Social Work Director, Staten Island

The Center for Family Representation Inc. (CFR) is an award-winning, innovative law and policy organization that serves primarily Black and Brown families and youth in Queens, Manhattan, and the Bronx with an interdisciplinary legal defense model that serves more than 2400 clients every year. In 2024, CFR will expand our family defense practice to Richmond County. CFR was originally founded in 2002 to dramatically change the trajectory of indigent parents being prosecuted by the City’s Administration for Children’s Services (ACS). Our goal is to defend and protect our clients’ rights, reduce the harm of family separation and prevent or minimize the time any child spends in the foster system.

 CFR provides interdisciplinary family defense with a model that was unique at our founding and that is now being replicated nationally: we assign every client an attorney and a social work staff member, and teams have the support of parent advocates, who are parents with direct personal experience of being investigated and prosecuted by ACS. CFR was the first agency in the country to integrate parents with lived experience into legal teams and now has 76 parent advocates working in all three of our family defense locations. CFR’s Community Advocacy Project represents parents during a child protective investigation (to avoid court involvement where possible) and assists parents in clearing their names from state maltreatment records.

As an agency committed to securing justice for families, we built the Youth Defense practice (YDP) to defend youth at risk of family separation through incarceration. YDP uses the same interdisciplinary model to represent youth being prosecuted in Queens and Manhattan in Supreme Court Youth Parts, during Probation Adjustment and in Delinquency proceedings in Family Court. CFR’s Home for Good program provides legal and social work services to CFR clients in immigration, civil legal services and criminal defense matters, to afford clients an efficient and well-coordinated one-stop solution to a range of issues that threaten family stability. 

Recognized as experts in our fields, we annually train over 500 practitioners in the city, state and around the country on strategies to promote family preservation and interdisciplinary representation, and we provide community based “Know Your Rights” presentations to parents, youth and service providers. We advocate at the city, state and national level for policies that reduce the harm of family separation, and promote parent engagement and justice for youth and families.

Current opening: 

The Social Work Director for the Richmond County Family Defense Practice, in partnership with the Litigation Director for this practice, CFR’s other Directors and the Senior Leadership Team is responsible for the overall establishment and administration of the Richmond County Family Defense practice including strategic planning, orientation and ongoing training, leadership and active engagement with DEIB activities at CFR, supervision, practice administration, professional development processes, and problem solving in all areas of staff, program, and client management. This position reports directly to the Managing Director of Social Work. 

Responsibilities would include:

• Maintain Alignment with CFR’s Core Values and High Quality Client Centered Representation 
• Along with the Litigation Director for this practice, providing strategic guidance and day to day management of the Richmond County practice to ensure high quality representation, consistent practice, and quality assurance to achieve best practices;
• Commitment to Community and Relationship Building 
• Taking leadership in developing strategic relationships in the courthouse, with judges, ACS, and other court personnel and regularly interact with and make decisions regarding external stakeholders related to CFR’s work and our fiscal or policy positions related to those stakeholders;
• Attending and facilitating committee meetings with ACS, the Court and other stakeholders. 
• Robust Supervision and Support 
• Supervising social work staff members and Senior Staff and Supervisor (managers), by giving timely feedback, managing relationships between managers, accurately identifying and assessing areas of strengths and areas where supervisees need to grow. In consultation with Managing Director of Social Work, work to develop plans to promote that growth;
• Working with Executive Director, Managing Directors and other directors to support managers in learning the managerial role (i.e. including providing direct supervision, giving feedback, prioritizing growth into the managerial role, and development and addressing personnel issues in a timely matter);
• Helping managers and staff anticipate challenges, including ensuring adequate supervisory coverage in Richmond County and, whenever possible, assisting with coverage in other boroughs
• Directly facilitating and/or working with managers to facilitate social work group meetings, cross borough and/or other important meetings related to the Richmond County practice and CFR practice generally;
• Developing, monitoring, and troubleshooting office routines to ensure best practices;
• Working with CFR’s Training Supervisor to identify staff training needs, and participating in new and ongoing staff training;
• Shepherding progressive discipline where necessary, and ensuring necessary conversations and written communications are timely completed; this may include providing supervision and guidance to managers on writing and executing professional development reviews and performance improvement plans for Richmond County staff and making suggestions and recommendations as to the hiring, firing, advancement, promotion or any other change of status of other CFR staff;
• Collaborate with CFR’s wraparound and practice areas including early defense, immigration, and civil defense
• Social Work and Litigation Directors will be expected to manage a small caseload as necessary
• Work closely with the Parent Advocate Supervisor of Community Engagement to further promote and build our  relationships and create meaningful connections within the Richmond County community. 
• Administrative Responsibilities 
• Attend regular internal meetings with other members of management as necessary 
• Along with the Litigation Director, monitoring compliance with CFR’s telecommuting policy and all aspects of CFR’s personnel manual and collective bargaining agreement 
• Regularly reviewing monthly caseload reports and monitoring social work caseloads in CFR’s Case Management System (CMS); follow up, where necessary and appropriate, to promote objectives developed by the CMS committee, deliverables on government contracts, in particular CFR’s family defense contract
• Working with the Litigation Director to provide updated qualitative and quantitative reports for MOCJ on a quarterly basis and troubleshooting any programmatic issues that arise on MOCJ’s contract requirements;
• Maintaining a Healthy Working Environment and DEIB principles 
• Being mindful of the culture and morale of the Richmond County practice and agency culture, including issues around diversity, inclusion, equity, belonging and cultural competence;
• Encouraging and promoting a culture of teamwork among managers and staff;
• Practice Stewardship 
• In partnership with the Senior Leadership Team help guide the opening of the Richmond County Practice
• Participating in routine and regular management meetings to discuss Richmond County specific and agency-wide routines, concerns, policies, best practices, etc.;
• Delivering a variety of written and oral communications including practice resources, internal memos, and important messaging to staff about practice and administrative issues at staff meetings, via email, and on an individual basis;
• Working with CFR’s Senior Leadership Team and Social Work Directors to determine staffing for the practice;
• Where appropriate, providing assistance and guidance in the development of new practice areas and collaborating with CFR’s other practice areas that benefit family defense clients.

Location:  CFR is a primarily in-person workforce. This role is based in our Staten Island office. CFR has a generous telecommuting policy that allows staff the flexibility to work from home when there are no in-person client or organizational obligations. Directors should expect to be in person frequently as the practice grows. As CFR will be building out the Richmond County practice, staff may be asked to work out of a flex space while permanent office space is being built. 

Travel:  All Director level staff may be asked to provide temporary support to other boroughs if the organizational need arises. Travel to conferences and work events may also be required.

Qualifications

• Must have their LMSW or LCSW
• SIFI certification required
• At least 6 years of experience in Article 10/TPR family court proceedings.  
• Supervisory experience 
• Experience with administration, organizational or program development and training. 
• Strong interpersonal communication skills, demonstrated sensitivity to DEIB issues, teamwork skills and an aptitude for problem solving and management of staff. 

Ideal Candidates will also have: 

• A demonstrated commitment to CFR’s mission and core values 
• Experience with organizational or program development, training and ancillary proceedings (i.e. custody)
• Familiarity with Staten Island, the community, and available resources 
• Experience working alongside attorneys and system impacted advocates 
• Clear understanding of the disparities within the family policing system 
• A demonstrated commitment to building community partnerships
• Familiarity with relevant NYC and NYS stakeholders in the family policing space 

Deadline to apply: This application will close at 11:59pm on July 14, 2024.