Job Duties Include:

• Conduct research, investigation, and outreach in locating absentee parents/guardians
• Identify and locate potential extended family/fictive kinship relationships
• Act as a liaison to transition youth into the identified placement resources successfully
• Provide professional technical assistance and resource development support to casework staff who serve children with specialized and problematic behavior service needs
• Assist the family caseworker with facilitating the expansion of resources needed to better serve children and their families involved in foster care
• Drive to various locations to attend meetings, conferences, or to locate and assess family homes as needed
• Utilize a family-centered, trauma -informed, strength-based, and EDI lens through which youth and family needs are assessed
• Engage the youth (as age-appropriate), birth parents, family and social connections, foster parents, and staff to facilitate and support stability and permanency for the youth
• Utilize data analysis skills to conduct diligent search activities across multiple databases, systems, social media, and other websites
• Complete required forms and SACWIS documentation, send written correspondence, and log/track data for use by the foster care team
• Utilize ecomaps, genograms, and other tools to map and locate prospective supports and placement resources for the youth and family
• Serve as a team member within the multidisciplinary team or Child and Family Team Meeting consisting of case manager, supervisor, foster parent, birth parents and youth to facilitate connections between newly found family/fictive kin members, supports, and other collateral resources to resolve complex and stalled cases to improve permanency outcomes
• Identify and engage familial supports and connections including relatives and fictive kin for the purpose of life-long connections and permanency achievement

Required Skills

• Understand implicit bias and how to work within a system that impacts decisions for youth and their families when locating placement options
• Have the ability to have crucial conversations with staff and other child and family team members
• Creative problem-solving skills and can use non-traditional search methods to identify and locate family members and supportive connections
• Communication skills, research skills
• Experience working with children with special needs
• Leadership, organizational and communication skills
• Knowledge of how to complete background checks

Qualifications

Education

• Bachelor's degree in social work, other human services field, criminal justice, and communication required

Experience

• Experience in investigation and person location preferred

Other

• Valid driver’s license and acceptable driving record with OHU required levels of coverage for auto insurance
• Ability to pass a background check

We Invest in You!

• Competitive pay and benefits
• Tuition assistance up to $2500 per year
• Generous vacation and PTO plans
• Health, dental, vision, retirement plan with employer contribution, health savings account, Agency paid life and LTD, supplemental life insurance
• Career ladders, professional development, and promotion opportunities
• Leadership opportunities on site-based Center Management Teams

A Different Kind Of Employer - One Hope United is strong and ready to grow. Are you ready to grow with us?

• 800 talented professionals strong, serving 10,000 children and families in Illinois, Missouri, and Florida
• Fiscally stable, $50 Million agency-- strong since 1895
• Energetic leadership and a rich community of support

One Hope United does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, national origin, age, disability, veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by law. One Hope United is an Equal Opportunity Employer and a Drug-Free Workplace. One Hope United participates in e Verify.

In the spirit of caring for one another and our community, please note that upon accepting an offer of employment from One Hope United, you will be required to share proof of a Covid-19 vaccination. The requirement is subject to accommodation in compliance with applicable laws and regulations.