COMMUNITY SERVICES SPECIALIST - North County OP **40hrs/week**

Pay and Benefits

Pay rates for Union positions are set in the Collective Bargaining Agreement with SEIU Local 521. Each position has a total of six steps, Step 1 (entry level) through Step 6 (15 years of employment with the organization). Union staff are promoted from Step 1 to Step 2 upon their one-year anniversary. The current Step 1 rate for this position is $35.49/hr, and the current Step 6 rate for this position is $39.19/hr.

We offer a competitive package of employee benefits for 30 to 40-hour week positions. You will receive a defined contribution amount of up to $15,433.08 per year (prorated for part-time employees working less than 40 hours per week) to purchase the benefits of your choice on a cafeteria plan basis. Any amount of this defined contribution not used towards your benefits will be paid to you as taxable earnings.

We offer a retirement plan with a generous employer match starting at 4% after one year of employment. Our paid time off is also more generous than many employers with vacation time accruing up to 25 days per year, 6 days of sick time per year and 12 paid holidays.

Principal Duties and Responsibilities

• Provide mental health rehabilitation and case management services for a varying caseload, coupled with involvement of their families, which assist and support clients in all areas of daily living and facilitate integration into the community.
• Duties may include any or all of the following:
• Facilitate one-on-one and groups through rehabilitation counseling processes that help develop and strengthen life, coping and independent living skills; develop curriculums.
• Work with clients’ families and educate them on mental health rehabilitation processes and related issues to enable successful transitions.
• Engage clients for evaluation on an outpatient basis, if necessary, to engender trust by performing visits to private homes, locked hospital or jail facilities, community shelters, and medical facilities.
• Help prepare and assist clients and their families with client social integration into community life, housing, school, employment, and other life-sustaining and independent living skills.
• Provide medical follow-up assistance to clients in obtaining a primary care physician, coordinating care with medical doctors, and assisting with medical issues, schedules, appointments, and transportation.
• Cookordinate care with outside mental health professionals and programs.
• Assist in budgeting and financial planning; address health and safety issues and how to respond to common emergencies.
• Facilitate client insurance benefits to expedite treatment and ensure timely payment to representative payees.
• Provide service to clients and clients’ families in linkage with professional and community resources.
• Interface directly with clients and provide counseling, particularly during times of conflict and crisis intervention.
• Complete the clinical records and other documentation, processes, and procedures that enable clients to receive these services in accordance with Agency, payor and regulatory requirements, utilizing paper or computer technology.
• Develop and implement individual service and treatment plans;
• Perform clinical and administrative admissions and discharge paperwork and procedures.
• Assess clients for admission, benefit status, and clinical appropriateness for admittance; coordinate admittance details; communicate with referral sources to complete admittance papers; complete the Admission Summary;
• Enter and maintain up-to-date clinical documentation for each client file, including case notes for each client per Agency standards;
• Track due dates for all paperwork to ensure quality standards are met and accurate and timely billings can be issued.
• Attend and participate in staff, program, agency and community meetings and training.
• Provide transportation in personal or agency vehicles, including, but not limited to, the transport of clients and or program supplies, for agency business.

Other Duties and Responsibilities

• Provide appropriate consultation and back-up to support other staff in responding to client crises.
• May provide on-call floor coverage, as needed.
• Provide on-call coverage for non-standard work hours, as needed.
• Interface with staff, clients, and visitors, as conditions require and in an unobtrusive manner.
• Ensure compliance with applicable health and safety or other regulatory requirements.
• Ensure work area is clean and well kept.

Knowledge, Skill, and Abilities Required

• (E) and/or a mental health setting or with emotionally disturbed individuals.
• (D) (Appropriate volunteer and internship experience and personal experience in the mental health system will be considered.)
• Eligibility for MHRS certificate.
• (D)
• Work independently and in a small team environment;
• (E)Engage and communicate effectively with others in both verbal and written English;
• (E)Monitor and support developmental growth and the recovery process;
• (E)Manage multiple tasks and demands;
• (E)Employ tact and diplomacy, exercise good judgment, and act calmly in emergency situations;
• (E)Work from a strengths-based, harm-reduction, social rehabilitation model;
• (E)Work effectively with persons of different value systems, ethnicity, cultural backgrounds, language capabilities and disabilities;
• (E)Work collaboratively with individuals identified as those with serious mental illness who meet the following criteria: histories of hospitalization, institutionalization, including with the criminal justice system, substance abuse, low engagement in medication treatment, and difficulty in participating in structured activities and living independently;
• (E)Work with populations identified as high risk and/or considered under-represented in the County Mental Health system with multiple barriers.
• (E) Exhibit exemplary customer service, compassion, and care in the execution of all duties and interactions.
• (E)Demonstrated ability to work with participants who:
• May also have histories of assaultive behavior;
• May have resided in long term care facilities for extended periods;
• May have patterns of service that relied almost exclusively on emergency and institutional care;
• May have cognitive difficulties and medical co-morbidities and are considered medically fragile; may also be developmentally disabled;
• May have long-term patterns of homelessness and criminal justice involvement.
• (E)Knowledge of:
• Clinical techniques for assessment, treatment, and rehabilitation of people with psychological disorders and associated medications;
• Problem resolution and conflict resolution techniques;
• Community resources, including those required to meet the non-mental health needs of the target population;
• Mental Health Services Act (MHSA) and Wellness Recovery Action Plan (WRAP).
• (D)
• Special Requirements:
• Must be able to meet and receive a criminal records clearance, as required by Title XXII, other licensing regulations and Momentum practices.
• Proven proficiency in typing—minimum 40 net wpm;
• Computer literacy, including Internet search and a basic proficiency level in Microsoft Office applications and Windows-based databases;
• Familiarity with UNIX-based databases.
• (E)Physical requirements needed to perform the essential functions of this job, with or without accommodation:
• Standing, walking, grasping, finger flexion, moving/lifting/carrying objects up to 40 lbs., bending, stooping, crouching, kneeling, withstanding repetitive motion, and reaching repeatedly are required constantly (over 2/3 of the workday);
• Hearing and talking on telephone and in person is required occasionally (under 1/3 of workday);
• Balancing, climbing and crawling may be required occasionally;
• Physically able to assist clients and/or staff in the evacuation of program facilities in emergency situations.