Family Services Specialist - Henrico, United States - Thrive Virginia

Description

Summary:

The Family Support Specialist (FSS) is responsible for initiating and maintaining regular and long-term (up to 3-5 years) contact and support with families.

Our Healthy Families program services are provided free of charge to families living in Charles City County and New Kent County.

This activity will occur primarily within the family's home, providing family-centered, strength-based interventions to establish a trusting relationship, strengthening the parent-child relationship, promoting healthy childhood growth and development, and enhancing family well-being by reducing risk and building protective factors.

The FSS partners with families and honors diverse family structures and parenting practices. The FSS will also assist the family in establishing goals and supporting them throughout this process. This work is performed under the limited supervision of the Program Manager. This is a full-time, benefit-eligible, 40-hours-per-week, nonexempt position (FTE 1).


Primary Duties and Responsibilities:

• Provides onetoone mentoring, coaching, and goal setting.
• Serves as a resource for customers to learn about housing, budgeting, career and education, childcare, health care, employment, and more.
• Provides occasional transportation and assists the customer with accessing transportation resources.
• Documents detailed customer interactions for reporting.
• Administers screening tools such as the ASQ, ASQ-SE, Depression Screens, etc.
• Identifies and refers families for supportive services such as health care services.
• Implements activities outlined in a Family Service Plan to address areas of concern identified on the FROG scale.
• Provides public outreach and education to communitybased organizations and participates in outreach events throughout the Thrive Virginia service area.
• Establishes and maintains relationships with community partners in the service area.
• Advocates for customers with various community partners, such as the Department of Social Services and mental health providers.
• Assists with reports and other types of correspondence.
• Prepares and maintains files and records utilizing Microsoft Office Suite, which includes Word, Excel, Outlook, etc.
• Participates in Whole Family Approach training and ongoing best practice training.
• Facilitates parenting workshops and training.
• Serves on boards and committees as required.
• Manages assigned caseload.
• Maintains files and records, prepares reports, and performs related work as apparent or assigned.

Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities:

• Excellent knowledge of case management and crisis intervention services.
• Ability to serve culturally diverse communities and families.
• Ability to establish trusting relationships.
• Acceptance of individual differences.
• Knowledge of and sensitivity to the unique challenges faced by families at risk for child abuse and or neglect.
• Knowledge of infant and childhood development.
• Willingness to build reflective capacity (e.g., capacity for introspection, communicating awareness of self to others, recognizing the value of supervision, etc.)

Education and Experience Requirements:

• A bachelor's degree is preferred, with coursework in psychology, social work, human services, or a related field.
• Experience in working with or providing services to children and their families.
• Experience and established humility to work with culturally diverse families.

Physical Requirements:

• Prolonged periods of sitting at a desk and working on a computer.
• Must be able to lift up to 15 pounds at times.

This work is sedentary and requires little to no exertion of force; work regularly requires sitting, frequently requires speaking or hearing and using hands to finger, handle, or feel, and occasionally requires standing and walking; work has standard vision requirements; vocal communication is required for expressing or exchanging ideas by means of the spoken word; hearing is required to understand words spoken at a normal volume; work requires preparing and analyzing written or computer data; work has no exposure to environmental conditions; work is generally in a moderately noisy location (e.g. business office, light traffic).


Additional Eligibility Requirements:

• Successful background check
• Ability to travel locally and statewide
• Ability to maintain a flexible schedule, including night and weekend hours

Directors must approve all employees who operate either an agency-owned vehicle, a rented vehicle, or a personal vehicle on behalf of Thrive Virginia.

The driver selection process includes the review of:

• The employee driver's license for currency and validity,

- any license restrictions that might render the employee or volunteer ineligible as a driver,

• The individual's motor vehicle record (MVR), and
• Proof of adequate personal automobile insurance

Thrive Virginia is an Equal Opportunity Employer and is a drug-free, smoke-free workplace. People traditi