the end of the project period.

Skills, qualifications and experience required

You'll be a graduate with qualifications and experience in clinical psychology or psychiatric nursing. You'll have experience providing counselling services and be experienced working to address violence against women. You'll have well developed skills in training and/or mentoring others and ideally experience working in a least developed or fragile country. You'll have excellent people skills, the ability to work in a changing team-setting, good self-management and the ability to work confidently with a wide range of stakeholders including senior officers. You'll be flexible, adaptable, patient and high levels of cultural sensitivity.

And the rest....

There are two volunteer placements available with this brief. You'll be part of a team, which also includes a community development worker. You'll work across the two project provinces (Eastern Highlands and Southern Highlands). You'll be based in a Family Support Centre within a Regional Hospital. We'll ask you to commit to at least 24 months to make a sustainable contribution. In return we'll give you extensive training before your placement and a local living allowance, return flights, accommodation, insurance and more. When you return to your home country, we'll support you to resettle.