Family Coach/Parent Advocate
About Family Success:
Under the Family Permanency Planning Services division, the Family Success Initiative provides supportive services to parents and children. The goal is to help parents safely manage their children’s behaviors by helping parents proactively anticipate the unique needs of their children, and employ strategies to meet those needs; consistently apply developmentally appropriate discipline; manage parent-child conflict; create and sustain nurturing environments for their children; and connect to networks of support.
About the position:
The Family Coach will provide targeted services to families with children of various ages both in the office during supervised visitation or community based visits for foster care cases and within the home for families receiving preventive services. Facilitation of groups will also be expected on an as needed basis.
Essential Duties and Responsibilities
Engagement
- Promote early engagement with parents upon intake assignment within the first 30 days.
- Participate in Family Team Conferences not limited to (Transitional, 20 Day, Six Month Service Plan Review, Trial Discharge, Final Discharge)
- Engage, establish and maintain friendly, compassionate, professional working relationships with parents receiving services, family members and support team in a manner that reflects our values and culture.
- Encourage parents to participate in Family Success Interventions (Baby & Me, Visit Coaching, Parenting Journey).
- Review Parent Engagement Guide with parents in order to acquaint them with the child welfare process.
- Review Rise Visiting Tip Sheets with parents in order to provide hope and reassurance that they can have meaningful family team with their children while in foster care.
Coaching
- Coach parents to develop skills that will allow them to independently develop problem solving skills while discovering their strengths, hopes, dreams as well as their priorities.
- Appropriately assess the needs of the parents in order to create measureable goals while determining what barriers could impact the desired outcomes.
- Facilitate bi-weekly support groups utilizing Network and Parent Café Model.
- Recognize and celebrate parents whenever they make simple or significant progress towards reunification.
- Escort parents to scheduled court appearances for support.
Collective Approach
- Collaborate and maintain effective communication with team members, case planners as well as other stake holders to ensure that the overall needs of the parents are met.
- Participate in routine case consultation with case planning teams in order to assure the parents are following through with their required service plan while demonstrating behavior change.
- Participate in joint home visits with case planners as needed to provide the required support to fathers.
- Partner with parents during weekly family time at the office or in the home in an effort to enhance the bond between parent and child.
- Assists parents in establishing structure during visits and meeting the needs of their children by utilizing hands on teaching and modeling.
- Ensure that the provision of services is informed by principles outlined in the Visit Coaching, Baby & Me, Parenting Journey, Appreciative Inquiry and Solutions Based Casework.
Data/Documentation
- Maintain and manage documentation of interactions with parents within the database
- Submit monthly tracker to supervisor regarding contacts made with parents in a timely manner.
- Provide progress report to case planners, courts or other interested parties as needed.
- Monitors program participation through noting and tracking ongoing contact with parents.
Professional Development
- Contribute agenda items and partake in weekly supervision with assigned supervisor.
- Attend and actively participate in skill development training to improve the manner in which we approach the work, keep current with structural changes within the agency/child welfare.
- Participate in funders site visit meetings as needed to highlight the challenges as well as the positive outcomes within Family Success Initiative.
Qualifications
- Bachelor’s degree in a related field (Social Work, Education, Psychology, etc.) from an accredited college with at least 1 year experience working with children and families.
OR
- Associate's Degree + 2 years relevant work experience with children and families
OR
- A minimum of 4 years of relevant work experience with children and families and High School Diploma or GED
- Great organizational and communication skills
- Possess strong writing skills
- Energetic, self-directed and goals-focused approach to the work with children and families
- Must possess the ability to travel across the NYC area
- Candidate must be flexible as evenings hours may be required
- Bilingual English/Spanish a plus
- Experience as a parent or primary caregiver who has navigated multiple child serving systems on behalf of their child(ren).
RELATIONSHIP WITH OTHERS
In addition, employee needs to possess the following characteristics:
- Mission focused on helping children and families have the opportunity and preparation to succeed in life.
- Have a strong sensitivity to cultural differences present among staff and clients within our organization.
- Possess a strong belief in people’s ability to grow and change; forge a mutually respectful partnership with persons served and their families.
- Ability to set limits and maintain helping role of practitioner and to intervene appropriately
Part Time (18 hours per week) ; salary commensurate with experience.