Family Support Worker - Dover, United States - Partnership for Maternal & Child Health of Northern New Jersey

Description

JOB SUMMARY: The Family Support Worker (FSW) is responsible for establishing and maintaining a regular and long-term relationship with the families enrolled in the Healthy Families/TANF Initiative for Parents Morris Program. The FSW conducts home visitation services from pregnancy through the child's third year.

ESSENTIAL DUTIES:

• Outreach families referred through Connecting NJ or a Service Provider.
• Conduct family-centered and strength-based Home Visits based on the assigned enrolled family's level of service; each home visit should last one hour;
• Conduct the FROG Scale (parent survey tool) with parents to identify strengths/risk factors to support the family throughout home visitation services.
• Conduct weekly outreach efforts to engage hard-to-reach clients
• Document, in FamSys, weekly home visits, assessment tools, and required forms, in a timely manner;
• Utilize Parents As Teachers curriculum to help improve parent-child interaction;
• Establish a trusting relationship;
• Assist in strengthening the parent-child relationship;
• Assist parents in improving their skills to optimize the home environment;
• Assist in increasing the family support system and increase the family's ability to problem solve and assume the role of advocating for themselves and their children;
• Responsible for assisting the family in establishing goals and a plan for the accomplishment of those goals. The assessment of the normal growth and development of the target child;
• Identify and refer to other supportive agencies, including healthcare appointments;
• Assist with organizing and facilitating parent workshops;
• Provide advocacy at appointments, as needed;
• Monitor current health and developmental trends in order to better assist families;
• Maintain own functioning vehicle in good working condition at all times;
• Maintain manual and computerized client files in a confidential manner;
• Handles other assignments as requested.
• Knowledge of normal child growth/development and parent-child relationships.
• Experience in working with community agencies, including implementing referral processes.
• Ability to relate to families from a strength-based model even in an apparently chaotic family environment; ability to approach families from a family-centered service model.
• Demonstrates motivation and ability to learn and practice basic supportive skills.
• Flexible availability for home visits
• Flexible availability for community outreach/tabling events
• Non-judgmental
• Enjoys and functions appropriately with long-term, ongoing projects; doesn't need immediate feedback or results for personal validation.
• Ability to establish and maintain personal/programmatic boundaries, while providing supportive services.
• Strong interpersonal skills and the ability to relate to individuals who may not share basic commonalities, including value system and behavior norms.
• Believes in and is comfortable with advocating for nurturing, nonviolent discipline of children.
• Experience in working with culturally diverse communities/families and the ability to be culturally sensitive and appropriate.
• Demonstrates strong writing, effective communication and organizational skills
• Enters and maintains data entry of client information into database(s).
• Open to reflective practice (i.e. has capacity for introspection, communicates awareness of self in relation to others, recognizes value of supervision, etc.)
• Ability to travel throughout New Jersey to attend required core trainings, curricula training and ongoing trainings required by the model and/or agency.
• Infant mental health endorsement level I or II preferred.

JOB REQUIREMENTS:

• Minimum of a High School Diploma or GED equivalent with two years of experience in working with children (0-3 years of age) and families or Bachelor's Degree or higher
• Bi-lingual required: English and Spanish/other
• Computer literacy required.

All PMCH employees must comply with the guidelines of PMCH's Immunization Policy.