Family Services Specialist III-Senior Foster Care/Adoption worker (Albemarle)

Competency: Knowledge/ Skills/Abilities:

• Provide services in a specialized service area and may be assigned cases with a high degree of complexity and/or sensitivity and/or carry primary responsibility for a specific program function.
• Assesses cognitive, emotional, and behavioral functioning of children and their families, while developing and implementing sophisticated psychosocial case plans which integrate psychodynamic, systemic, medical, and social-ecological treatment approaches, and incorporates concurrent planning.
• Provides direct counseling by applying family-systems treatment models to complex, family situations in such a way as to strengthen families, promote self-sufficiency, prevent reoccurrence of abuse/neglect, and perform crisis interventions.
• Independently serves in the role of case manager in planning, organizing, and coordinating service delivery through working collaboratively with mental health, education, legal, medical, and other human services professionals in a team approach to service delivery, with responsibility for assuring coordination and effectiveness of comprehensive services to families.
• Functions as legal guardian for agency foster children (e.g., responsible for child's safety and well-being, consents for medical treatment, etc.) through interpreting laws, policies and regulations, and recruitment of foster/kinship/adoptive families while assuming ultimate responsibility for the safety and well-being of children in the agency’s care; facilitates permanent placement of these children through adoption or custody transfer.
• Plans, oversees, and participates directly in court intervention to protect children and to achieve goals of permanency for children through testimony and submission of developed comprehensive psychosocial assessments and service plans.
• Takes an independent role in planning, documenting, organizing and reviewing all casework to ensure consistency in compliance with local, state and federal policies and practices.
• Assesses, secures, negotiates, and justifies financial resources for which the child is eligible, while ensuring the requirements for funding authorization and service payments are being followed responsibly.
• Shares responsibility with other child welfare senior workers for planning and facilitating child welfare meetings, providing coaching on the practice profiles and trauma-informed best practices, and on-boarding new staff to topics relevant to all child welfare programs.
• Provides coverage after hours and on weekends, on a rotating on-call basis, for emergencies involving the abuse or neglect of children and for situations requiring immediate attention regarding children in the legal custody of the Department of Social Services.

Working knowledge of:

• Social work principles and practices;
• Current social, economic and health problems;
• Social institutions and community resources;
• The methods of the helping process;
• Individual and group behavior;
• Child and adolescent growth and development, family structure and dynamics, the impact of physical and mental conditions on families;
• Crisis intervention;
• The impact of trauma, systemic discrimination, and the intergenerational transmission of disadvantage on children and families as well as effective intervention strategies to promote healing and change.

Skill in:

• Critical thinking;
• Crisis intervention and de-escalation;
• Decision-making and independent judgment;
• Using personal computer with associated software.

Ability to:

• Identify social problems and client strengths and needs and to assess the ability of individuals and families to utilize services in problem solving;
• Develop rapport with clients from diverse backgrounds;
• Recognize and accept the rights, responsibilities and differences of others;
• Work effectively with individuals and families in helping them attain success;
• Plan and organize work;
• Understand and interpret laws, policies and regulations;
• Communicate and establish effective working relationships with clients, co-workers, other professional and technical staff, social agencies and the general public;
• Lead and motivate colleagues to perform at their highest level, modeling best practice, resilience, conflict resolution, and problem-solving skills to achieve identified goals.
• Mentor and coach staff;
• Operate a motor vehicle;
• Prepare reports and maintain records.

Required Education and Experience:

• Minimum of a bachelor's degree in a Human Services field or minimum of a bachelor's degree in any field with a minimum of two years of appropriate and related experience in a Human Servi