Family Finding Specialist
About Seneca
Seneca Family of Agencies was founded in 1985 as a small Bay Area residential and day treatment program with a simple but powerful mission: to help children and families through the most difficult times of their lives. Since then, Seneca has expanded to provide a broad continuum of permanency, mental health, education, and juvenile justice services, which today reach over 18,000 youth and families throughout California and Washington State each year. The agency’s growth has been guided by a commitment to our Unconditional Care® model – doing whatever it takes to help children and families thrive, even when faced with tremendous challenges. Seneca is committed to supporting historically underrepresented communities and informing agency policies and practices through its agency-wide DEI Initiative and DEI Advisory Board. Our agency’s values of love and compassion, hope and courage, respect, curiosity, joy, equity and justice anchor our work across all programs, ensuring our staff leverage the cultural strengths of the families and communities we serve. Seneca is committed to fostering an agency culture that is welcoming, cooperative, and inclusive of diverse peoples and worldviews.
About the Role
Join our team at Seneca Family of Agencies in our San Luis Obispo County Wraparound Program as our Family Finding Specialist (Permanency Specialist). The Permanency Specialist supports the goal of reunification of children with their parents or caregivers and works with the family to enhance connections with relatives and other natural supports by providing culturally sensitive, trauma-informed, and family-centered services and planning for youth who are referred for Wraparound through social services, probation, or post-adoption services. The Permanency Specialist will work with county/community partners and the youth and family’s team to collaborate on all stages of the Family Finding and permanency process in a way that is rooted in Seneca’s mission and values related to diversity, equity, and inclusion. Family members are engaged to develop additional connections to support children in living with relatives and staying connected to their families. All services are provided almost exclusively in the community, including in families’ homes, foster homes, school, and congregate care settings.
Responsibilities
- Participates and leads programmatic and clinical training related to discovery and engagement work of family finding with Monterey staff.
- Attends trainings related to Family Finding and apply findings from research on Family Finding best practices.
- Receives supervision and consultation from Family Finding experts and Wraparound program supervisor.
- Understands, applies and guides the principles and stages of Family Finding, from discovery to engagement to planning to implementation to evaluation of results.
- Maintains the primary relationship and collaboration with Child Welfare Workers and Probation Officers on Family Finding efforts with referred clients.
- Provide family finding consultation or coaching for other Salinas Programs as needed.
- Participate in Child and Family Team Meetings to discuss concurrent planning for youth and families.
- Participate as the lead or point of contact when engaging new natural supports and work collaboratively with the family’s assigned Wraparound team to involve these supports in the wraparound process.
- Meets with parents, extended family members, community members and facilitates team meetings on an ongoing basis to build rapport and engage them in planning for permanency for their children.
- Complete required documentation according to Monterey documentation standards and time-line.
Qualifications
- Bachelor's degree required
- Demonstrated experience and interest in helping parents reunify with their children or plan alternative permanency options
- Demonstrated competence in the skill areas of positive client engagement and communication, especially with parents whose children have been removed due to abuse or neglect
- Experience working directly with families and demonstrated understanding of the challenges they are experiencing as a result of recent Child Welfare system involvement
- Own vehicle, valid Driver's License, and insurability through Seneca's automobile policy
- TB test clearance, fingerprinting clearance, and any other State/Federal licensing or certification requirements
- Proof of COVID-19 vaccination and booster required
- Bilingual in Spanish/English preferred
Schedule
- Full-time
Benefits
- Starting at $21.00 per hour, and additional compensation provided upon passing bilingual language proficiency exam
- Mileage reimbursement
- Comprehensive employee benefits package, including:
- Medical, dental, vision, chiropractic, acupuncture, and fertility coverage
- Long-term disability, family leave, and life insurance
- 50% paid premiums for dependents
- 403b retirement plan
- Employer-paid Employee Assistance Plan
- 5 weeks of flexible paid time off and 11 paid holidays
- Professional development, training, and scholarship opportunities, including fully funded master's degree programs
***Please apply directly through our website by clicking here!***
Key Words: nonprofit, non-profit, mental health, mental health agency, behavioral health, healthcare, counselor, youth advocate, family advocate, children advocate, youth counselor, adolescent, advocate. foster youth, foster care