Bilingual Outreach Counselor

Important Notice: Arlington County requires all applicants to thoroughly complete each section of the application, including prior job responsibilities, duties, and supplemental questions. While you may attach a resume, it will not replace a completed application. Incomplete applications will not be considered.

The Arlington County Juvenile and Domestic Relations (JDR) District Court Services Unit is seeking a Bilingual After-School Program Counselor (English/Spanish) to join our team! 

The Girls’ Outreach Program is a gender-specific program for adolescent females who are referred by schools, parents, and other child-serving agencies including the Court. The program, which begins immediately following school, provides a supervised, structured, and consistent environment for up to 10 girls. Staff provide academic support, emotional, and social skills support through group activities, psycho-educational groups, and social skills building. Girls’ Outreach provides youth with consistency and structure while simultaneously providing them with empathy, support, and positive role modeling in a group program setting. The Outreach Counselor will play a vital role at the program by assisting full-time counselors in providing high-quality services to program clients and their families. 

Specific duties include: 

• Supporting families by explaining program’s practices, policies, procedures, and schedules as well as providing information to families about available resources, services, and programs within the community;

• Assisting with the development and delivery of educational programs, therapeutic interventions, and counseling meetings;

• Coordinating of and participating in multidisciplinary team and staff meetings;

• Ensuring supervision and program continuity when case managers are not present or available;

• Providing crisis intervention;

• Supervising study hall and preparing meals for clients;

• Providing transportation for clients;

• Meeting with parents to discuss youth’s progress and needs and sharing information with program case managers;

• Performing administrative functions such as updating case files, program logs, incident reports, and other administrative functions as needed; and

• Serving as a language interpreter in meetings.

Ideal Candidate Description: 

• Experience working in residential or group home settings with youth and families;

• Ability to work in rapidly changing environments;

• Strong sense of initiative;

• An understanding of adolescent growth and development; and

• Experience working with youth with complex trauma, histories of drug and alcohol use, and multi-system involvement. 

Minimum Qualifications: 

• Bachelor's degree in Human Services, Education, Psychology, Social Work and/or Recreation directly related to supporting adolescent wellness and development.

• Bilingual capability (English/Spanish)

• Some experience supervising youths in a group home setting, performing social casework, juvenile probation/justice, youth counseling or related work. 

Substitution: Additional qualifying experience may substitute for the education requirement on a year for year basis.

Desirable Qualifications:

• Experience working in a gender specific program (all female) in a multilingual and multicultural environment;

• Demonstrable skills and experience in leading psychoeducational or substance use groups for adolescents or creating afterschool or leisure programming for at-risk youth.

• Substance abuse treatment and/or counseling experience; and/or

• Considerable experience working with families and youth from marginalized, high needs communities.

• Driver’s Li