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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, Hope

How can you make a difference? 

For decades, the relationship between play and children’s wellbeing has been observed. Play creates environments where children engage social, emotional, linguistic, physical and cognitive development, learning critical skills needed to cope with fears, to solve social problems, and interact with others. Particularly after potentially traumatic events or adverse childhood experiences, children’s developing language and abstract thought capabilities mean that the symbolism and metaphor of creative play and storytelling is likely to be the primary means of expression. Supporting children to feel secure in expressing their thoughts and feelings can help shape their understanding of events and environments in ways that may reduce feelings of anxiety and insecurity. 

The Play and Heal project is targeting children with mental health and psychosocial support needs following the 2023 earthquakes in Türkiye and Northwest Syria and the protracted humanitarian crisis and recent conflict escalation in Lebanon. The project supports the most vulnerable children, including refugee children, by integrating play based facilitated activities that target mental health outcomes in UNICEF's emergency response and Early Childhood Development, Education, and Child Protection Programmes, with the aim of providing children at risk of poor mental health with emotionally safe and healing experiences.  

LEGO’s Play and Learn has been rolled out already in 2024 in the project’s target areas in Northwest Syria, earthquake affected areas of Türkiye, and southern Lebanon, in preparation for the training later in the year with the new Play and Heal model.   

Scope of Work:

1. Oversee Creative Direction 

Ensure all toolkit assets are intuitive, clear, and cohesive, maintaining creative integrity and consistency with the Play&Heal concept—while guiding the smooth handover of content to the design agency through content review and validation. 

2. Ensure Alignment with Play-Based Approaches 

Embed play-based knowledge across activities and training materials by generating new ideas, shaping content, and guiding refinements to ensure play is embedded purposefully to support the healing goals. 

3. Guide Pilot Testing & Translate Insights into Actionable Recommendations 

Plan and design the pilot process from a user journey perspective, develop data collection tools, and analyze feedback from country offices to identify patterns and generate recommendations for content and design updates. Build team capacity to continue testing beyond this phase. 

4. Support Strategic Communication & Project Closure 
   Capture and communicate the Play&Heal design journey by drafting final narrative inputs for reporting and supporting the creation of visual materials that promote the project’s process, vision and outcomes.

Deliverables:

 To qualify as an advocate for every child you will have… 

• Advanced university degree (Masters) in Product Design, Graphic Design, Project Management, or similar..
• 7 years’ experience in designing products and communication tools for children and adults, proven experience in play-based design and mental health support for children in humanitarian crises. 
• Technical experience in managing projects, convening multiple actors with diverse backgrounds for multi-sectoral projects in tight timelines. 
• Expertise in human centred design in childhood and play based settings is preferred. 

• Fluency in written and spoken English required, Arabic speaking is an advantage.

For every Child, you demonstrate… 

UNICEF's values of Care, Respect, Integrity, Trust, Accountability, and Sustainability (CRITAS). 

 To view our competency framework, please visit  here. 

 UNICEF is here to serve the world’s most disadvantaged children and our global workforce must reflect the diversity of those children. The UNICEF family is committed to include everyone, irrespective of their race/ethnicity, age, disability, gender identity, sexual orientation, religion, nationality, socio-economic background, or any other personal characteristic.

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:  

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

Individuals engaged under a consultancy or individual contract 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 and Individual Contractors. Consultants and individual contractors 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.