Family Advocate Mentor

About The Centers 

The Centers fights for equity by healing, teaching, and inspiring individuals and families to reach their full potential. We provide health, family, and workforce services at 6 locations throughout Greater Cleveland, creating life-changing solutions for people to lead healthier and more successful lives. 

Our Early Learning Centers and programs provides high-quality care for children during the critical first 2,000 days of life by operating six high-quality early learning centers, serving children birth through five years old, in Cleveland and the inner-ring suburbs. Because of our high standards, all sites achieved a 5-Star rating on the Step-Up-To-Quality Rating and been recognized and selected to be part of Universal Prekindergarten (UPK) and PRE4CLE. 

We strive to be an equitable, anti-racist, and service-oriented workplace that pioneers and co-creates solutions while fostering an inclusive community where our team members thrive.  

The Benefits

Providing quality benefits to our staff is important to us. Just as important is our staff’s well-being. That’s why we offer a number of choices from medical to dental to vision plans to meet the different needs of our staff. We support our staff’s financial well-being by providing employer paid long-term disability, a very competitive defined contribution towards retirement and access to a financial advisor when you need it. We have nutrition and fitness coaches available for consultation. We also have a generous time off program as well as other benefits we can share with you based on your individual interests.

Job Summary

The Mentor Family Advocate acts as a bridge between families, the Center staff, service area personnel, and community resources. This role builds positive relationships with caregivers and offers high-quality, responsive direct services to support the well-being and success of each family member involved in the lives of children enrolled in the Early Learning program. The Advocate is responsible for facilitating Family and Community Partnerships and assisting with Program Governance, Eligibility, Recruitment, Selection, Enrollment, and Attendance activities.  The Mentor Family Advocate is assigned to support a specific Early Learning center and is an active member of the Family Support Team. Serves as a Mentor to Early Learning Family Advocates for Early Learning sites.

Job Qualifications

• BA/BS degree in Human Services or related field.
• Minimum of three years’ experience as a Family Advocate with The Centers for Families and Children.
• Completes 95% of pre-success plan assessments within the families first 90 days of enrollment
• Confirms that 75% of families demonstrated progress on goals as indicated and documented in the data management system
• Maintains program compliance of family referrals provided and documented in the data management system within 14 days of request
• Head Start approved credentials or certifications that support families a plus such as; Family Development Credential, Family Centered Coaching (2-Gen training), Trauma-Informed System of Care, other Family Development credentials, certifications will be considered
• Comfortable with the utilization of various technological platforms and data systems
• Able to work occasional evening / weekend hours.
• The ability to travel between sites independently.

Essential Job Duties & Responsibilities

• Acts as a resource to new employees during onboarding to assist with a seamless transition into the Family Advocate role, practices of the Early Learning program, and agency.
• Provide support and mentorship to Family Advocates by offering advice, feedback, and direction to help Family Advocates achieve their goals, be a positive role model, share their knowledge, experience, and wisdom, and act as an inspiration and motivation

• Establishes cooperative relationships with local businesses, agencies, and community organizations and completes and maintains up-to-date Community Partnership Agreements.
• Conducts home visits as needed to address attendance concerns, completion of enrollment, family services, and other paperwork.   

• Support families in making a smooth transition into programs; connect them with appropriate Link families enrolled in the Early Learning program to internal and external community resources; provide or make referrals according to need.
• Complete family pre-assessment within 90 days of enrollment and facilitate the Family Success Plan/ Family Partnership Agreement process. Assist parents in setting goals and checking status according to required timelines. 
• Lead monthly family engagement events with staff, families, and partner agencies such as Starting Point and UPK and submit parent planning documentation monthly.
• Recruits facilitate and document center volunteers and donations. Educate volunteers on the value of their participation in the Early Learning Program.
• Attends community meetings and events, creating linkages to community resources staff. Assist them with obtaining and maintaining publicly funded childcare benefits and navigating the Electronic Childcare system.
• Proactively recruit families to ensure funded enrollment goals are met at the site and throughout the agency; engage staff and parents for site-specific and organizational-wide efforts.
• Collaborates with Early Learning staff to ensure the site is ODJFS and SUTQ compliant.
• Attends agency-sponsored in-service training or seminars, training sessions, and meetings outside the agency as a method of gaining more experience and knowledge
• Collaborates with the Enrollment team to complete eligibility and enrollment documentation, which includes an eligibility checklist for each child/family file.

• Maintains complete and accurate client files and case notes, records child health information, and ensures all required documents and signatures are obtained promptly.
• Documents and tracks follow-up needs such as Family Partnership Goals, health, dental, nutrition, growth assessments, and hearing and vision concerns.

• Track and report accurate attendance daily to ensure attendance can be analyzed and reported monthly. Provide support to families to address attendance barriers for children with an average daily attendance rate below 85% and follow up on absences.
• Complete family contacts and all data entry and documentation associated with the family in the data management system in a timely manner
• Collaborate with site staff to maintain center compliance and submit all documentation to the service areas as needed in a timely manner.

Core Competencies

• Collaboration: Develops and maintains positive relationships with colleagues, families, and program participants
• Resilience and Adaptability: Must have the ability to work in a multi-disciplinary team within different environments.
• Verbal and Written Expression: Ability to communicate in straightforward language and to adjust one's use of language to the audience's level. Shares ideas and information across diverse audiences to drive business performance and effectiveness.
• Flexibility: Adapts effectively to change by accepting changes in processes readily and with an optimistic perspective of the resulting benefits.
• Integrity: Maintains confidentiality and meets own commitments.
• Collaborative Team Player: Work closely with other team members (external and internal) to provide comprehensive support and ensure a seamless client experience throughout the home attainment process.
• Develop Self & Others: Showing commitment to own development. Supporting and encouraging others to develop their knowledge, skills and behaviors to enable them to reach their full potential.

The Centers is an Equal Opportunity Employer and all qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to age, race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, national origin, disability status, protected veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by law.