Chaplain & Community Engagement Coordinator

About the role

Safe Harbor Ohio exists to provide hope and healing to child survivors of sex trafficking and sexual exploitation. As a member of the team, the Chaplain and Community Engagement Coordinator demonstrates humility and competence through servant leadership, inspires others to overcome all challenges with optimism and unwavering faith, and develops passionate people to fulfill the good works that God has prepared for them. The Spiritual Program exists to bring hope and healing through the truth of the Gospel.

Department and reporting

Department: Administration
Reports To: Chief Executive Officer
FLSA Status: Exempt

Summary

The Chaplain and Community Engagement Coordinator develops, supervises, and monitors spiritual mentoring programs; identifying, vetting, and training potential volunteer religious services groups/individuals. Develops and maintains church partnership relationships.

Responsibilities

• Team First: Makes every effort to maintain a “team first” spirit and atmosphere within the workplace environment, maintaining appropriate working relationships and promoting collaboration.
• Church Partnership Development & Donor Growth: Builds, cultivates, and maintains strong relationships with local churches, faith-based organizations, and community partners to strengthen organizational support and expand opportunities for collaboration. Develops strategies to increase donations, recurring financial support, in-kind contributions and other resources that benefit the residents and programs.
• Volunteer Program Management: Manages the entire volunteer process, including recruitment, outreach, screening, onboarding, orientation, scheduling, training, communication, engagement, and retention. Develops and maintains a reliable volunteer base while ensuring volunteers are appropriately matched with organizational needs and understand expectations, policies, and procedures.
• Chapel Service Leadership: Leads and coordinates two weekly chapel services for residents, creating meaningful opportunities for spiritual growth, encouragement, reflection, and community building. Prepares or coordinates service content, speakers, worship elements, and other programming, as appropriate, while ensuring services are welcoming, organized, and relevant to the residents being served.
• Community Engagement: Represents the organization within the local faith and community network, identifying opportunities to develop new partnerships, increasing awareness of the organization’s mission, and creating additional avenues of support for residents and programs.
• Relationship & Program Coordination: Serves as a primary point of contact for churches, volunteers, donors, and community partners, maintaining consistent communication and fostering long-term relationships that support the organization’s mission and day-to-day operations.
• Mission & Resident Support: Ensures church partnerships, volunteer activities, fundraising efforts, and chapel programming align with the organization’s mission and contribute positively to the overall experience, development, and well-being of residents.
• Boundaries in Place for Chaplain:
  • Individual sessions with campus residents may not be conducted behind a closed door without another staff member present/camera monitoring.
  • Chaplain should make every effort to conduct sessions in the cottages or in public places, easily visible on campus.
  • Chaplain may not allow campus residents to access the internet or cell phone for any reason.
  • Chaplain must follow staff instructions and defer to staff needs/requests during crisis.
  • Chaplain must maintain appropriate boundaries with both residents and staff, ensuring that time must be evenly distributed between residents and ensure that an unbalanced amount of time is not spent with any particular staff member or members.
  • Chaplain must be morally and ethically above reproach in his or her behavior.

Supervisory responsibilities

• Leads volunteers, focusing on excellence in performance and personal/character development. May also supervise a ministry intern.
• Carries out volunteer supervisory responsibilities in accordance with the organization’s policies and applicable laws. Responsibilities include interviewing (if necessary), assigning and directing work; appraising performance; addressing complaints and resolving problems.
• Ensures Safe Harbor’s vision and direction are communicated on a level that allows every employee and volunteer to understand their ownership in the success of Safe Harbor and that they are a valued member of the organization.

Required skills and abilities

• Must be able to demonstrate knowledge and understanding of the Bible, the Word of God.
• Ability to understand and interpret the Bible and effectively communicate concepts to all age groups.
• Excellent interpersonal skills, including conflict resolution, required.
• Must be able to communicate well with colleagues, verbally and in writing to ensure safety and efficiency.
• Ability to effectively present information in one-on-one and small group situations, and effectively with individuals and groups from all walks of life.
• Ability to effectively present information to top management, public groups, and/or boards of directors.
• Ability to apply common sense.
• Ability to solve practical problems and deal with a variety of concrete variables in situations where only limited standardization exists.
• Competency with a personal computer, and familiarity with Outlook, Teams, Word, and Excel.
• Ability to function well in a fast-paced environment, as well as cope and tolerate high levels of stress.

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in ministry or equivalent; or 3 to 5 years related experience and/or training; or equivalent combination of education and experience.
• Experience working with children required; experience with victims of trauma strongly preferred.
• Expected to participate actively as mentee of approved local pastor or leader.
• Valid Ohio Driver’s License and a driving record that allows that individual to be insurable on agency policy, as job includes occasional travel.
• Must be an active member of a local church congregation.

Physical requirements

• Frequently required to walk, sit, talk, and hear, including a requirement to stand or walk for extended periods of time, sometimes through uneven terrain.
• Often required to use hands/fingers, handle or feel; reach with hands and arms, climb or balance and stoop, kneel, crouch or crawl.
• Specific vision abilities required include close vision, distance vision, depth perception, and the ability to adjust focus.
• Regularly able to lift/move up to 50 pounds.
• Must be able to be outdoors in various weather conditions for extended amounts of time.
• Must maintain compliance/certification with CCHO/Safe Harbor’s requirements for using physical restraints (SCM: Safe Crisis Management), including sufficient strength and completion of extensive training.
• Physical ability to respond to crisis, including, but not limited to running and performing physical restraints.

Continuous quality improvement

All Safe Harbor staff are expected to focus on quality improvement as a part of their job responsibilities, in an effort to make Safe Harbor a safe and healing environment for clients and staff. This expectation includes, but is not limited to teamwork, improving service delivery, fulfilling department goals, and other job-specific tasks that encourage excellence.