Psychosocial Support Expert - Consultancy

Keeping the Story Alive: Strategic Citizen Journalism in Sudan

Project Background

Sudan’s information ecosystem faces severe challenges amidst ongoing conflict. Professional journalists and citizen reporters operating inside Sudan document critical field realities under extreme pressure, insecurity, and personal risk. Exposure to conflict, displacement, and traumatic events creates a significant psychological burden and complex mental health challenges for frontline reporters.

Role Objective

The Psychosocial Support Expert provides mental health and group therapy expertise, designing, facilitating, and delivering virtual group psychosocial support sessions for program participants to process stress and trauma, build coping mechanisms, prevent burnout, and foster peer solidarity in a safe and confidential environment.

Key Responsibilities & Scope of Work

• Session Design & Preparation: Tailor group therapy methodologies to the realities of journalists in active conflict zones. Develop sensitive, culturally appropriate, and trauma-informed session outlines focusing on trauma handling, stress management, burnout prevention, and self-care strategies.
• Facilitation & Group Therapy Delivery: Facilitate up to 50 virtual group support sessions across designated participant cohorts via secure, encrypted digital tools (e.g., Signal, Zoom, WhatsApp), addressing acute fear, secondary trauma, emotional exhaustion, and operational isolation.
• Confidentiality, Safeguarding & Risk Mitigation: Enforce strict participant confidentiality and anonymity protocols. Establish clear referral pathways for individual cases requiring advanced clinical care or specialized psychiatric intervention beyond the scope of group therapy.
• Reporting & Monitoring: Provide brief, anonymized quarterly progress summaries and structural feedback to project management (MiCT and Ayin Network), documenting overarching mental health trends and operational observations without revealing identifying details.

Key Deliverables

1. Inception Plan & Session Framework detailing session methodologies, confidentiality protocols, and tailored topic breakdown.
2. Delivery of up to 50 scheduled virtual group therapy and psychosocial support sessions across cohort cycles.
3. Anonymized quarterly progress reports outlining completed sessions, general emotional themes, participant engagement levels, and risk mitigation steps.

Qualifications & Requirements

• Advanced university degree (Master's or equivalent) in Clinical Psychology, Psychotherapy, Trauma Counseling, Social Work, or a related mental health discipline.
• Minimum 5 years of professional clinical experience in providing trauma-informed therapy or crisis counseling.
• Demonstrated experience supporting journalists, human rights defenders, or individuals operating in high-risk conflict settings (prior context experience in Sudan or the MENA region highly preferred).
• Native or professional Arabic fluency (spoken and written) for session facilitation, along with professional working proficiency in English for project reporting and coordination.

Technical competence in digital security practices, safe online facilitation, and managing remote group dynamics in low-bandwidth environments.