Careers

OVERVIEW: 

The purpose of this position is to provide active, hands-on peer support to parents/caregivers referred to the program. Effective peer support should be friendly, helpful, accessible, and flexible. Peer support may be delivered in family homes, in community environments, or at the agency. The role of the Parent Partner is also to provide coaching, mentoring, training and education, and may also include providing referrals to community-based resources.
 

DIRECT REPORTS: 

• None

QUALIFICATIONS:

        Required

1. Must be the biological, adoptive, kin parent or non-related family member of a youth with emotional or behavioral challenges or has had systems experience with their child in a child-serving system (i.e. mental health, child welfare, probation, and special education).
2. Must have direct experiences with child-serving systems (i.e. mental health, child welfare, probation, and special education).
3. Must have life experience as the parent of a youth with emotional or behavioral challenges.
4. Demonstrates an ability to maintain a non-judgmental attitude towards families.
5. Ability to work flexible hours and participate with the on-call system.

Preferred

1. Associate Degree
2. Completed coursework equivalent to a Bachelor’s degree and at least two (2) years’ experience.
3. AOD Certification

RESPONSIBILITIES INCLUDE (but not limited to):

1. Engagement Phase Core Skills

1. Connect with the family, utilizing engagement skills and portraying a non-judgmental attitude to build trust and in collaboration with the Care Coordinator. 
2. Explain the role of the Parent Partner in supporting the family in team meetings and otherwise to have voice, choice and ownership.
3. Encourage the family to share their own story including their culture, beliefs, and situation.
4. Consider the family’s story to identify child and family strengths.
5. Effectively share your own story, as needed,  in a way which builds connection, confidence, and hope for the family relevant to the family’s culture, beliefs and situation.
6. Participate collaboratively in the assessment of risk and safety, while continuing to engage the family.
7. Explore the parent’s situation regarding the need for rest, relief, and safety and work collaboratively with the care coordinator to develop and support stabilization.

4.Planning Phase Core Skills

1. Explain the parent’s perspective, culture, and beliefs in a way that increases understanding by others while decreasing differences and highlighting similarities.  
2. Check with Care Coordinator and Social Worker, if necessary to ensure they understand the parent’s perspective and reassure others that having differences is acceptable.
3. Assist the Care Coordinator in facilitating the Wraparound process, including the discussion of strengths, skills and abilities, which are identified before the planning process. Additional strengths may be identified during the meeting.
4. Assess the level of support that is needed by the parent based on the families support network, their ability to involve their support network, and the ability of the parent to be heard by others.
5. Meet with the family regularly and consistently in order to encourage and support an understanding of their vision for the future.
6. Work with the parent to develop plans/strategies of how the Parent Partner can support the parent during meetings to ensure the parent’s culture, beliefs, experience, voice and choice are heard by the team and are incorporated into the Family Care Plan.
7.  Share information with other wraparound team members about the parent’s perspective, culture, and beliefs including how the parent experiences being heard by the team.
8. Participate with the Care Coordinator and the family in planning and developing a family team meeting agenda that includes timelines.
9. Assist the team in recognizing and acknowledging the family’s lived experience, culture, and beliefs to build agreement for a common team vision statement or of goals that will be addressed.
10. Assist the team to reach agreement about goals and underlying unmet needs that may be driving the situation in the family.  Clarify unmet needs versus service provision.  Assist in prioritizing foals/needs.
11. Actively participate as needed, by speaking up and through actions, to support the family’s perspective during the family team meeting, and for them to have voice themselves.
12. Participate with the team in brainstorming a wide range of interventions or connections to resources, reminding team members of potential family strengths that will match interventions/connections with resources..
13. Volunteer for tasks if the Parent Partner’s strengths match the intervention or can support the resourcing processes, and encourage all team members to do the same.  Document in progress notes.
14. Actively participate with the family and other team members in the development of the initial Family Care Plan.
15. Assist the team in making sure that the family’s culture, beliefs, voice and choice is reflected in the Family Care Plan.

1. Implementation Phase Core Skills

1. Provide individualized, peer to peer support to parents.
2. Attend and participate in all Family Team meetings.
3. Develop plans/strategies with family to ensure their concerns are heard and understood.
4. Communicate on a regular basis with families, according to their identified needs.
5. Support, respond, and/or implement proactive responses to families in crisis, both during and after business hours as designated in the safety/crisis plan.
6. Connect the family with identified community resources.  Assist in introducing and engaging the family with the community resource, ensuring they can access the service after transition.
7. Provide direct interventions as specified in the Family Care Plan.
8. Maintain direct communication with the parent between team meetings on the effectiveness of the interventions.
9. Develop communication strategies with the family to ensure their perspective is being heard.
10. Communicate information about the effectiveness of the interventions/process related to the Family Care Plan with the Care Coordinator for inclusion on team meeting agendas.
11. Work with parents and other team members to continue to identify unmet needs that the team has agreed to address.
12. Recognize, celebrate and document team strengths and successes collaboratively with the team.
13. Participate on a rotating basis of the 24 hour crises intervention calls, and with the Immediate Response or Joint Response team.

1. Transition Phase Core Skills

1. Discuss the transition planning phase with the family related to their culture and beliefs, their mission statement and their identified needs.
2. Practice implementation and rehearse crisis responses with the family as identified in the Family Care Plan.
3. Continue to assist the family in accessing needed resources/supports utilizing the family’s culture and beliefs and each team member’s individual strengths ensuring that the family is engaged with new resources.
4. Assist the Care Coordinator in preparing the transition phase of the Wraparound process by ensuring the family’s culture; beliefs, voice and choice are evident in the process.
5. Celebrate the family accomplishments that highlight their progress, always considering the family’s culture.

1. Other duties as assigned

ESSENTIAL DUTIES:

To perform this job successfully, an individual must be able to perform each essential duty satisfactorily.  The physical demands described here are representative of those that must be met by an employee to successfully perform the essential functions of this job.   The requirements listed below are representative of the knowledge, skill, and/or ability required.  Reasonable accommodations may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform essential job functions.

1. Ability to read and interpret documents and procedure manuals.  Ability to write routine reports and correspondence
2. Ability to speak effectively before groups of students or employees of organization
3. Ability to apply common sense understanding to carry out instructions furnished in written, oral, or diagram form. 
4. Ability to deal with problems involving several concrete variables in standardized situations
5. Ability to identify negative disruptive behaviors and redirect behavior using mediation techniques
6. While performing the duties of this job, the employee is occasionally required to stand; walk; sit; use hands to handle, or feel objects, tools or controls; reach with hands and arms; climb stairs; balance; stoop; kneel, crouch or crawl; talk or hear; taste or smell. 
7. The employee must occasionally lift and/or move up to 50 pounds.
8. The employee may be required to make and/or receive physical contact in the process of delivering First Aid/CPR or Handle with Care, or in training to those methods. 
9. Specific vision abilities required by the job include close vision, distance vision, color vision, peripheral vision, depth perception, and the ability to adjust focus.
10. Ability to get CPR and First Aid certificate within 30 days of start date, and maintain a current certificate
11. Must clear a Department of Justice (DOJ) and Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) background check including fingerprinting before start date and maintain clearance
12. Must clear a health screening, including TB before start date and maintain clearance
13. Must be at least 21 years of age and able to work in a Community Care Licensed Facility
14. Must be able to drive, have a valid driver’s license, clean driving record and maintain a clean driving record.
15. Meet and maintain the minimum vehicle liability and property insurance limits (in order to be insured by our insurance carrier for transportation of residents)