Interested Applicants please include a cover letter with your resume
Position: Healthy Families of Benton and Linn Counties Family Support Specialist
FTE: Fulltime – 40 hours/week
Vision: A community that works collaboratively to ensure that all children and families have access to early education, behavioral and mental health services to improve their well-being.
Mission: Old Mill Center for Children and Families (OMCCF) is a community-based, family-oriented center empowering children and families of diverse backgrounds to optimize their potential through specially designed education and therapy programs.
Position Summary: This position is responsible for promoting the healthy development of families by offering intensive home visits to parents of newly born children in Linn and/or Benton Counties to increase access to support services and to enhance parenting skills and positive child development. The Family Support Specialist (FSS) will provide comprehensive case management, family goal setting, and linkages to services, advocacy, and evaluation. Family Support Specialists ensure that all Healthy Families (HF) performance standards are met, and Old Mill Center for Children and Families (OMCCF) agency policies and procedures are followed.
Responsible to: The Healthy Families Home Visitor reports to the Healthy Families Supervisor.
Qualifications
The Family Support Specialist will have a BA/BS degree in child development, early childhood education, or a related field. Related experience working with children and families along with exceptional personal characteristics may substitute for the educational requirement (minimum requirement is a High School Diploma). In such cases, additional trainings and scholastic advancement will be incorporated into the staff development plan. The Family Support Specialist must have the ability to work effectively with low-income families, to display warmth, empathy, and genuineness with others, to use a positive approach in directing and redirecting child behavior, to be able to function effectively in cross-cultural situations and to work cooperatively as a member of a service delivery team.
Additional Qualifications Include:
- An ability to establish trusting relationships
- Acceptance of individual differences
- Experience and cultural humility to work with the culturally diverse populations that are present among families served in Linn & Benton Counties
- Knowledge of infant and child development
- Open to reflective practice. Candidate has the capacity for introspection, communicates awareness of self in relation to others and recognizes value of supervision
- Infant Mental Health endorsement level I or II Preferred
Responsibilities:
- Provides home visitation and family support services to high-risk families, prenatal/newborn through preschool years.
- Develops and implements Family Goal Plans with each family participating in intensive services.
- Provides consistent home visits to assigned families as determined by HF Program Level.
- Administers assessment tools, such as the Ages & Stages Questionnaire (ASQ), Ages & Stages Questionnaire – Social Emotional (ASQ-SE), Cues, Holding, Expression, Empathy, Rhythm and Reciprocity, and Smiles (CHEERS) and Parent-Child survey, to monitor progress of child development and parent-child interaction skills.
- Attends and participates in all staff, supervisory and case management meetings.
- Attends local and statewide Healthy Families trainings as identified by the HF Program Manager.
- Maintains accurate, complete, and confidential records that reflect assessment, services, and outcomes.
- Teaches child development and parenting skills.
- Assists families in accessing needed community resources.
- Works cooperatively with team members, including volunteers and interns.
- Completes a Family Partnership Agreement/Informed Consent for each family on assigned case load.
- Completes all paperwork as required.
- Ensures needed social services are provided to each family on assigned case load, which may include individual problem-solving and/or counseling, referral, long- and short-term goal setting, assistance with follow-up, and advocacy for families.
- Obtains health information for each family and child on assigned case load.
- Attends weekly supervision meetings, ensuring each family is reviewed with appropriate follow-up completed and documented.
- Ensures that all required program training areas are covered over the course of a service year.
- Participates in OMCCF mandatory training, staff meetings, committees (as assigned by HF Program Manager) and fundraising or other events, as appropriate.
Other Related Duties/Responsibilities:
- Maintains a positive job attitude including positive team behavior (e.g. willing to pitch in, problem solving attitude, positive communication style, etc.)
- Maintains and updates criminal background checks (as needed), approved auto nsurance and a good driving record.
- Reports at regular working hours, being punctual and using an appropriate work ethic.
- Demonstrates good phone skills (courteous and positive) when representing OMCCF and Healthy Families’ interests.
- Writes in a clear, concise manner.
- Follows established standards, policies and procedures of OMCCF and Healthy Families.
Job Type: Full-time
Pay: $19.50 - $22.00 per hour
Benefits:
- Dental insurance
- Employee assistance program
- Flexible schedule
- Health insurance
- Mileage reimbursement
- Paid time off
- Professional development assistance
- Vision insurance
Application Question(s):
- Will you please include a cover letter detailing your qualifications and your interest in working at Old Mill Center with your resume?
Education:
Experience:
- infant & child development: 1 year (Preferred)
Work Location: In person
