Summary
As part of the Skip-a-Long early learning team that develops young children into future leaders and our next generation of parents in our community, the Mental Health Therapist position role is to engage meaningfully to discover strengths, scaffold children and families to meet their needs and to highlight opportunities so children, parents and staff have increased social emotional capacity. The Mental Health Therapist position provides individual and family therapy, play based intervention and consultation to children and families, as well as, coaching and supporting Skip-a-Long early care and education staff as part of innovative programming to provide intentional interactions that support the emotional health and well-being of involved stakeholders. This multi-tiered therapeutic intervention model aligns with Trauma Informed Care, 40 Developmental Assets, and developmentally appropriate best practice models that are inclusive of complex and multi-stressed child and family needs through highly trained Mental Health Therapist. Collaborating, networking and linking with partners and agencies regarding resources that support children and families are essential to the overall health and success of the families. To ensure the highest quality of programming the Mental Health Therapist will be an integral part of comprehensive evaluation systems that will capture data to share with families, SAL Family and Community Services administration and Board of Directors, State of Illinois and local, regional, state and federal partners and stakeholders. This position reports to the Chief Program Officer.
Essential Duties and Responsibilities include the following. Other duties may be assigned.
Provides the following services to children and families including: classroom play based intervention, conducting classroom and face-to-face assessments; creating collaborative education and success plans; linking families with community resources; establishing diagnoses as necessary.
Applies developmentally appropriate therapeutic interventions, advanced psychosocial theory and methods to individuals, families, and staff with appropriate regard for the complexity of given problems.
Responsibilities encompass the provision of advanced evaluative, preventive, therapeutic, restorative and personal care services to assist in meeting the complex needs of children and their families, thus enabling them to better utilize internal and external resources in order to achieve their optimal level of change/well-being.
Provide support, education, coaching of SAL staff to address barriers in social and emotional learning and regulation.
Remains current with best practices, industry trends and provides internal and external direction within our Agency and with local, regional, state and federal agencies and stakeholders.
Lead the development and ongoing support of program evaluation framework to assess the strengths of the program and to identify areas for growth.
Establishes rapport and develops a therapeutic relationship with children and families.
Provides therapy services in individual, family, and group sessions along with classroom based interventions.
Provides crisis intervention and conflict resolution assistance and can differentiate between emergency and non-emergency tasks and responds accordingly.
Provides staff coaching, education and consulting on social and emotional topics that support the success of all children.
Maintains appropriate professional boundaries.
Works with Chief Program Officer for programmatic compliance to budget and other financial/enrollment/quality/outcome criteria.
Develop new initiatives to support the strategic direction of the organization.
Develop new and unique ways to improve the efficiency of program operations across the organization.
Participates in internal and external organization meetings and trainings as directed by the CEO
Obtains bio-psychosocial history information and identifies family's needs by interviewing the family members, reviewing available records, conferring with other professionals and contacting other information sources as necessary and appropriate.
Analysis and evaluation of child or family situation consistently reflects advanced competency in psychosocial assessment and diagnosis.
Assesses problems appropriately in terms of scope, consequences and needed interventions.
Communicates pertinent success plan information to SAL staff as needed.
Maintains an awareness of applicable laws, regulations and licensing requirements as they relate to client documentation.
Assumes accountability for providing appropriate documentation of all therapy/counseling sessions, significant incident occurrences, phone conversations, etc. consistent with applicable regulatory requirements.
Responsible for the maintenance of client files.
Assures all needed releases of information and other paperwork are present in the file and up-to-date.
Promptly requests new or additional information and paperwork as needed.
EEO Affirmative Action Statement:
It is the policy of SALFCS to provide equal employment opportunity (EEO) to all persons regardless of age, color, national origin, citizenship status, physical or mental disability, race, religion, creed, gender, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity and/or expression, genetic information, marital status, status with regard to public assistance, veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by federal, state or local law. In addition, SALFCS will provide reasonable accommodations for qualified individuals with disabilities.
Competencies
Social-Emotional Growth and Development - Understands children's capacity to form and sustain meaningful relationships; self-control and autonomy; communication and self-expression; learning and acquiring knowledge; and coping and resiliency. Understands developmental milestones and age appropriate practices as well as impact such development has on behavior.
Family and Community Relationships - Understands and recognizes the impact that family systems and different cultural, religious and social norms have on child behavior. Communicates and educates families and the community about early childhood mental health. Establishes partnerships with families and communities to drive successful outcomes for children.
Assessment - Demonstrates knowledge of early childhood mental health disorders, risk factors, and attachment issues and uses data and observation to develop appropriate plans for support. Knowledge of environmental rating scales.
Intervention - Develops age appropriate interventions that are sensitive to family culture, norms and beliefs. Understands that challenging behavior has environmental and developmental causes and is able to use this information to modify the environment, activities, and expectations to improve behavioral outcomes. Ability to adapt interventions as part of individual continuous quality improvement practices and to ensure child outcomes and success goals are met. Effective communication and documentation of intervention plans. Able to engage input and feedback from teaching staff, families, program staff and other key stakeholders into an effective intervention plan.
Multidisciplinary Collaboration - Ability to facilitate and participate in multidisciplinary team setting. Provides coaching and support to teaching staff, program guidance to program staff, and other input that will support the social-emotional needs of children and families. Ability to accept feedback and adapt practice based on multidisciplinary collaboration.
|