Social Service Specialist - Adoption / Harrison Co

About The Agency

The Mississippi Department of Child Protection Services has a position available for a Frontline Social Service Specialist position within Wellbeing/Permanency, Adoption, Licensure and Safety Units. The Mississippi Department of Child Protection Services (MDCPS) is committed to protecting and nurturing Mississippi's at-risk children and families. MDCPS offers a variety of positions statewide, including social work positions providing case management services and working with potential foster families, supervisor positions providing clinical and administrative support, and agency support positions such as policy development, human resources, information technology, program management, training, and budgeting/finance.

About The Position

• Create and maintain case files for children in care; document in MDCPS online database program;
• Visit children in care in foster homes, facilities and hospitals;
• Complete investigations of abuse, neglect for exploitation;
• Complete ongoing safety and risk assessments;
• Participate in scheduled county conferences/meetings for assigned children-in-care;
• Make referrals for children-in-care to receive services including dental, vision and medical;
• Transport children-in-care to appointments and destinations;
• Arrange for visitation with siblings and parents;
• Attend staff meetings with supervisor (normally) and all-staff meetings;
• Absorb with new hires by being "shadow buddies";
• Make copies of documents for case files;
• On-call for after-hours situation (rotating responsibility with other staff members);
• Attend court for hearings;
• Attend conferences and training to maintain continuing education hours;
• Communicate with families, service providers, parents, foster parents and the public;
• Schedule and attend Family Team Meetings.

Well-being/Permanency

• Receive investigation assignments and conduct historical checks of records to determine if individuals in the reports have had prior agency involvement,
• Recognize signs and symptoms of child maltreatment (Abuse, Neglect, Exploitation),
• Investigate reports of child maltreatment (Abuse, Neglect, Exploitation) of children that are reported through the Mississippi Centralized Intake and Assessment including human trafficking, maltreatment in care, and child fatalities through conducting home visits, visits to other settings where children/families live and other structured interviews,
• Conduct safety and risk assessments to determine safety of children and make ethical and fact-based recommendations for continuation of services.

Adoption

• Recruit adoptive families for special needs children in need of placements;
• Aid children whose primary permanency goal has been changed to adoption and/or who are legally free for adoption;
• Prepare the child and birth family (if known) for the adoption process;
• Facilitate Adoption Status Meetings to review the progress toward achieving adoption;
• Complete a Family Assessment and Preparation Process on the foster parents who have applied to adopt a particular child;
• Aid the foster family in determining their readiness to adopt;
• Present child at regional, multi-regional and statewide Placement Committee Meetings;
• If child is in therapeutic or residential setting, aid with step-down placements into therapeutic foster/adoptive family;
• Present information about the child to the potential adoptive family;
• Coordinate and assess pre-placement visits between the child and the potential adoptive family;
• Facilitate the placement of a child with the adoptive family and obtain required placement documents;
• Provide supervision of adoptive placements and document each visit in MDCPS online database program;
• Aid the adoptive parents in completing the appropriate Adoption Assistance forms;
• Aid adoptive families in obtaining "The incumbents receive training related to job content, and must pass a comprehensive test prior to continued employment and/or advancement." post-adoption services (if needed);
• Aid in finalization of ICPC adoptions and link families to post-adoptive services (if needed);
• Create and maintain case files for adoptive families.