THE ALIMA ASSOCIATION
ALIMA’S ETHOS: ALIMA’s purpose is to save lives and provide care for the most vulnerable populations, without any discrimination based on identity, religion or politics, through actions based on proximity, innovation, and the alliance of organizations and individuals. We act with humanity and impartiality in accordance with universal medical ethics. To gain access to patients, we undertake to act in a neutral and independent manner.
Our CHARTER defines the VALUES and PRINCIPLES of our action:
- Patient First – Patient centered medical care
- Revolutionizing humanitarian medicine through research
- Responsibility and freedom: encourage decision-making by those closest to patients
- Commitment to a dynamic of continuous quality improvement
- Creating a climate of trust among colleagues
- Collective intelligence
- Environmental liability
CARING - INNOVATING - TOGETHER:
Since its creation in 2009, ALIMA has treated more than 13 million patients and today deploys its operations in 15 countries. In 2023, ALIMA cared for 2.8 million patients, including over a million children under the age of 5, received 157,393 people for mental health consultations, assisted 67,617 births, carried out 64 projects in 14 countries. Whenever possible, we work in partnership with local NGOs to ensure that our patients benefit from the best and most relevant expertise wherever it is, whether within their own country or in the rest of the world. In addition, to improve the humanitarian response, we are carrying out operational and clinical research projects, particularly in the field of the fight against malnutrition and viral hemorrhagic fevers.
ALIMA’S TEAM: More than 2000 people currently work for ALIMA. The field teams, as close as possible to the patients, receive their support from the coordination teams generally based in the capitals of the countries of intervention. These receive support from the 4 desk teams and the emergency and opening service team based at the operational headquarters in Dakar, Senegal. The Paris and New York teams are actively working on fundraising as well as representing ALIMA. The rest of the ALIMA Galaxy includes individuals and partner teams who work on behalf of other organizations such as medical NGOs BEFEN, ALERTE Santé, SOS Médecins / KEOOGO, AMCP, research organizations PACCI, INSERM, Universities of Bordeaux or Copenhagen, the NGO Solidarités International and many others.
COUNTRIES WHERE WE WORK IN 2021: Mali, Burkina Faso, Central African Republic, Nigeria, Niger, Chad, Democratic Republic of Congo, Cameroon, Guinea, South Sudan, Mauritania, Senegal, Sudan, Ethiopia and Haiti.
THE WORK WE DO covers: Primary and Secondary Health Care, with a main focus on children and women - including treatment and prevention of acute malnutrition, maternal health, mental health, response to epidemics (Ebola, Cholera, Measles, Dengue, Lassa Fever), surgery, displaced populations, and gender based violence, Covid 19.
ALIMA IN NIGERIA : ALIMA (The Alliance for International Medical Action) has been active in Nigeria since 2016, with interventions guided by a regional strategy addressing health and nutrition emergencies, maternal-infant care, mental health, epidemic response alongside operational research to enhance health outcomes for vulnerable populations—particularly internally displaced persons (IDPs) and host communities.
The organization operates across several states: North-East: Borno (MMC and Jere LGAs) and Yobe (Bade, Yusufari, Nguru and Karasuwa LGAs) North-West: Katsina (Kaita, Batagarawa, Batsari and Katsina LGAs) , South-West: Ondo (Owo LGA).
PROTECTION OF BENEFICIARIES AND COMMUNITY MEMBERS
Level 3: As part of his/her duties, the incumbent will visit programs and come into contact with children and/or vulnerable adults. Therefore, a criminal record check or a certificate of good character will be required. In situations where a criminal record check or character reference is not possible, a declaration of honor will be requested.
FUNCTIONAL AND HIERARCHICAL LINKS
- He/she reports to the Medical Coordinator (line manager), and to the Mental Health referent at HQ (technical manager).
- He/she manages the mental health team
- He/she works in close collaboration with the coordinators (medical, logistics and projects).
MAIN MISSION
The Mental Health and Psychosocial Support Activity Flying Manager (MHPSS) is responsible for the mental health strategy and the implementation of the psycho-social support for patients, their families, the community and the teams. He/she ensures the functioning of the mental health pole on the Nigeria projects.
- Implementation of ALIMA programs
- Contribute to Implement and evolve the mental health care strategy, care circuit and referral in each intervention site;
- Ensures the implementation and monitoring of psychological support for beneficiaries in the various projects, patients or isolated people and families
- Organize the mental health department in collaboration with the Mental Health project teams, Medical coordination and HQ.
- Ensures and follow the psychological support for the team in the fields and in the mission
- Supervise the organization of the psychological first aid sessions for patients and victims;
- Supervise and sharing time of practices on specific situations
- Ensures the effectiveness of mental health and psychosocial support activities in accordance with the defined action plan and according to the minimum package of mental health activities vs. the complete package, with a focus on psychological first aid, prevention and management of psychotrauma;
- Ensures the development of partnerships for the management, orientation and referral of severe or chronic cases of mental disorders and/or psychosocial problems.
- Collaborate with partners to ensure the continuity of patients care
- Assure the drafting of training modules and be in charge of training of trainers in the mental health department according to identified needs.
- Collected information on vulnerable audiences and ensured the establishment of focus groups and discussion groups.
- Monitoring, analysis and reporting
- Participates in external meetings and reports relevant information to the Medical coordinator
- Conducts a weekly summary of mental health activities and reports to the medical coordinator and feedback on the mental health activities to the Mental Health managers of the projects.
- Follows the issues and recommendations of the cluster
- Produces a mission report and recommendations
- Representation, coordination with other teams
- Ensures networking with the various partners,
- Participates in meetings related to his/her field of intervention on the instructions of the head office mental health referent;
- Management of the mental health team
- Supervise the organization of the duties and schedules of the mental health team.
- Ensures the proper transmission of information, provides clinical supervision of teams
- Ensure regular formative supervision for the teams.
- Analyse and put into action the data collected for the department of mental health monitoring and activity report
- Capacity building and team facilitation
- Support the sets up a mental health team in collaboration with the project coordinator (the recruitment, training and reinforcement)
- Ensures that the skills of the mental Health staff are updated according to the evolution of the technical platform and the protocols made available to the mission
- Defines and update job profiles and performance objective plans for team members and participate in the same documents for medical coordinator
- Carries out the assessments of its team in an approach of professional course
- Identify the skills that team members need to acquire to master their positions and organize training to reinforce them
- Ensure trainings in accordance with ALIMA's minimum package of mental health activities, and if necessary according to the complete package (psychological first aid, psychosocial activities, psychological support in the practice of medical care, mental health staff, prevention and management of psychotrauma, the relationship between caregivers and patients, and other needs identified upstream).
- Team health
- Supervise the organization of the briefing sessions / He/she supports the teams in case of critical incident
- Ensures the implementation and follow-up of the psychological support of the teams on the different projects
- Evaluates and validates mental health referral structures with the project's medrefs and medco.
EXPERIENCE AND SKILLS
Experiences
- Professional Master's degree in clinical and/or health psychology or equivalent
- Previous experience in humanitarian work
- Experience working with vulnerable people in an intercultural context
- A minimum of 3 years of Proven experience at psychological scope
- Proven experience of conducting of training
Qualities of the candidate
- An ability to problematize and summarize the main psychological issues and be able to set priorities
- Good teamwork and delegation skills
- A good deal of autonomy and the ability to create one's own position in line with the association's objectives and resources
- Good writing skills
- A good knowledge of psycho-trauma
Languages
- English fluent
- Nigeria local languages could be are an asset
CONDITIONS
Contract term:
- Contract term: contract under French law, contract length: 6 months (renewable, based on funding availability and performance)
- Position to be filled: ASAP
Salary: depending on experience + per diem
ALIMA pays for :
- travel costs between the expatriate’s country of origin and the mission location
- Accommodation costs
- medical cover from the first day of the contract to a month after the date of departure from the mission country for th...