Family Advocate

Make a bigger difference

Purpose:

Youth Assertive Community Treatment (ACT) services are focused on improving or ameliorating the significant functional impairments and sever symptomatology experienced by youth due to mental illness or serious emotional disturbance.  Clinical and rehabilitative interventions are also focused on enhancing family functioning to foster health/wellbeing, stability and re-integration for youth who are returning home after residential treatment or in-patient hospitalization.  The Youth ACT Team is a multi-disciplinary team and works together to provide family-driven, youth-guided and developmentally appropriate services to comprehensively address the needs of youth within the family, school, medical, behavioral, psychosocial and community domains. 

Position Overview: 

The Youth ACT Family Peer Advocate works as part of a multi-disciplinary team to provide treatment and support services to families and children, ages 10 to 21, who have significant behavioral health needs and who are at risk of entering, or returning home from high end services, such as inpatient settings or residential services.  The role involves providing highly-individualized services focused on clinical treatment, family psychoeducation and skills development.  The Family Peer Advocate provides services to youth and families in their homes and communities and collaborates closely with other service providers and systems with which the family interacts.  The role will require some evening availability and rotating on-call coverage. 

KEY RESPONSIBILITY INCLUDES:

• Provide advocacy with providers across the child serving system to raise awareness, reduce stigma, engage families in and coordinate services.
• Educate about self-help techniques and self-help group processes.
• Provide psychoeducation to family members, caregivers or social supports
• Providing individual or group parent skill development related to the behavioral health needs of the child/youth
• Teach effective coping strategies based on personal experience and assist in the development of community support systems and networks
• Support families, parents/caregivers in developing skills to effectively manage their child/youth behaviors and navigate the multiple systems involved
• Work to identify formal services and informal resources for families that are culturally affirming who are experiencing social-emotional, behavioral, or mental health challenges.
• Assist families with identifying the challenges they face, their strengths and areas of improvement/goals
• Monitor and document family progress to track progress in accordance with agency and regulatory bodies policies.
• Collaborate with care providers and community supports to help families track their progress towards meeting their goals.
• Participate in multi-disciplinary team meetings, staff meetings, trainings, and supervision.
• Maintain all documentation according to the standards and time frames established by the Jewish Board,  regulatory agencies and/or funding sources
• Maintain professional behaviors and ethical standards as established by licensing board, relevant professional association and the Jewish Board policies and procedures.
• Using an electronic database, document demographic data on all individuals seen, document and track family’s goals, and all services provided to parent/caregiver; participates in quality improvement activities.
• Perform these services in the family’s home, youth’s home, community, office
• Any additional duties assigned.

ADDITIONAL FUNCTIONS MAY INCLUDE (List additional functions needed to reach goals):

Since this is an evolving program, other tasks and duties may be assigned

EDUCATIONAL & TRAINING REQUIREMENTS:

• High School Diploma or  Equivalency
• Specialty credentialing in advocacy – can be obtained during probationary period
• Lived experience in parenting a child or adolescent with a serious emotional disturbance and/or lived experience of mental health challenges.
• Ability to work with diverse social, cultural, economic groups
• Background in advocating mental health and/or in the educational system
• Bilingual in Spanish/English a plus

     CORE COMPETENCIES for the position include:

• Excellent engagement skills
• Strong verbal and written communication skills
• Attention to detail
• Ability to work independently as well as with a team   

COMPUTER SKILLS REQUIRED:

Prior experience with electronic health records and Microsoft Office

VISUAL AND MANUAL DEXTERITY:

The candidate is able to read paper and electronic documents and perform significant data entry into various computer programs.  Manual dexterity and hand-eye coordination to travel independently using public transportation.

WORK ENVIRONMENT / PHYSICAL EFFORT:

• The majority of services are provided in the community, with less time spent in office-based work.
• While the offices of the Jewish Board are accessible in accordance with the ADA, the sites to which staff may need to travel may or may not be accessible
• To perform the essential functions of this job the candidate must be able to travel within New York City carrying equipment such as a notebook, forms, laptop, mobile hotspot and cell phone weighing up to approximately 10 pounds
• To perform the essential functions of this job, the candidate is routinely required to sit (60% of the time) and stand (20% of the time), and travel to and from appointments using public or private transportation options (20% of the time)

• Frequent travel throughout the assigned borough (Bronx or Queens); infrequent travel throughout NYC

EXPERIENCE REQUIRED / LANGUAGE PREFERENCE (List what the desire to reach goals):

Bilingual in Spanish preferred

• Bilingual Spanish/English Preferred

We respect diversity and accordingly are an equal opportunity employer that does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, creed, religion, national origin, alienage, citizenship status, age, disability, sex, gender, gender identity or expression (including transgender status), sexual orientation, marital status, partnership status, veteran status, genetic information, or any other status protected by applicable federal, state, or local law.

This applies with respect to recruiting, hiring, placement, promotion, transfer, training, compensation, termination, assignments, benefits, employee activities, access to facilities and programs, and all other terms and condition of employment as well as general treatment during employment.

 We will endeavor to make a reasonable accommodation to the known physical or mental limitations of qualified employees with disabilities, without regard to any protected classifications, unless the accommodation would impose an undue hardship on the operation of our business. Any employees who need assistance to perform their job duties because of a physical or mental condition should contact human resources.