Senior Program Manager (Closes 7/12/2026)

About the role

The Office of Community Justice and Safety (OCJS) at the Allegheny County Department of Human Services (ACDHS) advances public health and community-centered approaches to safety through behavioral health crisis response, diversion, violence prevention, reentry, and systems coordination. OCJS works across healthcare, behavioral health, homeless services, jail, courts, public safety, and community partners to improve outcomes for individuals with complex needs and reduce unnecessary justice system involvement.

Responsibilities

• Provide operational oversight and supervision for SST, including direct supervision of social work staff and coordination with clinical partners.
• Oversee workflows, field operations, safety practices, documentation, referrals, and multidisciplinary case coordination.
• Support staff in delivering harm reduction, trauma-informed outreach, engagement, crisis intervention, and care coordination.
• Aid in addressing complex participant needs involving behavioral health, medical care, housing instability, hospitalization, and justice system involvement.
• Strengthen coordination across hospitals, behavioral health providers, homeless services, emergency responders, and other partners.
• Support pilot implementation, operational refinement, and sustainability planning, including development of billing and financing strategies.
• Collaborate with the Behavioral Health Managed Care Organization and ACDHS Office of Behavioral Health to develop sustainable payment models.
• Support assessment of ACDHS capacity to operate select community-based direct services internally.
• Lead cross-system initiatives to improve behavioral health crisis prevention and response, diversion, and community stabilization, including identification and prioritization of system gaps and opportunities.
• Serve as OCJS lead for selected crisis response initiatives, including defining scope, setting agendas, driving workplans, and ensuring follow-through across stakeholders.
• Facilitate and manage cross-system implementation efforts involving healthcare systems, behavioral health providers, homeless services, emergency responders, and other partners.
• Translate system gaps into structured action plans, including clear priorities, roles, timelines, and deliverables across partners.
• Establish and maintain strong project management discipline across initiatives, including meeting design, agenda setting, documentation of decisions, assignment of action items, and follow-up to ensure completion.
• Monitor implementation progress and proactively hold internal and external partners accountable for agreed-upon actions, timelines, and commitments.
• Identify barriers to system integration across crisis and outreach services and drive resolution through structured problem-solving and stakeholder engagement.
• Ensure lessons learned from SST operations are systematically incorporated into crisis system design, policy, and implementation strategies.
• Use SST and broader crisis system operations as primary sources of implementation learning to improve practice, workflows, and system design.
• Identify recurring operational breakdowns (e.g., coordination gaps, handoffs, engagement barriers) and convert them into actionable improvements.
• Support development and refinement of implementation tools, workflows, and operational guides to improve consistency across partners.
• Track implementation progress and service patterns in partnership with ACDHS analysts, ensuring operational realities are clearly reflected in system improvement efforts.
• Produce clear, concise, action-oriented summaries for leadership and partners, emphasizing decisions made, outstanding issues, and required next steps.
• Support continuous improvement of cross-system coordination by ensuring feedback loops between frontline SST operations and system-level initiatives.
• Build and maintain relationships across behavioral health, healthcare, homeless services, emergency response, law enforcement, and community partners.
• Serve as liaison between ACDHS and external partners supporting crisis response and SST.
• Facilitate cross-system meetings and implementation workgroups.
• Engage individuals with lived experience in system improvement efforts.
• Represent ACDHS/OCJS in countywide planning and external forums.

Requirements

• Master’s degree in social work, counseling, psychology, public health, nursing, healthcare administration, or related field preferred.
• Minimum 7 years of experience in behavioral health, crisis response, homelessness services, healthcare, or related systems.
• Experience supervising staff or leading complex cross-system initiatives.
• Strong understanding of behavioral health crisis systems, homelessness services, harm reduction, and trauma-informed care.
• Demonstrated ability to collaborate across healthcare, behavioral health, homeless services, and public systems.
• Strong operational problem-solving, communication, and organizational skills.
• Commitment to equity, inclusion, and stigma reduction.