Employment Opportunities
Join Our Team
We are looking for superior candidates to join our dynamic team. You are welcome to apply for all open positions that match your experience and skill sets.
Our Commitment to DEI
The Coalition is founded on trust, built with empathy, and structured to harness the infinite power diversity brings. Our focus lies in cultivating an environment that encourages individuals to embrace their authentic selves and have their perspectives acknowledged and respected. We are devoted to fostering a culture of inclusion within our organization.
Current Openings
Family Works Specialist
Download full job description.
Base Salary: $56,595
The Family Works program is an in-home parenting support intervention intended to stabilize and enhance foster, pre and post-adoptive, and guardianship homes at risk of disruption due to the family’s depleted capacity to meet the needs of children impacted by abuse and neglect.
Family Works Specialists have a master’s degree in social work or a related field. They have extensive training and clinical understanding of developmental trauma, neurobiology, attachment, and their impact on foster/adoptive youth and families. Enrolled families have access to support from their Specialists during a crisis. This sometimes occurs after office hours and on weekends.
The program focuses on increasing the caregiver’s capacity to understand, accept, and effectively respond to the behavioral challenges children and youth present. Through this program, caregivers are provided support, skills, validation, and psychoeducation to remain open and engaged with youth, even during challenging behaviors, creating a safe haven for growth and healing.
The program follows the principles of Dyadic Developmental Psychotherapy (DDP). It uses strategies and techniques to help the families stabilize and further support the children and youth to develop greater relational skills, increase their sense of personal safety and security, resolve developmental trauma, and facilitate new relationships.
Projected Outcomes:
- 80% of children will remain home or move to a more stable living situation.
- 70% of parents have knowledge, skills, and support for positive parenting (measured by the Brief Parental Self-Efficacy Scale).
The Coalition hires individuals:
- Passionate about serving foster/adopted youth and families
- Confident enough to work independently, while knowing when to reach out for help
- With the highest level of integrity and flexibility when working both in the office and in the field
Essential Functions:
- Utilize knowledge of complex-developmental trauma and attachment-based strategies to educate parents and caregivers about the unique issues surrounding adoption and guardianship, child development, loss, grief, attachment, and trauma
- Identify, collaborate with, and refer to collateral service providers
- Respond to families in crisis situations in an urgent and timely manner
- Provide face-to-face (virtual at this time) child and family interventions
- Partner with families to identify and establish attainable goals and support families to achieve their goals
- See job description for a complete list
Candidates must:
- Hold a Master’s Degree in Counseling or Social Work–LMSW, LCSW, PLPC, or LPC preferred
- Have 2 years of experience providing direct service to clients
- Maintain a flexible work schedule to meet the needs of youth and families—early morning, late afternoon, evening and weekend meetings are planned as needed
- Demonstrate the ability to build rapport and relationship with children and families during face-to-face meetings and phone contact
- Critically assess family and relational functioning in a strengths-based manner
- Communicate effectively both verbally and in writing
- Exhibit excellent knowledge of community services that support foster/adopt families
- Demonstrated experience working with child welfare teams utilizing innovative strategies to overcome obstacles
This is a full-time position. Send your resume and cover letter to Quintella Ivory, Director of Human Resources, at recruiting@foster-adopt.org. Applications without a well-written, thoughtful cover letter stating your passion and qualification for serving our population will not be considered. The Foster & Adoptive Care Coalition is an Equal Opportunity Employer.
Families United Specialist
Download full job description.
Base Salary: $56,595
Summary of Position
The Families United Specialist provides training, assessment, and support to prospective and current relative foster care providers. This position assists relative foster and adoptive parents in navigating the child welfare system. Advocating for the application of child welfare law and policy as it relates to individual cases is one of the primary focuses of the position. Additionally, this position recognizes the unique experiences relative caregivers encounter and seeks to provide an empathetic and confidential outlet for them. Assistance will be given in-home, in the community, and over the internet/phone.
This position is responsible for helping relatives complete all aspects of the relative licensing process. Activities regularly include one-on-one assistance with licensing forms, at least four home visits to assist in the completion of the relative foster care home study and conducting pre-service and in-service training. Appointment days and times are dependent on the availability of individual families assigned to the specialist. Given the nature of this work, approximately 50% of the work hours can be expected to occur in the evenings and/or weekends.
Program Outcomes:
- Provide one-on-one care coordination for up to five relative placement providers at one time
- Complete licensing assistance to ensure relatives are licensed within the 90-day timeframe
- Seventy percent of children served by Families United will achieve placement stability, as measured by documentation that they remain in the kinship home or move to a more stable living situation
- Sixty children placed in Families United relative homes (team goal)
The Coalition hires individuals:
- Passionate about serving foster/adopted youth and families
- Confident enough to work independently while knowing when to reach out for help
- With the highest level of integrity and flexibility when working both in the office and in the field
Essential Functions:
- Knowledge of and ability to educate families about the unique issues surrounding foster care, adoption and guardianship, child development, loss, grief, attachment, and trauma.
- Proactively engage families via phone, email, and/or face-to-face visits to provide wraparound services and support within the community through the pre-and post-licensing process.
- Complete home assessments utilizing the SAFE model. Accommodation of client’s schedule is required.
- Complete thorough, professional, and timely documentation with a strong command for proper grammatical structure (i.e., intake forms, assessment, progress and activity notes, progress maintenance plans and closing summaries).
- Maintain at least once weekly meaningful communication with each family in the licensing process, either through phone call, email, or face-to-face visits to provide additional training resources and support.
- Conduct STARS Training for the Caregiver Who Knows the Child on Saturdays up to three times per year.
- Conduct Informed Consent, Psychotropic Medication Management training, and other trainings/support groups as needed. May occur on Saturdays up to three times per year.
- Participate in team and agency meetings and/or individual professional consultations. The majority of these meetings should be attended in person.
- Navigate and use various software packages to obtain, collect, and track program data in a timely manner as required by the funder and/or the Foster & Adoptive Care Coalition. This includes but is not limited to Salesforce.
- Keep work calendar current and maintain up-to-date case records.
- See job description for a complete list
Candidates must:
- Hold a Bachelor’s degree in social work or social service field
- Direct professional work experience in foster care licensing
- STARS Train the Trainer certified
To Apply
This is a full-time position. Send your resume and cover letter to Quintella Ivory, Director of Human Resources, at recruiting@foster-adopt.org. Applications without a well-written, thoughtful cover letter stating your passion and qualification for serving our population will not be considered. The Foster & Adoptive Care Coalition is an Equal Opportunity Employer.
Extreme Recruiter
Download full job description.
Base Salary: $56,595
Summary of Position
The Extreme Recruiter is responsible for spearheading and expediting the adoption recruitment activities of the child welfare team. Extreme Recruitment® works exclusively with the hardest-to-place children: ages 10-18, sibling groups, children of color, and youth with emotional, developmental, physical, or behavioral concerns. The position requires the recruiter to carry out all aspects of multi-faceted, child-specific adoption recruitment. The Extreme Recruiter facilitates 12-20 weeks of team meetings with the goals of ensuring a system of supportive adults and identifying a permanent resource committed to adoption or guardianship.
Prior to the active recruitment phase of 12-20 weeks, the Extreme Recruiter completes pre-work. Pre-work may include the recruiter familiarization themself to the case history, building a relationship with youth(s) and placement provider, making recommendations regarding services that may be beneficial during active recruitment, as well as other activities.
Once a permanency option is identified, the Extreme Recruiter holds monthly team meetings until an adoption or guardianship is finalized. If an identified permanency resource disrupts, the Extreme Recruiter may remain involved in the case and facilitate monthly meetings to secure and support a second permanency option.
Given the nature of the work, approximately 20% of the work hours can be expected to occur in the evenings and/or weekends.
Program Outcomes:
- provide Extreme Recruitment services to 6-8 youth at one time
- ensuring a system of supportive adults for at least 85% of youth on caseload
- identify an adoptive or guardianship caregiver for at least 70% of youth on caseload
The Coalition hires individuals:
- Passionate about serving foster/adopted youth and families
- Confident enough to work independently while knowing when to reach out for help
- With the highest level of integrity and flexibility when working both in the office and in the field
Essential Functions:
- Assists the case manager and court officials with meeting the Fostering Connections to Success Act, applicable Missouri statutes, and Missouri Children’s Division policy regarding relative/kin notification and placement
- Participates in court hearings, external and internal team, and agency meetings, and/or individual or group professional consultations. The majority of these meetings should be attended in person. Schedules, facilitates, and participates in meetings with youths’ teams including Extreme Recruitment supervisor, case manager, case manager’s supervisor, GAL, DJO, therapist, placement provider, etc. The majority of these meetings will be attended in person.
- Completes thorough and professional documentation (i.e., intake forms, progress activity notes, progress maintenance plans, assessments, profiles and closing summaries.)
- Completes internal referrals to agency services such Family Works, Little Wishes, training opportunities, and support groups, etc. Complete external referrals to community resources and services such as therapy, evaluations, trainings, etc.
- Requests, reviews, and analyzes relevant documentation such as psychological evaluations, IEP documents, therapy reports, birth records, etc.
- Assists in preparing unlicensed families for licensure by explaining the licensing process and assisting with home licensing
- Visits with the child and family in-home or in the community to address concerns that relate to placement stability and provide support to foster and adoptive parents.
- Reviews case record to include Mine the child’s Children’s Division, contracted case management, and court files for names, dates of birth, addresses, phone numbers, and other relevant identifying information of kin/relatives. Complete a trauma and loss history for the child from this information.
- Receives and responds to training, coaching, supervision, and feedback; works well in team setting.
- Ensures an initial assessment of adoption readiness is conducted initially and updated as the case progresses, which will include weekly review of the youth’s current placement, mental health needs, physical health needs, adult relationships, peer relationships, and educational needs.
- Assists in conducting a diligent search to identify a minimum at least forty family members; with the goal to connect the youth with safe, appropriate kin to build a natural support network while exploring family members and non-family members as a permanency plan.
- Ensures that all child-specific, targeted, and general recruitment strategies are conducted per the program manual.
- Understands, or ability to learn Genopro.
- Maintain accurate files and records for each client.
- See job description for a complete list
Candidates must:
- Hold a Bachelor’s degree in social work or related field.
- Demonstrate experience working with interdisciplinary teams utilizing innovative strategies to overcome obstacles. Direct experience in the child welfare field with knowledge of foster care and adoption in the St. Louis area is strongly preferred.
To Apply
This is a full-time position. Send your resume and cover letter to Quintella Ivory, Director of Human Resources, at recruiting@foster-adopt.org. Applications without a well-written, thoughtful cover letter stating your passion and qualification for serving our population will not be considered. The Foster & Adoptive Care Coalition is an Equal Opportunity Employer.
Agency Shared Values
Employees of the Foster & Adoptive Care Coalition agree to hold themselves and colleagues to the following values:
- Equity: We insist on fairness and respect. We are deliberate in ensuring everyone has safety, opportunity, access, and support to be heard.
- Family: We are family. We are connected and support one another in meeting the needs of our own families and the families we serve. We assume the best and are committed to each other.
- Diversity: We celebrate differences and harness the power that diversity brings. Every viewpoint is heard and honored. We are stronger because of our differences.
- Innovation & Excellence: We are intentional about knowing better and doing better, using innovation and solution-focus approaches with courageous passion and excellence.
- Inclusion: We respect, leverage, and engage everyone’s unique strengths and talents so each individual can contribute to their full potential.
- Integrity: We are an agency built on integrity, maintaining a culture of trust, respect, transparency, and honesty. We walk in our truth and uphold ethical standards.
- Courage: We stand up for each other and what is right for our clients and stakeholders with truth, vulnerability, and accountability.
- Teamwork & Collaboration: We develop and maintain authentic relationships by being flexible and open-minded and maximizing the strengths of each individual in the team to accomplish the best outcome for our children and families. Everyone contributes in leadership.