Family Support Specialist

Essential Duties and Responsibilities

• Supports the organization’s mission and goals and quality standards.
• Incorporates KANA’s core values of Courtesy, Caring, Respect, Sharing, and Pride in all activities and decisions.
• Upholds KANA’s Code of Ethics by conducting professional activities with honesty, integrity, respect, fairness, and good faith in a manner that reflects positively upon the organization.
• Provides advocacy services, case management, and preventative intervention services to at-risk families, abused children, and victims of domestic violence and sexual assault in coordination with other community agencies.
• Affords assistance and referrals to clients, as necessary, during crisis and works toward stabilization; assists clients in the development of immediate, short-term, and long-term goals; provides service coordination and aid in navigating agencies.
• Encourages the formation and maintenance of strong families and parents’ ability to care for children in their own homes by educating and empowering parents to be the best parent they can be through home visiting services and other evidence-based strategies.
• Instructs parents individually or in groups in behavior modification, physical development, language development, and conceptual learning exercises and activities.
• Supervises visits between children in out-of-home care and their families as needed in collaboration with the Tribes and OCS.
• Guides clients in recovery and goal setting, and assists them with identifying personal strengths.
• Provides coaching to clients on resolving problems that may arise during recovery and self-sufficiency.
• Provides clients with short-term crisis intervention and stabilization, and support clients with establishing long-term self-sufficiency plans.
• Administers relevant developmental, health, and mental health screenings to at-risk families, non-offending caregivers, abused children, and victims of domestic violence.
• Initiates and maintains positive working relationships and regular communications with clients and other agencies.
• Identifies gaps in service delivery and develops corrective action plans as needed, or makes referrals for and coordinates with wrap-around services.
• Maintains contact with agency partners through releases of information (ROIs) from clients. Verifies participation in other programs necessary for client recovery and self-sufficiency, such as behavioral health, substance use, housing, community services, among other resources.
• Provides intensive case management support to program clients in the form of regular face-to-face meetings, phone conferences, or video conferences.
• Administers required assessments, intake forms, and other forms as required by the program.
• Attends and participates in all relevant and regular case coordination meetings and conference reviews, participates in case meetings when needed to review case progress, client strengths, barriers, and needs as well as impediments to safety or self-sufficiency.
• Responsible for establishing and maintaining accurate program files on site. Enters all visit records in online data system.
• Maintains current casefiles and reports on each client, including agency and grant-required information.
• Prepares and submits reports, monthly program narratives, and all other required paperwork as assigned by supervisor.
• Remains current on available resources in the Kodiak community and statewide for clients.
• Attends relevant and mandatory trainings and meetings in order to more effectively adhere to grant requirements, keep abreast of grant policies, procedures and law and regulation changes, and gain knowledge in ways to improve current advocacy and victim service programs.
• Travels as needed to the villages to provide victim and programmatic outreach to communities.

Requirements

• Associate’s degree and two years related experience working in social services, human services, or community relations work involving families and youth, client interaction, referral services, and case management; or equivalent combination of education and experience.