Family Support Specialist
Hiring Range: $20.07-$24.58

Benefits:

• Comprehensive and generous health, dental and vision benefits
• Up to 19 days of PTO, 2 mental health days and 9 paid holidays your first year (pro-rated for part-time)
• Company paid short-term disability, long-term disability and life insurance
• Student loan payment assistance and extensive training
• An incredible team approach that is dynamic and collaborative

The Parent Partner supports parents of children and youth that have serious emotional disturbance in identifying goals that promote recovery and resiliency. Partners with parents, providers and the system in advocating for parents of children with complex behavioral and emotional challenges. Provides peer support to parents with Care teams and assist them in building a network of support. Empowers families by assisting in skill-building and instilling hope.

The Parent Partner demonstrates recovery and serve as an ambassador providing guidance and advocacy to child and family service systems.

Primary Responsibilities:

• Draw on common experiences as a peer to validate clients' experience and to provide guidance and encouragement for clients to take responsibility and participate in their recovery. Promote hope and empowerment designed to help clients attain recovery goals and maintain the highest possible independence level, even during periods of instability.
• Housing: Assists clients find and maintain a safe and affordable place to live, apartment hunting, finding a roommate, landlord negotiations, cleaning, furnishing and decorating, and procuring necessities. Identify type and location of housing with an exploration of access to natural supports and avoidance of triggers. Provides practical help and supports, mentoring, advocacy, coordination, side-by-side individualized support, problem-solving, direct assistance, and supervision to help clients obtain the necessities of daily living, including medical and dental health care; legal and advocacy services; financial support such as entitlements, housing subsidies; money management services: transportation, and reasonable accommodation requests as needed.
• Employment: Assists with referrals to job training and DVR. Performs mentoring, problem solving, encouragement, and support on and off the job site. Provides work-related supportive services, such as assistance securing necessary clothing and grooming supplies, wake-up calls, reasonable accommodation requests as needed, and transportation.
• Activities of Daily Living Services: Provides ongoing assessment, problem-solving, side-by-side services, skill teaching, support, and environmental adaptations to assist clients with daily living activities. Assists and supports clients in organizing and perform household activities, including house cleaning and laundry. Assists and supports clients with personal hygiene and grooming tasks. Provide nutrition education and assistance with meal planning, grocery shopping, and food preparation. Ensures clients have adequate financial support teaches money-management skills, and assist clients in accessing financial services. Help clients’ access reliable transportation. Assists and supports clients to have and effectively use a personal primary care physician, dentist, and other medical specialists as required.
• Social and Interpersonal Relationships and Leisure Time: Provides side-by-side support, coaching, and encouragement to help clients socialize, going with a client to community activities, including activities offered by consumer-run peer support organizations. Assists clients to plan and carry out leisure time activities. Organizes and leads individual and group social and recreational activities to help clients structure their time, increase social experiences, and provide opportunities to practice social skills.
• Other coaching, guidance, and transition support: Provides transition services from hospital to community, including medication management. Assist in providing ongoing assessment and direct services to clients, responding to such challenges as an increase in suicidality, the need for substance abuse education and treatment, and the clients' readiness for meaningful daily activity, including employment.
• Act as an interpreter to the rest of the team while providing expertise and consultation from a client perspective in areas such as symptoms, effects and side effects of medications, client opinions of treatment, and client recovery experiences.
• Help clients and staff to identify, understand, and combat stigma, discrimination and assist clients in locating self-help and consumer advocacy groups that promote recovery while acting as the liaison between the team and such groups.
• Collaborate with staff and clients on awareness of client rights, including grievance and complaint procedures; support clients with filing, mediating, and resolving complaints.
• Provide peer counseling and support, drawing on common experiences as a peer, to parents and caregivers by encouraging them to regain hope in, and control over, their own lives as well as their children’s lives. Promote self-determination, empowerment, personal responsibility for recovery and wellness, and assist parent/caregivers to advocate for themselves and their children.
• Partner with agency clinicians and other members of the caregivers/parent’s teams in creating wellness plans that empower clients to reach life goals. Collaborate with the treatment team to promote a team culture in which each client point of view, experiences and preferences are recognized, understood and respected and in which client decision making in treatment planning is maximized and supported.
• Assist parents/caregivers in gaining skills having their voices heard in treatment and other system settings.
• Support parents/caregivers in meetings as needed including Child & Family Team, Kitsap Shared Resources, Individualized Education Plan (IEP) conferences, Kitsap County Court proceedings and Family Team Decision Making (FTDM) meetings with Washington State Division of Child & Family Services (DCFS).
• Provide resource referral and linkage to parents/caregivers as well as system partners in the community.
• Seek appropriate clinical supervision where necessary, particularly around boundary issues, and attend appropriate agency trainings as determined by the C&F Supervisor.
• In addition to the above, any other responsibilities appropriate to the position and not specifically listed in the job description.

Preferred Qualifications:

EDUCATION: Associate’s degree (Social Work, Psychology or Behavioral Health field)

EXPERIENCE: Relevant experience working with clients with severe and persistent mental illness.

Capacity to work well with children and families.

Our recruitment processes are designed to prevent discrimination against our people regardless of gender identity or orientation, religion, ethnicity, age, neurodiversity, disability status, citizenship, or any aspect which makes someone unique.