Family Peer Advocate – Children’s Mobile Crisis Team

About ABC

Association to Benefit Children (ABC) is dedicated to bringing joy and warmth to disadvantaged children and their families through compassionate, sustainable, comprehensive and integrated services, designed to permanently break the cycles of abuse, neglect, sickness and homelessness. ABC’s humane and innovative programs include early childhood education, health care services, housing assistance, mental health services, family preservation, crisis intervention, recreational services, job training and employment assistance, therapeutic after school and summer day camp programs, mentoring and legal advocacy.

About CMCT

ABC’s Children and Adolescents Mobile Crisis Team (CMCT) provides short-term crisis response, assessment, and coordination of care to children and adolescents aged 0-17 residing and/or attending school in Manhattan. The team, which includes both mental health professionals and family advocates, diffuses behavioral and mental health crisis situations and helps link children/adolescents and their families to community services, often as an alternative to emergency room use and hospitalization. The Family Advocate on the team provides a critical role of engagement and rapport building, with parents in particular.

Job description:

• The Family Advocate will accompany the crisis clinician on all crisis visits to both homes and schools, with the focus on engaging the parent and providing education and support while the clinician attends to the assessment of the child.

• Assist with crisis de-escalation and any necessary transports to the hospital and/or interactions with emergency services.

• Identify and address any barriers to connecting to appropriate services and helping the family to address any reluctance related to stigma, as well as concrete barriers.

• Participate in multidisciplinary team to support youth and the care coordination process.

• Assist families with identifying needs, strengths, and challenges.

• Monitor family progress while crisis is stabilized

• Serve as a connector between families and service providers, promote a productive and respectful partnership by assisting the families to express their strengths, needs and goals

• Empowering families to express their fears, expectations and anxieties to promote positive effective communication

• Ensuring that family members inform all planning and decision-making

• Sharing information about resources, services and supports and exploring what might be appropriate for their child and family

Job Requirements:

• The Family Advocate will ideally have personal or “lived” experience of parenting a child with serious behavioral/emotional problems, including the experience of interacting with the child mental health system.

• The ideal candidate would also be a team player, and be comfortable managing stressful situations.

• Good communication skills and able to complete documentation.

• Bilingual Spanish/English REQUIRED.

• An Associate or Bachelor’s Degree in a human service field is preferred but not required.

• Previous experience in social work, mental health, and/ or experience as a trainer/educator is preferred.

• FULL TIME , WORK 35 HOURS A WEEK AND Ability to cover on call shift one weekend every 5 weeks

Family Advocate will enjoy a friendly, supportive, and flexible work environment. Excellent clinical training opportunities, generous benefit package.

EOE.

Provide cover letter and resume.

Job Type: Full-time

COVID-19 considerations:
All ABC employees required to be vaccinated against COVID-19. Medical/religious exemptions allowed.

Posted On: November 2, 2023