Remote/Home based Consultancy: Play and Heal Design Coordinator

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:

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. 

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. 

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. 

Deliverables:

Deliverables/Outputs

Days  

Technical and creative oversight to the design agency through weekly feedback rounds —reviewing, refining, and guiding drafts to ensure alignment with the Play&Heal vision and purpose.

 8 Days

Sharpened and validated content documents for the activity cards and training workbook, prepared for seamless delivery to the design agency.

4 Days

Editable activity template (PPT) for activity creation, plus a set of up to 30 new play-based activity ideas—including core activities per characteristic, energizers, and grounding exercises—for MENARO and Country Offices to adapt and expand. Developed based on design expertise and pilot learnings. 

10 Days

Support UNICEF developers and Care for Education partners on integrating play-based approaches in the Play and Heal training and workbook  

8 Days

Up to 3 research tools (e.g. survey, interview, or observation guide), and a summary report with key findings and actionable recommendations to guide content and design updates from pilots in NWS, Türkiye, and Lebanon. 

12 Days

Guidance protocol document and presentation for country teams on how to run testing, spot patterns, and generate design/content recommendations. 

10 Days

Two-page narrative capturing the Play&Heal design process, key decisions, and creative approach for inclusion in the final report to the LEGO Foundation. 

2 Days

One promotional video (up to 4 minutes) and one A3-size poster produced to showcase the Play&Heal project, ensuring alignment with the project’s purpose, tone, and visual identity. 

7 Days

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

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.