FAMILY NAVIGATOR

PRIMARY FUNCTION/RESPONSIBILTY

As a Family Navigator you will engage with families early in the conservatorship process and partner with Permanency Specialists, CPI Investigators and Family Based Safety Services caseworkers to assess the family's needs, set goals, access services and progress toward safe, long-term independence. You will ensure that our highest risk families have a voice in the process and feel empowered to make needed changes. You will establish relationships with internal and external partners and ensure appropriate community resources become part of the family’s safety network.

ESSENTIAL DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES

• Promote access, engagement, and coordination of services for families in the child and family wellbeing system by deploying strategies designed to rapidly engage families in services, work closely with providers, and monitor the delivery of quality services.
• Identify service needs, coordinating service intervention, and collaboration with system of care partners including the child protective investigator, Belong Permanency Specialist, and other subject matter experts who become engaged in assessment and treatment identification.
• Search for absent parents or other family members, to include fictive kin, that may be able to provide temporary care for the children or youth while in substitute care.
• Use knowledge of the child and family wellbeing system to assist with recognizing behaviors associated with safety and well-being and ensure thorough assessment and understanding of family dynamics to quickly engage families in meaningful service linkage and intervention.
• Understand the stages of change and provide insight into behavioral changes connected to successful outcomes to promote safe and stable families by following identified cases from inception through closure to ensure ongoing collaboration and information sharing among partners and service providers, heighten awareness of existing risk factors, and ensure intentional service connection and delivery to promote safe and stable families.
• Actively establish relationships with Child Protective Investigator, Belong Permanency Specialist and provider staff and support these workers in understanding the effects of active engagement and accurate identification and activation of service needs on behavioral change and family well-being and stability.
• Responsible for participation and/or facilitation of staffing's, care coordination, and assistance with resolving barriers frequently present in families involved in the child and family wellbeing system which may include field response and working with the family in their residence or physical location.
• Work collaboratively with community service providers to develop contacts, facilitate referrals, and assist investigative and case management staff with engaging clients in recommended services and improving timely access to treatment.
• Participate in and, at times, facilitate, legal, multi-disciplinary, and any other meetings that will assist the investigative, case management and provider staff and families with establishing positive outcomes and strengthening families.
• Ensure inter-agency collaboration with principal stakeholders in child protection and domestic violence systems, i.e., HHSC, DFPS, TJJD, university schools of social work, CASA, child advocacy centers, etc.
• Work collaboratively with other departmental leadership and programs to integrate the services being offered with internal programs at Belong, such as Quality Assurance & Contracts, Case Care, Clinical, Kinship, etc.
• Ensures the accuracy, content, and completeness of child/family case records in Impact and CareMatch.
• Provides 24-hour, on-call support to the children/families served. Provides crisis intervention, when required.
• Compiles monthly statistical data and reports.
• Completes documentation and forwards reports containing descriptive, analytical, and evaluative content.
• Demonstrate skills in separation and loss issues for the child in care, family systems, conflict resolution and mediation, understanding loyalty issues a child may face, and general issues related to reunification of children with their family, as well as those related to adoption.
• Advocates, promotes, and practices cultural sensitivity and responsiveness in all day-to-day interactions. Promotes and demonstrates appropriate respect for cultural diversity among coworkers, clients, and all work-related contacts.
• Attends work regularly in accordance with agency leave policy.
• Perform other related duties as assigned.

Knowledge Skills Abilities

• Knowledge of child development.
• Knowledge of family dynamics.
• Skill if effective verbal and written communication.
• Skill in establishing and maintaining effective working relationships.
• Skill in problem solving techniques.
• Ability to operate a personal computer.
• Ability to travel and attend child and family visits as well as other work-related appointments and meetings after 5PM.
• Ability to be on call on a rotating basis and work irregular hours when necessary.
• Ability to work in an emotion-filled environment which may require conducting home visits in isolated or high crime areas and may involve exposure to substandard and unsanitary living conditions.
• Must demonstrate the following:
• Ability to understand and assist with the role changes that occur in foster and kinship care.
  • Ability to counsel regarding issues of separation and loss for the child, family, and caregivers.
  • A commitment to a child’s right to belong to a family.
  • A commitment to preserving, whenever possible, a child’s connection to the family of origin.
  • A commitment to reunifying a child with his/her biological family.

QUALIFICATIONS

Required:

Preferred:

Certifications/Licenses/Registrations:

• Valid Texas Driver’s License, safe driving record, ability to provide own transportation and proof of current automobile insurance.
• Training/Licensure/Certifications as required by SJRC Texas/Belong.

PHYSICAL/MENTAL REQUIREMENTS

• Body mobility to stoop, kneel, bend, reach, walk and walk briskly to interact with and monitor children.
• Stamina to work long days and drive long distances.
• Moderate to heavy lifting up to 60 pounds.
• Must have the ability to communicate both verbally and in writing.
• Must have the ability to give and receive verbal and written instructions (with or without hearing aids).
• Must have the ability to read fine print, have sustained vision, and peripheral vision (with or without glasses).
• Environment requires dexterity to remain calm and adapt to fast paced and emotional environments consisting of children with moderate to severe emotional and psychological needs.
• Home-like settings with varying moderate to high degrees of background noise.
• Light and ventilation are found in a typical home setting.
• Campuses are smoke-free, except on permitted campuses in designated areas.
• The possibility of exposure to blood borne pathogens exists if universal precautions are not followed (Hepatitis B inoculation available per request).
• Injury when lifting or moving if employee fails to use proper body mechanics, or if proper techniques are not used.

DESCRIPTION OF ORGANIZATIONAL RELATIONSHIP/REPORTING RELATIONSHIPS

Supervised by: Support Service Coordinator

Supervises: N/A