Health Specialist (Primary Health Care & Mental Health)
Organizational Context
UNICEF's Caribbean Multi-Country Office (MCO) serves twelve English- and Dutch-speaking Caribbean nations, focusing on equitable access to primary health care, learning, skills, child protection, and poverty reduction. It addresses challenges like learning losses, mental health, violence, and climate-related disasters, particularly for vulnerable groups. The MCO operates with an impact-driven, agile, grounded, and people-centered working group model to achieve regional results.
Job Purpose
The Health Specialist (Primary Health Care & Mental Health) is integral to the Equitable and resilient services for primary health care, learning and skills working group within UNICEF's Caribbean MCO. This role is crucial for leading the implementation of the Multi-Country Programme's outcome focused on boosting children’s nutrition, mental health, learning, and skills. The specialist will achieve this by strengthening health and education systems to deliver integrated Primary Health Care (PHC), nutrition, Mental Health and Psychosocial Support (MHPSS), and quality basic and secondary education for all children and adolescents across the subregion. The core function involves translating this priority into integrated policy packages, effective service delivery models, and scalable solutions. A key aspect of the role is ensuring that principles of equity, inclusion, and climate-resilience are deeply embedded in the expansion and strengthening of health and education services, addressing the interconnected challenges faced by children in the Caribbean.
Responsibilities
The Health Specialist's responsibilities, as part of the working group model, involve contributing to a shared regional service across the 12-country MCO, leveraging complementary expertise, and maintaining an agile presence for rapid deployment. This role leads the implementation of the CPD outcome on equitable and resilient services, focusing on children’s nutrition, mental health, learning, and skills. This entails strengthening health and education systems to deliver integrated Primary Health Care (PHC), nutrition, Mental Health and Psychosocial Support (MHPSS), and quality basic and secondary education for all children and adolescents. The specialist is tasked with translating these priorities into integrated policy packages, developing effective service delivery models, and identifying scalable solutions applicable across the subregion. A critical aspect is ensuring that equity, inclusion, and climate-resilience are systematically embedded in the expansion and enhancement of health and education services. This involves strategic partnerships, technical expertise, and policy influence to advance results for children, addressing persistent inequalities and vulnerabilities, especially for indigenous communities and those in remote areas, and building resilience against economic and climate shocks. The role supports the MCO's new business model by fostering depth over duplication and shared capacity over fragmented country-by-country coverage.
Work Experience
The provided text does not specify any work experience requirements for this position.
Skills
Primary Health Care (PHC) expertise, Mental Health and Psychosocial Support (MHPSS), Nutrition programming, Health system strengthening, Education system strengthening, Policy development and advocacy, Service delivery model design, Scalable solution development, Equity and inclusion integration, Climate-resilience in programming, Strategic partnerships, Technical expertise