Bilingual Family Advocate

At The New York Foundling, we trust in the power and potential of people, and we deliberately invest in proven practices. From bold beginnings in 1869, our New York-based nonprofit has supported hundreds of thousands of our neighbors on their own paths to stability, strength, and independence. We help children and families navigate through and beyond foster care. We help families struggling with conflict and poverty grow strong. We help individuals with developmental disabilities live their best lives, and we help our neighbors access quality health and mental health services core to building lifelong resilience and wellbeing. Together, our interrelated programs provide a whole-person, whole-family, and whole-life approach that unlocks solutions for a lifetime.

The Family Advocate is a technical position of a peer who is able to support the program, families, clients, and youth in helping link families to access the best fitting services and supports, and has knowledge base about resources in the community and across child service systems.

Position Description: 

• Reports to the clinical supervisor
• The Family Advocate is a technical position of a peer who is able to support the program, families, clients, and youth in helping link families to access the best fitting services and supports, and has knowledge base about resources in the community and across child service systems.
• Splits time between office and identified schools 
• Research, organize, maintain, and disseminate community resource information to clinician in ongoing fashion on clients’ communities.
• Research, add information, and facilitate trainings and workshops for school staff, families, and youth along with the Clinician
• Works directly with clinician(s) as well as with school staff, managers, internal and with some interactions with clients as directed by supervisor or clinician.
• Able to run groups and workshop with proper training.
• Assists in a case-by-case basis; researching and allocating resources to support school and the clinicians as directed by supervisor.
• Maintains current data base of community resources. Maintains up to date knowledge of resources in New York City.  
• Attends trainings, supervision, and staff development activities. Attends weekly supervision as assigned by the supervisor.
• Reports to the office as identified by the supervisor during school holidays that are not observed by the agency.
• Maintains communication with direct supervisor and clinician.
• Participates in community outreach.
• Maintains effective working relationships and collaborative efforts with community resources, such as school staff, internal staff, and external agency staff.
• With Ability to maintain confidential client records and timely data entry
• Flexible with participating in on-call rotation.
• Other duties as assigned.

The New York Foundling is committed to attracting and retaining a diverse employee population, the Foundling will honor your experiences, perspectives and unique identity. Together, our community strives to create and maintain working and learning environments that are inclusive, equitable and welcoming.

 Requirements

• Bilingual (English/Spanish)
• Bachelors’ Degree of Social Work, Sociology, Psychology, or the equivalent in a related field

Preferred Experience:
 

• Minimum of 1-2 years experience
• Knowledge of community required.
• Excellent communication skills required.
• Be proficient in Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Internet, Email, and Data entry systems (e.g. Connections).
• Ability to work cooperatively to ensure the best quality services are recommended
• Will be able to build and collaborate with community resource stakeholders
• An understanding and commitment to complying with the New York State Central Register of Abuse and Neglect protocol (requiring staff to comply with promulgated requirements to report any suspected abuse, maltreatment or neglect of any child).

Preferred Knowledge:

• Technical assistance
• Family systems theory and application
• Social ecological theory and application
• Behavioral therapies theory and application
• Cognitive-behavioral therapy theory and application
• Pragmatic family therapies theory and application
• Child development research and it’s application in treatment
• Social skills assessment and intervention

• Demonstrated strong commitment to safety.