Site Management Support (SMS); Mental Health / Psychosocial Support (MHPSS) assistance to conflict-affected communities in the Wollegas, Dire Dawa and East Hararge, Ethiopia The proposed intervention will provide joint Site Management Support (SMS) and Mental Health and Psychosocial support (MHPSS) assistance to conflict- and displacement-affected communities in West Wollega and East Hararge Zones of Oromia Region and in Dire Dawa city.

Building on current activities, the project will offer interventions over the 4 layers of the pyramid of services, as per the IASC Mental Health and Psychosocial Support Guidelines in Emergency Settings, with SMS focusing on layer 1 by working to ensure that basic services are provided in a dignified and non-harmful fashion, and with MHPSS covering layer 2, community and family support, layer 3, focused, non-specialized support, and layer 4, specialized services. 

SMS: the intervention will support IDPs and returnees within targeted sites and Kebeles in West Wollega, Dire Dawa and East Hararge to access humanitarian assistance, including life-saving services. SMS will support local and national authorities to provide equitable assistance and protection to IDPs (approx.. 22,000) and/or returnees (approx. 19,000) and affected host community (approx.1,600) through service coordination, including information management. SMS will also support the establishment/strengthening of community governance structures to ensure equal participation and representation on the beneficiary side. Capacity building training for staff, authorities and other stakeholders, with an emphasis on emergency response to displacement, protection and safety mainstreaming will also be provided by SMS. SMS teams will also implement small scale site/area maintenance activities to improve the living conditions of affected populations and provide a healthier, safer and more dignified environment. Critically, SMS will contribute to the identification of protection risks in the targeted sites/areas, providing safe access to complaint and feedback mechanism (CFM) for community members, and assisting protection cases to access appropriate services by applying the relevant local referral pathways. 
Note: target numbers are derived from IOM SMS population data for Dire Dawa East Hararge and Zonal DRMO for West Wollega).

MHPSS: this response will address key protection concerns faced by IDPs and other affected populations, through provision of dedicated services to address the needs of men, women, boys and girls, including to survivors of Gender based Violence (GBV). Activities will include lay counselling to provide basic emotional support, informal psycho-education to adults, health talks, and recreational and socio cultural activities, targeting especially children and single women head of household. IOM’s community self-help and social support will strengthen conditions for appropriate communal cultural, spiritual and religious healing practices, by facilitating coffee ceremonies and other local resilience community actions in line with what was provided in the previous grant allocation.  Activities will be provided through mobile teams and MHPSS spaces. IOM’s activities will specifically ensure that conditions for community mobilization, ownership and control of emergency response is centralized in the joint response for all IOM’s sectors. While GBV survivors may be included within beneficiaries, there will be no proactive targeting of GBV cases - to avoid stigma and harm. IOM lay counseling activities follow IOM community-based counselling manuals - using trained staff supervised weekly by a senior psychologist. If people served with counseling speak about GBV-related issues, counselors are trained to give minimal support from a psychological perspective and refer on to GBV specialists through the cluster-endorsed referral pathway if the individual gives informed consent. 

In all target locations, Zonal and Woreda level officials recognize the presence of IDPs, returnees and other affected population and have requested the support of IOM to respond to the needs of these groups.