Social Worker or Mental Health Counselor: Full Time Elementary School

The hiring organization has chosen to publish this listing anonymously to maintain confidentiality during the hiring process. They have provided Idealist with all of their organization’s details and currently meet our posting guidelines.

About St. Nicks Alliance

St. Nicks Alliance is a nonprofit, nonsectarian community-based organization founded in 1975 with the mission to transform lives of low- and moderate-income people through employment, education, housing, and health care. We deliver impactful services with measurable outcomes to children, youth, adults, and the elderly. As a civic anchor, we carry out this mission within the context of building a sustainable community for all people through the arts, environmental advocacy, and urban planning.

Established in 1994, St. Nicks Alliance’s Youth and Education serves more than 6,000 North Brooklyn youth each year. Through a wide-range of services, children and youth are empowered to successfully advance through the stages of education and into young adulthood with the core competencies to thrive. In partnership with schools, families and community, St. Nicks Alliance’s holistic approach to transformation combines youth development, academic enrichment, health and wellness, arts learning and post-secondary readiness. St. Nicks Alliance’s School Success Model introduces transformational practices to our afterschool centers with the goal of fostering long-term school success through literacy immersion, socioemotional and behavioral supports.

About the Opportunity

Youth and Education is seeking a full-time Social Worker to support two St. Nicks Alliance afterschool centers and elementary school partners in North Brooklyn. St. Nicks Alliance social workers help children and their families achieve short and long-term transformational change. At each school, the social worker works alongside one or two full-time and 10 or more part-time staff, and school personnel to provide a holistic approach to the child’s success. We offer interventions including: direct counseling, crisis intervention; socio-emotional enrichment, advocacy, and family support to gain employment, affordable housing and necessary referrals.

Under the guidance of a Clinical Supervisor, the social worker will manage a caseload of approximately 25-35 children, providing both 1:1 counseling services and small group interventions using a variety of age-appropriate methods to meet and respond to the social, emotional and mental health needs of students. The social worker is an important contributor to refining St. Nicks Alliance’s transformational policies and procedures as well as using data to drive transformational services.

Essential Duties and Responsibilities

Development

• Maintain a caseload of 25-35 participants providing individual and group crisis intervention and case management services
• Develop focused, achievable individual service plans that outline short- and long-term goals
• Conduct needs assessment of youth and prioritize objectives
• Provide one-on-one coaching sessions that guide youth through stages of transformation and socio-emotional development.
• Identify and provide internal/external referrals to families as needed, providing regular follow-ups.
• Coordinate and facilitate groups designed to address youth challenges and lead to self-understanding and change
• Support Group Leaders with behavior management techniques and strategies to assist students in a group setting

Outreach and Collaboration

• Build strong relationships and collaborations with participants, families, St. Nicks Alliance staff, School Leadership, and external institutions (school, social service, mental health providers, etc.)
• Meet with Principal/School Leadership, Director and Assistant Director for case review once a month
• Serve as a Mandated reporter and follow the chain of command for reporting suspected cases of abuse or neglect
• Provide ongoing supportive counseling and/or crisis intervention to students and their families, as needed
• Partner with internal resources as well as external campus agencies for increased access to comprehensive mental health services
• Attend regular community school and staff meetings to foster relationship building, collaboration

Administration

• Utilize organization’s ETO system: maintain case records, track inputs/student progress and data integrity (data accuracy, timeliness of entry into the data system, and completeness)
• Use performance data to continually improve service to youth and progress toward intended outcomes
• Ensure compliance with the requirements of various funding sources
• Conduct quarterly SEL assessments by the required benchmarks
• Attend all Division wide Leadership Meetings

Must Have Core Competencies, Knowledge, Skills and Education

• Excellent Relationship Building, Effective Communication and Teamwork skills
• Advanced Training and Experience in counseling elementary school youth, as evidenced by a Master’s level degree in Social Work, Psychology, Mental Health Counseling, Guidance Counseling or related field
• Sound understanding of diverse therapeutic and trauma-informed practices
• Demonstrated ability to partner with families

Preferred Attributes

• Experience with or interest in group facilitation and lesson planning
• School-based experience
• Ability to work some evenings and weekends
• Bilingual (Spanish-English) preferred

How to Apply

Please submit a resume and tailored cover letter to youthresumes@stnicksalliance.org with “Elementary School Social Worker” in the subject line.