Licensed Yeshiva-based Support Specialist

PURPOSE:
Jewish Community Services (JCS) takes a population health approach to supporting the mental health and well-being of New York City’s Jewish community. JCS works to reduce stigma, prioritize prevention, strengthen resiliency, and create clear pathways to care for individuals, families, schools, and communities.
This role supports yeshiva day school communities through a flexible, school-based wellness model — building trusted relationships, providing early mental health assessment, brief stabilization, clinical consultation, psychoeducation, and strengthening pathways to care. As the model grows, the Specialist will also offer training and consultation to additional schools beyond the two anchor sites.


POSITION OVERVIEW:
The Licensed Yeshiva-based Support Specialist will be embedded in two anchor yeshiva day schools, with the majority of weekly hours devoted to direct school-based support. This includes clinical consultation with school staff, short-term assessment and brief intervention with students, workshops, and psychoeducation programming for parents and teachers. The goal is not to replicate a therapy caseload but to offer trusted, culturally responsive, and accessible mental health support — and clear pathways to JCS and the Center for Jewish Mental Health when more intensive care is needed.
The remaining hours each week are structured for program development, community outreach, and expanding JCS’s reach to additional yeshiva schools. This includes participating in planning meetings, attending introductory conversations with prospective partner schools, providing occasional trainings or consultations beyond the two anchor sites, and contributing to the development of program materials and workflows. Training material development is supported by the JCS program team; community connections are supported by the Assistant Director of Community Engagement.
This is a new role, built to replace the prior Yeshiva Services Program with a more flexible, population health–oriented model. It requires someone who is clinically grounded, culturally attuned to Orthodox Jewish and yeshiva communities, comfortable working in an evolving environment, and motivated to help build something new.

KEY ESSENTIAL FUNCTIONS:
Anchor School Support
• Provide clinical consultation to school staff regarding student mental health concerns, behavioral and emotional challenges, and appropriate next steps.
• Conduct brief student assessments and short-term intervention — including brief stabilization, safety assessment, and crisis de-escalation as needed — with a focus on early identification and connection to care, not an ongoing therapy caseload.
• Facilitate classroom-based wellness workshops and student-facing programming focused on resilience, coping, emotional awareness, and help-seeking.
• Deliver psychoeducation trainings for teachers and parents on key topics including adolescent development, anxiety and stress, grief, trauma-informed support, and referral pathways.
• Offer regular consultation windows or open availability within each school, with flexibility to respond to emerging needs.
• Provide warm handoffs and active linkage to the Center for Jewish Mental Health, JCS programs, and other community resources as indicated.
• Support school communities during critical incidents and periods of heightened stress, including staff support, consultation with school leadership, and coordination of follow-up care — in close collaboration with JCS leadership and clinical supervision.
Program Development and Community Outreach
• Participate in program planning meetings, supervision, and team consultation to ensure clinical quality and alignment with JCS’s population health model.
• Contribute school-based observations and insights to help shape training content, programming priorities, and model refinement — with material development supported by the JCS program team.
• Attend introductory meetings and relationship-building conversations with prospective partner schools, supported by the Assistant Director of Community Engagement.
• Provide occasional trainings, workshops, or consultations to schools beyond the two anchor sites as the program grows.
• Represent JCS and the Center for Jewish Mental Health in community settings and support broader outreach to yeshiva communities.
• Track activities, consultations, workshops, referrals, and emerging trends to support program evaluation and funder reporting.
• Help refine workflows, communication practices, and referral pathways as the yeshiva wellness model develops.

CORE COMPETENCIES for the position include:
• Strong clinical knowledge of child and adolescent mental health, including comfort with brief assessment, triage, short-term support, and consultation — without functioning as a primary therapist.