Summary of Position
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.
The Family Works Specialist has a master’s degree in social work or a counseling 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 their child, even during challenging behaviors, creating a haven for growth and healing.
The program follows the principles of Dyadic Developmental Psychotherapy (DDP). It uses strategies and techniques to help the family stabilize and further support the child(ren) to develop greater relational skills, increase their sense of personal safety and security, resolve developmental trauma, and facilitate new relationships.
Essential Functions & Responsibilities
- Utilize knowledge of complex developmental trauma and attachment-based strategies to educate parents and caregivers about the unique issues surrounding adoption and guardianship, identity development, loss, grief, attachment, and trauma.
- Respond to families in crises in an urgent and timely manner.
- Navigate and use various software packages to promptly obtain, collect, and track program data as required by the funder and the Foster & Adoptive Care Coalition. This includes but is not limited to Salesforce.
- Provide wraparound services by cultivating and networking with resource and referral services and support within the community (i.e., school programs, family court, summer camps, therapy services). Link children and families to such services and support.
- Request and review psychological, medical, educational, legal, and social service records supporting the child and family to reach the goals.
- Attend and actively participate in meetings related to supporting the child and family to reach the identified goal(s). The majority of meetings should be in person.
- Appointment days and times are dependent on the availability of individual families assigned to the specialist. Given the nature of this position, up to 20% of the work hours can be expected to occur in the evenings and/or weekends.
- See job description for a complete list of responsibilities.
Qualifications & Requirements
Education
- Master’s degree in counseling, social work, or a related counseling field.
- LMSW, LCSW, PLPC, or LPC preferred.
Experience
- 2 Years of experience in child welfare or related field with direct client contact.