Phiona Kioyet

SR. TECHNICAL ADVISOR, MHPSS AND GLOBAL DISASTER MANAGEMENT TEAM

Phiona is a Psychologist and Mental Health and Sexual and Gender-Based Violence (SGBV) Prevention/Response expert with over 18 years of experience in MHPSS and SGBV programming. She also has 4 years of clinical experience in hospitals and HIV Programming.

Phiona represents World Vision International in nine global MHPSS inter-agencies, research committees and technical advisory groups. These include the IASC Reference Group on MHPSS; the Technical Trial Steering committee for CHANGE; and the Scientific and Practice Board of MHPSS in Humanitarian Crises. She is a subject panel expert for UNICEF- and WHO-led psychological interventions for children aged 5-10, and she is on the editorial boards of the Conflict and Health journal and Social Determinants of Mental Health collection.

As a researcher, Phiona has led several research studies as a principal investigator (PI), co-PI or collaborator. In 2017, Phiona received the runner-up science pitch award for the Sexual Violence Research Initiative forum, speaking on the topic of supporting men to manage common mental health problems as a means to prevent intimate partner violence.

Phiona was part of the lead team from Kenya that completed the Problem Management Plus (PM+) randomized control trial to demonstrate the effectiveness of the intervention. She is deployable to all World Vision country offices to support the implementation of quality MHPSS programmes. Finally, she has published and contributed to several works in reputable journals, SGBV and MHPSS blogs, manuals, books and peer-reviewed articles. All of these can be viewed on the Mental Health Publications page.

Phiona holds a Bachelor of Arts degree with a double major in Psychology and Community Development from Daystar University Nairobi, as well as a Master of Arts in Gender and Development from the University of Nairobi. She has an ongoing Master of Science in Psychology and Neuroscience of Mental Health from the Institute of Psychiatry at Kings College London. She holds various institution accreditation including Collaborative Institutional Training Initiative (CITI) Certification from Princeton University.