Child First Care Coordinator

The Child First Care Coordinator partners with a licensed Mental Health and Developmental Clinician to engage families who are referred to the Child First home-based intervention.  The Care Coordinator plays a crucial role in stabilizing the entire family system, while the Clinician provides psychotherapeutic caregiver-child intervention to facilitate and enhance this critical relationship.  Working together, the assigned Care Coordinator and Clinician make up one of up to three teams who report to the Child First Clinical Director at Mid-Fairfield Community Care Center. The Care Coordinator takes the lead in connecting the child and family with desired, community-based services and supports while maintaining Child First’s reflective, relationship-based stance.  The Care Coordinator also enhances caregiver executive functioning skills (e.g., planning, organizing, managing time, focusing attention, regulating emotions, reflecting on progress) and engages in interactive play with young children in the home.  Ultimately, through connecting to family resources, the Care Coordinator both decreases the “toxic” stress in the home environment and enhances opportunities for optimal child development, thereby promoting healthy brain development for infants and young children.

PRINCIPAL RESPONSIBILITIES

- Provide community resource expertise to Child First team and families, including identifying and collaborating with community-based service providers and supports.

- Engage with the Child First family and the Clinician in the collaborative family assessment process (i.e., use data from interviews, observations, interactions, and standardized measures to identify family strengths, needs, and challenges).

- Promote family stabilization by identifying all needed and desired services, integrating service needs into the Child and Family Plan of Care, and addressing barriers to services as they arise.

- Avert crisis situations by assisting Child First family in times of urgent need (e.g., eviction).

- Enhance caregiver executive functioning skills (e.g., planning, organizing, managing time, focusing attention, regulating emotions, reflecting on progress) as needed and in consultation with the Clinician and Clinical Director.

- Maintain a reflective lens when engaging with the caregiver, in order to understand his/her motivation, needs, and possible barriers to new services and supports.

- Collaborate closely with Child First Clinician to meet the needs of Child First families.

- Embrace use of videotaping to enhance both therapeutic work with families and reflective clinical supervision.

- Provide identified child and/or other children in the family with an interactive, growth-promoting play experience.

- Engage in weekly individual, Team, and group reflective clinical supervision with Clinical Director.

- Engage actively in all aspects of the Child First Learning Collaborative, including in-person trainings, distance learning curriculum, and specialty trainings.

- Track completion of all assessments and enter into the appropriate database.

- Keep all appropriate documentation for clinical accountability and reimbursement.

- Participate in other clinical and administrative activities as appropriate.

COMPETENCIES

Diversity and Inclusion
Employees must make every effort to:

- Treat others with respect

- Practice cultural humility

- Elicit and welcome different points of view

Integrity
Act ethically with honesty and consistency regardless of the situation.  Employees must make every effort to:

- Be accountable for his or her own actions

- Make decisions based on what is better for the families and employees

- Build and maintain trust among co-workers and our families

- Uphold honesty in all actions

Excellence
Commitment to deliver outstanding practice in both managing the organization, service delivery, and collaborating with partners. Employees must make every effort to:

- Utilize data and research to provide the highest quality of care

- Regularly participate in professional development to stay abreast of most recent and progressive practices

- Promote continuous quality assessment and improvement

Communication
The ability to express oneself clearly and professionally both in writing, conversations, and in nonverbal communication with others.  Employees must make every effort to:

- Oral Communication

- Speak clearly and in an organized manner that can be easily understood

- Express ideas concisely and respectfully

- Summarize or paraphrase his/her understanding of what others have said to verify understanding and prevent miscommunication

- Hold herself or himself accountable for pitch, speed, tone and volume of voice while speaking

- Show understanding of professional and cultural implications of body posture, stance, gestures, proximity to listener, facial expressions and appearance

- Written Communication

- Write clear and concise sentences devoid of grammatical and spelling errors

- Tailor writing style to the audience of the message

- Write in a respectful and tactful manner

REPORTING RELATIONSHIP

This position reports to the supervisor named in the letter of appointment and is accountable to this supervisor for the performance of all professional activities at Mid Fairfield Community Care Center.

Qualifications

QUALIFICATIONS

- Bachelor’s degree in child development, psychology, nursing, human services, or related field.

- A minimum of three years working with culturally diverse families and young children under the age of six years.

- Openness to learning, capacity for self-reflection, and eagerness to participate in reflective clinical supervision.

- Knowledge of early childhood development, parent education, parent-child relationships, and

- individual, family, and community-level risk factors (e.g., poverty, homelessness, maternal depression, domestic violence, substance abuse, teen parenthood).

- Knowledge of and experience with community-based services and supports in service area, highly valued.

- Experience working in home and community-based settings with vulnerable populations of

- diverse cultures and ethnicities.

- Able to speak a second language (Spanish, Portuguese, Creole, other), highly valued.

- Strong commitment to the vision, mission, and goals of Child First.

- Highly organized, self-motivated, reliable, and flexible (including willingness to work non- traditional hours, including at least two evenings).

- Eager and able to work as part of a team.

- Able to communicate well verbally and in writing.

- Comfortable with computers and experienced with Word and Excel.

- Reliable vehicle and appropriate insurance for home visits.

SKILLS

- Proven ability to follow program and agency, protocols as well as making independent decisions that are in the best interest of the families while working both in the office and in the field.

- Strong service need assessment skills of an acute population.

- Comfortable working in a fast-paced environment within a multi-disciplinary team.

- Proven ability to communicate with families as well as with other providers such as school social workers, teachers and other community partners among others.

- Demonstrated ability to maintain healthy boundaries between personal and professional responsibilities to be able to function in a high stress job.

- Proven ability to manage conflict appropriately and advocate for victims of violence .

- Flexibility and availability to manage time and accommodate scheduling needs of families on caseload (including willingness to work two evenings per week until 7:00 PM).

- Ability to build collaborative working relationships with team partner, program staff, and supervisor.

- Family Engagement

Knowledge of person-centered care

- Appropriate guidance and facilitation skills for families in the context of their culture, health status, and health needs

- Technical

Knowledge of basic group skills

- Basic negotiation skills

- Ability to delegate tasks, responsibilities, etc.

- Excellent time management skills