Senior Associate, Technical Assistance

The Role

We are seeking a mission-driven Senior Associate (Generalist) to join our Programs & Services team. In this role, you will apply systems design methods to help public child welfare agencies, states, and communities tackle complex problems—ranging from prevention and family support to permanency, transition-age youth outcomes, and workforce well-being. You will deliver technical assistance (TA), facilitate multi-stakeholder collaboration, translate research into action, and support implementation to produce measurable improvements for children, youth, and families.

This is a hands-on, cross-functional role ideal for a practitioner who can move fluidly between discovery, strategy, design, facilitation, analysis, and implementation support.

Department: Programs & Services
Reports to: Senior Director, Proximate Policy
Direct Reports: N/A
Location: Remote within the United States; periodic in-person convenings and site visits.
Travel: Approximately 20–35% (varies by project and partner needs).
Work Style: Collaborative, fast-paced, learning-oriented environment with cross-functional teams
Category: Full-time; Exempt

Key Responsibilities 

Systems Discovery and Problem Framing

• Lead and support mixed-method discovery (interviews, workshops, journey mapping, data reviews) to understand root causes and system constraints.
• Translate findings into clear problem statements, hypotheses, and prioritized opportunities. 

Service and Systems Design 

• Co-create solutions with agency partners, youth and family leaders, and community providers using service blueprinting, prototyping, and iterative testing.
• Document workflows, roles, decision points, and policy/tech implications; identify enabling conditions, risks, and mitigation strategies.
• Lead mixed-method discovery efforts (interviews, workshops, journey mapping, data reviews) to surface root causes, system constraints, and opportunities for change.
• Help translate discovery findings and user needs into clear product/technology requirements, user stories, and acceptance criteria in collaboration with product and engineering teams.

Technical Assistance and Implementation Support

• Provide TA to state/county/tribal agencies and community partners on policy translation, program design, change management, and implementation planning.
• Develop tools, guides, protocols, and training materials (e.g., playbooks, facilitation decks, standard work, dashboards) to build local capacity.
• Support pilots and scale-up through learning cycles, rapid feedback loops, and continuous improvement practices. 
• Support partners in understanding and adopting technology-enabled tools and approaches, including AI-powered platforms, as part of how they deliver services and make decisions.
• Work with agency teams to define what success looks like, set up ways to track progress, and build learning and improvement into the day-to-day — not as a separate activity, but as part of how the work gets done.
• Maintain and curate TA tools, playbooks, and a central learning repository so partner materials are discoverable and reusable.

Stakeholder Facilitation and Partnership Management 

• Plan and facilitate meetings and workshops across agency leadership, frontline staff, youth and family partners, providers, and advocates. 
• Build trust-based relationships that center lived expertise and foster shared ownership of outcomes. 

Analysis, Measurement, and Learning 

• Synthesize qualitative and quantitative data; convert insights into practical recommendations and decision-ready briefs.  
• Define outcomes, indicators, and measurement plans; support data-informed learning agendas and progress reviews.  

Project Delivery and Collaboration

• Manage workplans, timelines, and deliverables with strong attention to detail and quality. 
• Collaborate with policy, research, product/technology, and communications teammates to deliver integrated solutions. 
• Bring what you're learning in the field — what's working, what's stuck, what's emerging, back to the broader Think of Us team so it can shape our strategy, policy positions, and product development.
• Contribute to proposal development, donor reporting, and the preparation of deliverables required by grants, contracts, and funders.

Equity, Lived Expertise, and Trauma-Informed Practice 

• Operationalize equity, cultural humility, and trauma-informed principles thro