Program Associate, Expanding Deaf Services and Advocacy

About Activating Change
Activating Change’s mission is to end victimization, criminalization, incarceration, and institutionalization of people with disabilities and Deaf people. We bring together people and organizations across the country working in disability, survivor advocacy, and criminal legal system reform movements. We foster alignment, build capacity, and support greater coordination across these social justice movements to realize our goals of freedom and healing – not harm and punishment - for people with disabilities and Deaf people. We collaborate with disability and Deaf communities across the country and work in close partnership with government and advocacy leaders to implement change.
 
Deaf survivors – especially from communities of color – face communication, cultural, and other barriers to accessing hearing victim services that are often insurmountable. “For Deaf, by Deaf” victim services offer a solution for Deaf and DeafBlind survivors of violence, but they don’t exist in most communities and there is only one such program for Deaf communities of color nationwide. Through the newly launched Deaf Survivor Services (DSS) program, Activating Change – in partnership with Deaf leaders from across the country – is establishing a new, national victim services program for Deaf survivors of domestic violence, dating violence, sexual violence, and stalking. The program will provide crisis intervention services, case management, and other support to Deaf survivors in American Sign Language by Deaf advocates. Our collective goal is to ensure that any Deaf survivor can access victim services provided by Deaf advocates, in American Sign Language or other languages of Deaf communities, using practices rooted in Deaf culture – regardless of where they live.
 
The Position
As a Program Associate, you will provide direct support to the Deaf Survivor Services project. Your position will be based in our Expanding Deaf Advocacy Services and Advocacy program area, and you will report to one of our Project Directors in that program. You will conduct best practice research to help inform the design and operation of the DSS; assist in drafting key aspects of the DSS operational plan; coordinate data collection for ongoing improvement efforts and reporting; and provide logistical support to project meetings. You value meetings and the role they play in bringing people together to strengthen relationships, learn, and co-create. You pay attention to details and like to be organized. You are curious and spend time online learning about your latest interests. You are collaborative and excited to support a large group of people across multiple organizations who work on the DSS. Finally, you have a strong commitment to disability and racial justice and center equity in everything you do. 
 
Responsibilities 
Provide logistical support to project meetings, including internal team meetings and external meetings with funders, partners, steering committee members, and other constituents, by:

• Calendaring meetings.
• Setting up the virtual meeting room.
• Coordinating logistics for in-person meetings.
• Sending materials to meeting attendees in advance.
• Submitting requests in Activating Change’s internal system to request interpreters, captionists, and other accommodation needs.
• Working closely with Activating Change’s interpreter and access coordinators to ensure any accommodation requests of meeting participants are met.
• Taking notes at meetings.
• Sending follow-up materials to meeting participants.

Assist in identifying promising approaches, policies, practices, and resources that can be replicated or adapted for the Deaf Survivor Services program by:

• Identifying and tracking key questions about the design and operation of the DSS that emerge in project meetings and other aspects of the project that require research.   
• Conducting research through online searches, document review, and informational interviews.
• Preparing briefing memos, presentations, and other materials documenting key findings.
• Providing presentations to project staff, partners, and other constituents on key findings.
• Documenting key decisions and drafting relevant components of key DSS documents, including program plan, pilot site demonstration design and implementation plan, and the scaling plan. 

Coordinate data collection and progress reporting for the DSS, by:

• Expanding Activating Change’s existing grant reporting database (in Monday.com) to collecting, tracking, and storing data related to the DSS in Activating Change’s grant reporting database.
• Sending reporting reminders to staff and project partners to ensure timely data entry.
• Analyzing and synthesizing data to share with staff and project partners, as