Family Advocate

PURPOSE: Youth Assertive Community Treatment (ACT) services focuses 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 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 domainsPOSITION OVERVIEW: The Youth ACT Family Advocate works as part of a multi-disciplinary team to provide treatment and support services to families and children ages 10 through 21 who have significant behavioral health needs and who are at risk of entering or returning home from high-end KEY ESSENTIAL FUNCTIONS:Provide advocacy with providers across the child serving system to raise awareness reduce stigma engage families in and coordinate servicesEducate about self-help techniques and self-help group processesProvide psychoeducation to family members caregivers or social supportsProviding individual or group parent skill development related to the behavioral health needs of the child/youthTeach effective coping strategies based on personal experience and assist in development of community support systems involvedWork to identify formal services and informal resources for families that are culturally affirming who are experiencing social-emotional behavioral or mental health challengesAssist families with identifying the challenges they face their strengths and areas of improvement/goalsMonitor and document family progress to track progress in accordance with agency and regulatory bodies policiesParticipate in multi-disciplinary team meetings staff meetings trainings and supervisionMaintain professional behaviors and ethical standards are established by licensing board relevant professional association and the Jewish Board policies and proceduresUsing an electronic database document demographic data on all individuals see document an track familys goals and all service providedPerform these services in the familys home youths home community officeAny additional duties assignedCORE COMPETENCIES for the position include:Excellent engagement skillsStrong verbal and written communication skillsAttention to detailAbility to work independently as well as with a teamEDUCATIONAL/TRAINING REQUIRED:High School Diploma or Equivalency Specialty credentialing in advocacy can be obtained during probationary periodLived experience in parenting a child or adolescent with a serious emotional disturbance and/or lived experience of mental health challengesAbility to work with a diverse population ie: social cultural economic groupBackground in advocating mental health and/or in the educational systemEXPERIENCE REQUIRED/LANGUAGE PREFERENCE:Bilingual Preferred ie: SpanishCOMPUTER SKILLS REQUIRED: Prior experience with electronic health records and Microsoft officeVISUAL AND MANUAL DEXIERITY:The Candidate can 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 transportationWORK ENVIRONMENT/PHYSICAL EFFORT: Most 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 the staff may need to travel may or may not be accessible. To Perform the essential functions of this job candidate must be able to travel with NYC 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 transportation options (20% of the time)Frequent travel throughout the assigned borough ie Queens Staten Island The Bronx; infrequent ravel throughout NYC