consultant; Mental health programme – communications, marketing and promotion support. Req# 571274

UNICEF works in some of the world’s toughest places, to reach the world’s most disadvantaged children. To save their lives. To defend their rights. To help them fulfill their potential. 

Across 190 countries and territories, we work for every child, everywhere, every day, to build a better world for everyone. 

And we never give up. 

For every child, LOVE

Vacancy Announcement: Consultant

Consultancy Title: Mental health programme consultant – communications, marketing and promotion support

Section /Division/Duty Station: Mental Health, PG Director’s Office – NYHQ

Duration: 29 April 2024 – 31 March 2025

Home/ office Based: REMOTE

About UNICEF

If you are a committed, creative professional and are passionate about making a lasting difference for children, the world’s leading children’s rights organization would like to hear from you. For 70 years, UNICEF has been working on the ground in 190 countries and territories to promote children’s survival, protection, and development. The world’s largest provider of vaccines for developing countries, UNICEF supports child health and nutrition, good water and sanitation, quality basic education for all boys and girls, and the protection of children from violence, exploitation, and AIDS. UNICEF is funded entirely by the voluntary contributions of individuals, businesses, foundations, and governments. UNICEF has over 12,000 staff in more than 145 countries.

BACKGROUND

Purpose of Activity/Assignment:

Mental Health and Psychosocial Support (MHPSS) is an institutional priority for the UN, and for UNICEF. The UNICEF Strategic Plan 2022-2025 identifies MHPSS as a priority area for children and their caregivers, building upon existing programming through child protection, education and health with a focus on addressing inequities related to gender, and disabilities. 

In October 2022, UNICEF began a three-year partnership with Spotify responding to the urgent mental health needs of young people, focusing on harnessing the power of music, audio and other innovative digital content to deliver trusted and engaging mental health resources for 16-25 year olds. UNICEF and Spotify launched a youth mental health destination ‘Our Minds Matter’ and UNICEF’s new podcast ‘On My Mind’.  These resources are currently available in Ukrainian, Polish and English.  The next stage of the partnership is to expand into Latin America and Middle East regions, whilst continuing to grow content and listenership in Ukraine, Poland and bordering countries.

Summary of Position

This consultancy, supervised by the MHPSS and Innovation Specialist in the Mental Health team, Programme Group Director’s Office at UNICEF’s headquarters, would support the development and delivery of a multi-country internal and external marketing plan that successfully promotes engagement in the UNICEF / Spotify Our Minds Matter destination and On My Mind podcast.

This is a11-month, remote, deliverables-based consultancy. The position is envisaged to run from 29 April 2024 – 31 March 2025, depending on completion of deliverables.

Scope of Work:

The consultant will support development and delivery of a multi-country component of the UNICEF / Spotify partnership – i.e. promotion and engagement in the UNICEF / Spotify ‘Our Minds Matter’ destination and UNICEF’s various podcasts available on that destination, with the following specific activities: 

1. Development & Delivery of multi-country communications, marketing and promotion strategy for the ‘Our Minds Matter’ destination and UNICEF’s ‘On My Mind’ podcast:

• Develop and deliver, in collaboration with various UNICEF internal teams, a multi-country marketing and promotion strategy that successfully links external MHPSS stakeholders and programming with the destination and podcast, establishing them as part of an MHPSS ecosystem of support and a ‘go to’ trusted resource, and capture effectiveness of this strategy.
• Write a report capturing MHPSS programme gaps, opportunities, challenges and key stakeholders in each country to feed into the development of the multi-country marketing and promotion strategy.
• Hold meetings with each participating UNICEF country and regional office cross-sectorial team to understand how to successfully link the destination to MHPSS programming.
• Support the development and delivery of launch events and ‘ever-green’ content for the podcast to support the marketing and promotion strategy.
• Develop a social media posting calendar.

2. Qualitative and Quantitative Learning:

• Develop and deliver evaluation surveys via UNICEF’s U-Report, KIIs with MHPSS services providers and youth, listening data analytics, across participating offices involved in launching content on the destination.

Terms of Reference / Key Deliverables:

1. 12 meetings (preparation and facilitation) with UNICEF country and regional office cross-sectorial teams to capture how to successfully link the destination and content to in the field MHPSS programming – By 24 May 2024
2. 1 report produced highlighting MHPSS programme gaps, key stakeholders, opportunities, challenges in each country– By 31 May 2024
3. Develop 1 marketing and promotion plan to increase listenership with the destination and the curated content – By 14 June 2024
4. 4 launch events (2 per region); 10 planning events (1 per country office) to agree the launch events; 10 follow-up sessions (1 per 10 country office);

2 follow-up regional office meetings – By 31 January 2025

5. Develop 1 global social media posting calendar covering all 10 countries, for 10 months – By 24 May 2024
6. Create 11 update posts (at least one per month) for UNICEF’s internal knowledge management sites (e.g. MHPSS yammer, sharepoint pages, Community of Practice email). – By 3 March 2025
7. 1 excel sheet capturing listening figures across countries, languages, and types of content available on the destination. And 10 x inputs added to tracker in consultation with UNICEF’s production agency and Spotify. – By 3 March 2025
8. 1 revised marketing plan produced, incorporating learnings and inputs from first series of project. – By 31 January 2025
9. Carry out 39 key informant interviews (a minimum of 3 per country) with MHPSS services and UNICEF staff, capturing how the destination and curated content is being utilized.  1st regional cohort completed by 30 June 2024, 2nd regional cohort completed by 30 December 2024
10. Develop an indicator tracking table for progress of listening numbers on the destination / how many ‘referrals’ have been made from MHPSS services, per country / language. – By 30 May 2024
11. Update 10 x the project progress tracking table (1x per month). – By 30 February 2025
12. 10 evaluation surveys on listening numbers for the destination, per country / per language. – By 28 February 2025
13. 2 evaluation surveys, via UNICEF’s U-Report, with regional and country offices involved in 2024. – By 30 January 2025
14. 2 summary reports showcasing listening data analytics, youth interviews, U-Report surveys, on the performance of the destination and the curated content based on the data and analyses collected, as per above activity – By 30 February 2025
15. Organize/Plan and compile meeting notes for 44 program management meetings and update work plan accordingly – By 30 March 2025

Qualifications

Education:

Minimum bachelor’s degree or its International Equivalent in Public Health, Mental Health, International Humanitarian Affairs, Data and Evaluation or related field, with strong experience in applying marketing, communications or journalism, in mental health.

Work experience:

2-4 years of experience in communications/marketing, writing/editing, publications, project management, strategic outreach, and/or related work such as social behaviour change; experience working in global mental health.

Competencies/Knowledge:

Required:

• Initiative, independence, creative, innovative, and detail oriented.
• Strong organizational and project management skills, ability to work on multiple projects with short deadlines.
• Excellent writing and editing.
• Good analytical abilities, including understanding data and figures, social media metrics and translate them into actionable insights to refine strategies.
• Expertise in Microsoft Office, editing, WordPress (or similar), graphic design software (Adobe InDesign, Canva).
• Must be able to read, write, and speak fluent English.

Desired:

• Direct field experience in delivering multi-sectorial MHPSS services.
• Experience in LMICs and knowledge of the functioning of UNICEF MHPSS Operational Framework in particular is of great added value.
• Strong oral communication skills.
• Working knowledge of Spanish, Portuguese and / or Arabic.

Requirements:

Completed profile in UNICEF’s e-Recruitment system and

• Upload copy of academic credentials
• Financial proposal that will include/ reflect:
  • the costs per each deliverable and the total lump-sum for the whole assignment (in US$) to undertake the terms of reference.
  • travel costs and daily subsistence allowance, if internationally recruited or travel is required as per TOR.
  • Any other estimated costs: visa, health insurance, and living costs as applicable.
  • Indicate your availability.
• Any emergent / unforeseen duty travel and related expenses will be covered by UNICEF.
• At the time the contract is awarded, the selected candidate must have in place current health insurance coverage.
• Payment of professional fees will be based on submission of agreed satisfactory deliverables. UNICEF reserves the right to withhold payment in case the deliverables submitted are not up to the required standard or in case of delays in submitting the deliverables on the part of the consultant.

U.S. Visa information:

With the exception of the US Citizens, G4 Visa and Green Card holders, should the selected candidate and his/her household members reside in the United States under a different visa, the consultant and his/her household members are required to change their visa status to G4, and the consultant’s household members (spouse) will require an Employment Authorization Card (EAD) to be able to work, even if he/she was authorized to work under the visa held prior to switching to G4.  

Only shortlisted candidates will be contacted and advance to the next stage of the selection process.

For every Child, you demonstrate…

UNICEF’s core values of Commitment, Diversity and Integrity and core competencies in Communication, Working with People and Drive for Results. View our competency framework at: Here

UNICEF offers reasonable accommodation for consultants/individual contractors with disabilities. This may include, for example, accessible software, travel assistance for missions or personal attendants. We encourage you to disclose your disability during your application in case you need reasonable accommodation during the selection process and afterwards in your assignment. 

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. UNICEF also adheres to strict child safeguarding principles. All selected candidates will be expected to adhere to these standards and principles and will therefore undergo rigorous reference and background checks. 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. 

Remarks:  

Individuals engaged under a consultancy will not be considered “staff members” under the Staff Regulations and Rules of the United Nations and UNICEF’s policies and procedures and will not be entitled to benefits provided therein (such as leave entitlements and medical insurance coverage). Their conditions of service will be governed by their contract and the General Conditions of Contracts for the Services of Consultants. Consultants are responsible for determining their tax liabilities and for the payment of any taxes and/or duties, in accordance with local or other applicable laws. 

The selected candidate is solely responsible to ensure that the visa (applicable) and health insurance required to perform the duties of the contract are valid for the entire period of the contract. Selected candidates are subject to confirmation of fully-vaccinated status against SARS-CoV-2 (Covid-19) with a World Health Organization (WHO)-endorsed vaccine, which must be met prior to taking up the assignment. It does not apply to consultants who will work remotely and are not expected to work on or visit UNICEF premises, programme delivery locations or directly interact with communities UNICEF works with, nor to travel to perform functions for UNICEF for the duration of their consultancy contracts.