Family Peer Advocate

Make a bigger difference

At The Jewish Board, we don’t just make a difference – we make a bigger difference as we serve 45,000 New Yorkers every year. Join our dedicated team that’s been helping communities across New York City for almost 150 years and see just how big of a difference you can make.

Reasons you’ll love working with us:

• If you have a particular age range or population you’re interested in working with, you can find your niche here.  Our clients and staff are as diverse as the city we work in, and include people of all cultures, religions, races, gender expressions, and sexual orientations.

• We’re committed to supporting your career development by encouraging mobility and advancement across different program types and jobs. 

• With 70 locations throughout the five boroughs, you can work close to where you live. 

• Generous vacation time and 15 paid holidays will help you achieve a healthy work/life balance. 

• We offer an excellent benefits package with affordable, high-quality health and dental insurance with low co-pays. 

• You’ll receive ongoing support through high-quality supervision, specialized trainings from our Continuing Education team, and an education benefit. 

How you can make a bigger difference: 

The Jewish Board’s Community Behavioral Health treatment programs provide compassionate, high quality, evidence-based services to individuals and families in the communities we serve.  Our staff uses a culturally competent, person centered approach to help individuals and their families develop skills and resources to improve overall functioning, to instill hope, and to strengthen resiliency.  Our programs work closely with community partners to address health disparities in our neighborhoods while also celebrating the strengths and resilience of our communities.

POSITION OVERVIEW:

Family Peer Advocate works as part of a multi-disciplinary team to provide treatment and support services to families and children, ages 10 to 21, who have significant behavioral health needs and who are at risk of entering, or returning home from high end services, such as inpatient settings or residential services.  The role involves providing highly-individualized services focused on clinical treatment, family psychoeducation and skills development.  The Family Peer Advocate provides services to youth and families in their homes and communities and collaborates closely with other service providers and systems with which the family interacts.  The role will require some evening availability and rotating on-call coverage. 

KEY ESSENTIAL FUNCTIONS (List the functions that are key to achieve the goals):

• Provide advocacy with providers across the child serving system to raise awareness, reduce stigma, engage families in and coordinate services.
• Educate about self-help techniques and self-help group processes.
• Provide psychoeducation to family members, caregivers or social supports
• Providing individual or group parent skill development related to the behavioral health needs of the child/youth
• Teach effective coping strategies based on personal experience and assist in the development of community support systems and networks
• Support families, parents/caregivers in developing skills to effectively manage their child/youth behaviors and navigate the multiple systems involved
• Work to identify formal services and informal resources for families that are culturally affirming who are experiencing social-emotional, behavioral, or mental health challenges.
• Assist families with identifying the challenges they face, their strengths and areas of improvement/goals
• Monitor and document family progress to track progress in accordance with agency and regulatory bodies policies.
• Collaborate with care providers and community supports to help families track their progress towards meeting their goals.
• Participate in multi-disciplinary team meetings, staff meetings, trainings, and supervision.
• Maintain all documentation according to the standards and time frames established by the Jewish Board,  regulatory agencies and/or funding sources
• Maintain professional behaviors and ethical standards as established by licensing board, relevant professional association and the Jewish Board policies and procedures.
• Using an electronic database, document demographic data on all individuals seen, document and track family’s goals, and all services provided to parent/caregiver; participates in quality improvement activities.
• Perform these services in the family’s home, youth’s home, community, office
• Any additional duties assigned.
• Other duties as assigned

ADDITIONAL FUNCTIONS MAY INCLUDE (List additional functions needed to reach goals):

Since this is an evolving program, other tasks and duties may be assigned

EDUCATIONAL /TRAINING REQUIRED:  

• High School Diploma or Equivalency
• Certified Family Peer Advocate Certificate
• Specialty credentialing in advocacy – can be obtained during probationary period
• Lived experience in parenting a child or adolescent with a serious emotional disturbance and/or lived experience of mental health challenges.
• Demonstrates qualities of leadership, including knowledge of advocacy, and can positively reflect on and share his/her experiences with others
• Strong written and verbal communication skills
• Proficiency in Microsoft Office products (Word, Excel, PowerPoint)
• Work flexible hours, as required
• Bilingual and bicultural candidates are encouraged to apply
• Candidates possessing exceptional skill but not all of the qualifications are also encouraged to apply
• Has completed or is currently completing the accreditation process to be a certified youth peer advocate.

COMPUTER SKILLS REQUIRED:

Prior experience with electronic health records and Microsoft Office

VISUAL AND MANUAL DEXTERITY:

The candidate should be able to read paper and electronic documents and perform significant data entry into various computer programs.  Manual dexterity and hand-eye coordination to travel independently using public transportation.

WORK ENVIRONMENT / PHYSICAL EFFORT:

•  Services are provided in the community and the office
• While the offices of the Jewish Board are accessible in accordance with the ADA, the sites to which staff may need to travel may or may not be
• To perform the essential functions of this job the candidate must be able to travel within New York City carrying equipment such as a notebook, forms, laptop, mobile hotspot and cell phone weighing up to approximately 10 pounds.
• To perform the essential functions of this job, the candidate is routinely required to sit (60% of the time) and stand (20% of the time), and travel to and from appointments using public or private transportation options (20% of the time).
• Risks/hazards associated with the position are those which may be encountered traveling around New York City.

If you join us, you’ll have these great benefits:

• Generous vacation time, in addition to paid agency holidays and 15 sick days
• Affordable and high-quality medical/dental/vision plans 
• Tuition assistance and educational loan forgiveness
• Free continuing education opportunities 
• 403(b) retirement benefits and a pension
• Flexible spending accounts for health and transportation 
• 24/7 Accessible Employee Assistance Program  
• Life and disability insurance 
• Diversity, equity, and inclusion working groups that are available for you to join, including Confronting Structural Racism (COR), Coalition Against Anti-Semitism (CAAS), and the LGBTQ Steering Committee 

Who we are:

The Jewish Board delivers innovative, high-quality, and compassionate mental health and social services to over 45,000 New Yorkers each year. We are unique in serving everyone from infants and their families to children, teens, and adults. We are proud to employ and serve people of all religions, races, cultural backgrounds, gender expressions, and sexual orientations. We are committed to building diverse, equitable, and inclusive teams to help support our mission, and we strongly encourage candidates from historically marginalized backgrounds to apply to work with us. 

More on Equal Opportunity:

We respect diversity and accordingly are an equal opportunity employer that does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, creed, religion, national origin, alienage, citizenship status, age, disability, sex, gender, gender identity or expression (including transgender status), sexual orientation, marital status, partnership status, veteran status, genetic information, or any other status protected by applicable federal, state, or local law.

This applies with respect to recruiting, hiring, placement, promotion, transfer, training, compensation, termination, assignments, benefits, employee activities, access to facilities and programs, and all other terms and condition of employment as well as general treatment during employment.

 We will endeavor to make a reasonable accommodation to the known physical or mental limitations of qualified employees with disabilities, without regard to any protected classifications, unless the accommodation would impose an undue hardship on the operation of our business. Any employees who need assistance to perform their job duties because of a physical or mental condition should contact human resources.