Youth Skills & Community Provider — Athletic, Outdoor & Relationship-Based Support
Seeds to Shade is seeking a grounded, confident, physically active, and highly dependable individual to provide community-based support to youth and families.
This is not a passive supervision or traditional office-based role. Providers build meaningful relationships with youth through real-world experiences, physical activity, outdoor recreation, life-skills development, structured conversation, community engagement, and consistent mentorship.
Our providers are expected to do more than spend time with youth. They must intentionally plan sessions, model healthy behavior, maintain professional boundaries, communicate effectively with families and the Seeds to Shade team, complete accurate documentation, and remain calm and adaptable when plans or behaviors change.
Current Youth Match
The immediate opening is intended to support a teenage female youth who would benefit from a confident, outgoing, physically active provider.
She is quiet, naturally athletic, and physically gifted, although she is not currently involved in organized sports. She would benefit from someone who can help her build trust, confidence, independence, healthy routines, and stronger engagement in school, home responsibilities, athletics, outdoor recreation, and the community.
The right provider will be able to:
- Build trust patiently without becoming passive or overly cautious
- Bring positive, confident, and outgoing energy
- Engage her in sports, exercise, outdoor recreation, and new experiences
- Maintain clear and healthy boundaries
- Support accountability without shame or unnecessary confrontation
- Recognize that quiet behavior does not mean a lack of ability or potential
- Help her develop confidence, independence, and a stronger sense of identity
- Remain consistent even when progress is gradual
Experience working with trauma, attachment challenges, adolescents, athletics, mentoring, coaching, education, behavioral health, or youth development may be helpful. However, job titles and credentials alone do not determine whether someone will be a strong fit.
What Sessions May Include
Sessions are individualized around the youth’s goals, interests, needs, and treatment plan. Activities may include:
- Strength training and general fitness
- Sports and athletic skill development
- Hiking, fishing, outdoor recreation, and nature-based activities
- Community outings
- Cooking and nutrition
- Life-skills development
- Volunteer opportunities
- Employment and career exploration
- School organization and accountability
- Confidence-building activities
- Structured conversations
- Emotional-regulation and coping-skill development
- Healthy relationship and communication skills
Providers are expected to actively participate rather than simply observe from the sidelines.
Service Area & Home Office
Seeds to Shade provides community-based services throughout Central Wisconsin. Providers work directly in the communities where youth and families live rather than reporting to a single office each day. Our current service areas include Clark, Wood, Portage, Marathon, and Waupaca Counties, with continued expansion planned throughout Central Wisconsin. While our permanent administrative office is still being established, it is expected to be located somewhere within the Marshfield–Wisconsin Rapids–Stevens Point corridor. Until then, most provider responsibilities begin and end within the communities they serve, with occasional meetings, trainings, and team events held at various locations throughout the region.
Compensation and Caseload Development
Providers begin at $25 per hour.
Seeds to Shade is developing a structured two-year provider-growth pathway designed to allow successful providers to progress toward $35 per hour. Advancement is based on demonstrated performance, including:
- Reliability and attendance
- Documentation quality and timeliness
- Communication
- Professional boundaries
- Responsiveness to feedback
- Successful training completion
- Youth and family engagement
- Ability to manage increased responsibility
- Consistent contribution to the Seeds to Shade team
The progression pathway will be explained fully during the applicant workshop. It should not be interpreted as an automatic raise based only on length of employment. Providers must consistently meet the expectations and developmental benchmarks of the role.
Mileage and Session Expenses
- Approved work-related mileage is reimbursed at $0.76 per mile
- Approved food expenses used during sessions are reimbursed
- Fast food is not permitted as a routine session expense
- Seeds to Shade provides most materials and supplies needed to facilitate sessions
- Additional approved activity or session expenses may be reimbursed according to company policy
Gradual Caseload Development
Providers are not immediately assigned a full caseload.
Caseloads are built gradually based on:
- Training completion
- Readiness
- Provider-family fit
- Availability of appropriate referrals
- Documentation performance
- Reliability
- Communication
- Demonstrated ability to manage the work sustainably
Applicants should understand that this is not an immediate full-time-income opportunity. The hiring process is intentionally thorough, and the caseload-development process is gradual. Applicants should not enter the process expecting immediate full-time hours or immediate maximum earnings.
What Makes Seeds to Shade Different
Seeds to Shade is building a provider-development model centered on meaningful training, clinical support, accountability, wellness, teamwork, and long-term professional growth.
Providers are not expected to figure everything out alone.
Our developing support structure includes:
- Structured onboarding and training
- Clinical supervision
- Individual support and feedback
- Team collaboration
- Documentation training
- Session-planning support
- Provider-development opportunities
- Gradual increases in responsibility
- Long-term leadership and advancement opportunities for strong performers
We are attempting to build sustainable careers for excellent providers while providing youth and families with the consistency they deserve.
Core Responsibilities
- Develop and maintain a safe, professional relationship with assigned youth
- Plan intentional sessions connected to the youth’s goals
- Participate actively in physical, recreational, community, and life-skills activities
- Maintain consistent attendance and punctuality
- Communicate professionally with families, supervisors, and team members
- Complete accurate and timely service documentation
- Adapt appropriately when a youth refuses, shuts down, becomes frustrated, or requires a change of plan
- Maintain appropriate professional boundaries
- Transport youth safely when required
- Track and submit mileage and approved expenses accurately
- Participate in training, supervision, meetings, and ongoing professional development
- Receive feedback and make observable corrections
- Represent Seeds to Shade professionally in homes, schools, businesses, and community settings
Characteristics of a Strong Candidate
A strong candidate is likely to be:
- Consistent
- Emotionally steady
- Confident without being controlling
- Physically active
- Comfortable outdoors
- Patient
- Outgoing and engaging
- Organized
- Adaptable
- Honest
- Accountable
- Comfortable receiving direct feedback
- Able to build trust gradually
- Able to maintain boundaries
- Interested in meaningful long-term work with youth
We are not looking for someone who believes they can “save” or “fix” a young person. We are looking for someone who can consistently show up, build trust, create meaningful experiences, support accountability, and remain steady through both progress and setbacks.
Minimum Requirements
- Valid driver’s license
- High School Diploma/GED
- Reliable transportation
- Current automobile insurance
- Ability to safely transport youth when required
- Ability to pass all required caregiver and criminal background checks
- Ability to complete required training and credentialing
- Ability to communicate reliably by phone, text, and email
- Ability to complete electronic documentation
- Ability to participate in active and community-based sessions
- Willingness to receive supervision, feedback, and correction
- Professional reliability and emotional maturity
Relevant experience may include:
- Youth mentoring
- Coaching
- Athletics
- Outdoor leadership
- Education
- Behavioral health
- Mental-health support
- Human services
- Community-based support
- Family support
- Life-skills development
- Direct support
- Recreation
- Volunteer leadership
- Personal experience overcoming adversity and building a stable life
Why is our hiring process so thorough?
Providers are invited into the lives of children and families during some of their most important and vulnerable moments. The right provider can help a young person build confidence, develop healthy relationships, discover new strengths, and change the trajectory of their future. The wrong provider can unintentionally damage trust, create inconsistency, or reinforce the very struggles a youth is trying to overcome. Because of that responsibility, we believe earning the opportunity to work with youth should require more than a résumé and a single interview.
Hiring Process
The Seeds to Shade hiring process is intentionally longer and more thorough than a traditional interview process. This is because providers work independently with youth and families, form significant relationships, and represent the organization throughout the community.
The anticipated process is:
1. Application Period
The Indeed posting will remain open for approximately one to two weeks. Applications will be reviewed after the application period closes.
2. First Written Screening
Applicants who meet the initial requirements will receive a written question through Indeed or email.
A specific completion deadline will be provided. Applicants who do not respond within the stated timeframe will be removed from consideration.
Responses will be reviewed for thoughtfulness, specificity, accountability, self-awareness, and relevance. Approximately the strongest 50% of applicants will continue.
3. Second Written Screening
Remaining applicants will receive a second written question with another clear deadline.
Approximately the strongest quarter of the remaining applicant pool will be invited to the next stage.
4. Seeds to Shade Applicant Workshop
Selected applicants will be invited to an approximately two- to three-hour in-person workshop. Food and refreshments will be provided.
This workshop functions as the first major interview and reality-based introduction to Seeds to Shade.
During the workshop, applicants will learn about:
- The mission and philosophy of Seeds to Shade
- The realities and challenges of the work
- Provider expectations
- Documentation requirements
- Scheduling and communication
- Youth and family relationships
- Professional boundaries
- Training and supervision
- Compensation
- Mileage and expense reimbursement
- Caseload development
- Advancement opportunities
- The complete remaining hiring process
The Seeds to Shade clinical supervisor will also attend to observe, answer appropriate clinical questions, and add clinical insight to any necessary discussions.
Applicants will receive a reflection packet and respond to questions throughout the presentation. At the conclusion, applicants will decide whether they would like to continue in the hiring process.
We do not expect perfection from anyone who joins our team. Every provider—including leadership—is expected to continue learning, accepting feedback, improving their skills, and growing alongside the youth and families we serve. Humility, self-awareness, and a willingness to improve are far more valuable to us than believing you already have all the answers.
5. Additional Evaluation Stages
Applicants who choose to continue may be invited to complete additional stages involving:
- A budget and personal sustainability exercise
- A self-care and burnout-prevention plan
- An individual interview
- Reference checks
- A paid practical or working-day interview
- Final provider-family matching considerations
- Background checks, credentialing, and onboarding
Participation in the process does not guarantee employment.
Important Expectations Before Applying
Please apply only if you are prepared for:
- A multi-stage hiring process
- A gradual caseload-development process
- Direct and honest feedback
- High documentation standards
- Significant personal accountability
- Active and community-based work
- Consistent communication
- Professional boundaries
- Ongoing training and clinical supervision
- Work that can be meaningful, difficult, unpredictable, and deeply relational
This role may be an excellent fit for someone seeking meaningful work, long-term professional growth, and the opportunity to become an exceptional community-based youth provider.
We recognize that every provider we hire has the potential to influence a young person's confidence, relationships, decision-making, and future. That responsibility is something we take very seriously. Every hiring decision is made with the understanding that we are not simply filling a position—we are selecting someone who may become one of the most consistent and influential adults in a young person's life.
It will not be a strong fit for someone seeking immediate full-time hours, passive supervision work, minimal documentation, inconsistent scheduling, or a short-term position.
Pay: $25.00 - $35.00 per hour
Benefits:
- Flexible schedule
- Mileage reimbursement
- Professional development assistance
People with a criminal record are encouraged to apply
Work Location: In person
