Title: Service Coordination and Navigation (SCaN) Navigator
FLSA Status: Salary, Exempt
Salary: $47,000/year
Reports To: Assistant Director of Outreach & Prevention
Navigator, Full-Time
Service Coordination and Navigation (SCaN)
Ignite stands with youth on their journey to a home and a future with promise. We are a leading non-profit, human services organization dedicated to breaking the cycle of poverty for youth, ages 10-26. While Ignite has a long-standing history that dates back to 1976, we continue to create new ways to serve our community. Today, we have more than 63 full-time and part-time staff as well as over 100 volunteers who contribute to our mission.
Through housing, education, employment, career planning, financial empowerment, mental health support, and community connection, we enroll more than 800 youth per year, on the path to reaching their full potential. Following their time with Ignite, many of our youth achieve financial stability and move into their own long-term home. Ignite intends to be the last program our youth will ever need, but the family and place they can always call home. As a 2025 Chicago Innovation Award winner, Ignite is leading the way in creating new housing and service models that help youth put homelessness behind them for good. At Ignite, we envision a world where all young people have the support they need to be defined by their potential, not their circumstances.
Functions: The Service Coordination and Navigation (SCaN) team provides community-based case management services to youth 14-24 years old who are at the highest risk of exposure to violence in the Woodlawn, Washington Park, and Grand Boulevard communities. Our team aims to reduce youth involvement in violence and improve youth well-being by providing trauma informed case management services that assist in building stability and a network of community support to help guide youth towards a successful transition to adulthood and self-sufficiency. SCaN participants receive engagement and support through street outreach, community engagement, and resources available through our Drop-in Resource Center (DiRC).
Navigators serve as the primary case manager for enrolled youth and provide robust coordinated care and intervention that is youth-driven, community-based, and builds on relationships with youth to determine needs, establish goals, and help youth find stability. The Navigator position reports directly to the SCaN Program Manager.
Duties: The following duties are the essential functions of this position.
Work Hours:
? Monday - Friday 10a ? 6p / Hours vary on program needs
? Weekend and evening hours may be required.
Service Planning and Coordination
? Determines eligibility, conducts outreach, and provides intake and assessment services with youth referred to SCaN program.
? Provides trauma-informed case management services, develop a service plan and goals that assess areas of strength and needs to help youth gain stability. This may include: basic life skills, housing needs, education, employment, physical and mental well-being, and making referrals as needed.
? Connect youth with relevant services to support youth?s goals and immediate needs determined in service plans.
? Identify and engage the youth?s network of supportive and caring adults, and help build the network as needed.
? Schedule and facilitate regular support check-ins with youth and service providers to assess progress and troubleshoot challenges.
? Provide continual support and address any barriers youth may face as they access and complete the services they are connected to.
? Assess youth?s progress and adjust case plans as needed.
? Coordinates with clients to ensure attendance at and participation in appointments, meetings, and activities.
? Distributes CTA passes to youth, (under the terms of the youth?s service plan), when transportation is needed for employment, housing, or other critical appointments.
? Documents all cases and service plans clearly and thoroughly in required databases and paper files in a timely manner.
? Create transition plans for youth as they complete goals and prepare to exit the SCaN program (e.g., identifying a supportive network beyond the Navigator, listing out steps to complete additional goals, outlining what their future engagement with the delegate agency will entail, etc.)
? Oversees, and works in collaboration with, volunteers and interns in the community space and assigns tasks as appropriate.
Street Outreach and Community Engagement
? Receive and respond to internal or external referrals through the SCaN program within 7-10 business days of referral.
? Recruit youth through community outreach and engagement with referral partners, such as: law enforcement, schools, street outreach, and community partners.
? Conduct outreach to referred youth and parent/guardian (if applicable) to discuss the SCaN program?s purpose and expectations, verify youth eligibility for the program, receive parent/guardian consent as needed, and enroll youth (e.g., phone call, virtual meeting, home visit, school visit, meeting with the youth and referral partner, etc.)
? Build a trusting and supportive relationship with youth through relentless engagement by consistently contacting youth to offer support and connecting with youth?s existing network of family, friends, and other individuals involved in the youth?s life
? Drives the agency Outreach van to conduct street outreach and community engagement activities at the direction of the SCaN Program Manager.
? Provides appropriate youth engagement and intervention in all settings, (e.g., street, schools, partner agencies, etc.).
? During street outreach, dresses in a neat, clean and well-groomed manner in order to model positive life skills for youth participants.
? During community engagement events, dress in a professional manner that is neat, clean and well-groomed in order to model the professionalism of Ignite as an agency.
? Arranges for street outreach clients to access laundry and showers resources offered by Ignite, and arranges for staff supervision of the youth while they utilize the services.
? Conducts presentations for community partners, outlining the services provided by Ignite.
General
? Has a valid driver?s license, a clean driving record and is willing and able to drive the agency vehicle when requested ? Following background check, MUST be insurable under the agency?s insurance coverage, otherwise disciplinary action up to and including termination will occur.
? Works as a part of a team to provide support and assistance whenever needed.
? Prepares and submits all required forms and statistical programs. Maintain documents regarding participants? cooperation, daily activities and other records in compliance with agency and external policies, procedures and applicable licensing standards in a timely manner.
? Participates in program planning and evaluation.
? Participates in ongoing training.
? Participates in and contributes to regularly scheduled supervisory and team meetings.
? May supervise volunteer and/or intern tasks, as assigned.
? Participates in on-call rotation.
? Performs other duties as assigned.
