Performance & Partnership Directors in support of California Behavioral Health Services

Mental health, homelessness and social exclusion – performance management and contract improvement to empower outcomes

If you would be excited to put prior experience in leading/managing services targeting vulnerable communities, building high performance across systems, and growing service provider capacity, all with the objective of driving real and meaningful outcomes for service users, then please read on.

Performance & Partnership Directors

USA, West Coast or ability to travel there regularly

$175,000 p.a., plus benefits

The Healthy Brains Global Initiative (HBGI) (www.hbgi.org) transforms and builds high-performing mental health services and systems that maximize outcomes for individuals and their communities.

We work globally to provide hands-on technical support across sectors, in contracting (with an emphasis on outcomes), performance management, and user-centered service design. We are gaining traction in our work across multiple continents and have a growing team. We are inviting applications from exceptional people to join us as Performance & Partnership Directors, in support of our US portfolio.

We are currently working with the State of California and a number of California counties to strengthen accountability and user outcomes across their mental health systems; working with them to develop robust and transparent performance management and unlock change in service delivery. Our Performance & Partnership Directors will meet the growing demand for this work. You will also potentially support some services to design and transition to outcomes-based contracts.

Our approach entails reviewing existing processes and practices (both for the service providers and the government), and co-creating with all the stakeholders new tools and processes to drive a step change in performance (i.e. more and better outcomes for individuals accessing programs or at risk of poor mental health). We then support the mobilization of these new ways of working, building long-term capacity across the system. It is a change management process, with an unwavering focus on performance and collaborative leadership.

Successful candidates will have exciting experience of leading high-performing services targeting highly vulnerable communities and of delivering real and meaningful outcomes for the people on these services. This experience may have been gained in the USA or elsewhere. The services will probably but not necessarily have been related to mental health and / or homelessness.

We are looking for candidates who have:

1. Experience of instigating and managing change (to improve performance), winning the support of possibly resistant stakeholders to do so.
2. Significant leadership experience, with hands-on management of teams carrying caseloads, including addressing underperformance.
3. Strong analytical skills and ability to communicate findings. You will know how to interrogate data to better understand service user progress and outcomes, communicate the implications for service improvement and ultimately use the data to effect change.

You will be a restless champion for the needs of service users and the outcomes that matter to them. You are constantly searching for ways to deliver greater impact, refusing to be constrained by broken systems. You will inspire people around you and have the gravitas to hold the attention of a room.

At HBGI, you will provide Technical Assistance across a range of existing and potentially new services / contracts. You will need to lead with agility and take accountability for ensuring the performance of each program you support. You will work with an Analyst, to help chase down and interpret the data. You will be supported in this by our Director of Technical Assistance, our CEO and our Chief Medical Offer.

We approach our work collaboratively and with humility, respecting everyone around us and their wellbeing. We actively seek out diversity across our team because it makes us – and our own performance – stronger. Many of our current team and Board have lived experience of mental health conditions and our Lived Experience Council is an integral part of HBGI.

For full details of the role and how to reply, please read on below or visit https://www.hbgi.org/join-our-team/

We expect positions to be filled from Jan ’25 and thereon during 2025. All employment contracts are contingent upon HBGI contracts with the State/Counties being in place.

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Full Job Specification

Candidate profile

HBGI is looking for the following background, experience, skills and personal culture:

• A strong operational and delivery background, with direct experience of managing the performance of frontline services, delivered to underserved or marginalized communities. You will really understand the ‘nuts and bolts’ of service delivery (and we don’t mean compliance), but how they work for users.
• Strong analytical skills, able to understand and interpret programmatic data and a solid working understanding of what is meant by ‘performance’ in our context (i.e. maximizing user outcomes). Clear experience of driving and improving performance, and remedying underperformance.
• The ability and confidence to present sometimes complex data in a clear and simplified way, to a wide-ranging audience.
• The ability to understand budgets, and the relationship between expenditure and outcomes.
• An unwavering commitment to the outcomes of the clients over fidelity to any particular service model. We will expect clearly articulated thoughts or experiences on how to represent client outcomes in the performance of the service providers.
• Creativity and flexibility, not bureaucratic or limited to following processes, but able to develop innovations that will deliver higher performance.
• Exceptional interpersonal and diplomatic skills, able to build the necessary relationships with providers and government, supporting and challenging as required.
• Experience engaging and learning from a wide variety of stakeholders including service users and their families, peers, advocates and community partners.
• Intellectual curiosity, not convinced that you have all the answers and wanting to learn more about performance management and outcomes-based contracting.
• Possibly training and certification in Project Management, Lean, Agile, Continuous Improvement and related topics. However, we value above all the ability to demonstrate the practical (and flexible) application of these sorts of principles rather than paper qualifications.

We don’t expect you to be the finished article; we will support your development journey, guiding your learning and growth. But we do want you to have high levels of energy and be self-driven and proactive. And you must be able to describe significant relevant experience of transforming and leading high-performing, case management services.

We are looking to change millions of life chances, and in the process, show the world that there is a better way to manage programs like this. We love what we do and we have lots of fun doing it, but everything we do is about maximizing performance and we set the bar high.

Terms of Employment

Reporting to: Director of Technical Assistance

Location: Home-based within North America, ideally California or within easy access of the State. You must have the right to live and work in the USA.

Salary, pension & health insurance: $175,000 per annum FTE. HBGI will contribute up to 10% to a pension, matched against your contribution. We also pay for health insurance.

Work life: To make sure you can participate actively in our largely virtual business, you will need to organize your own technology, including a laptop, internet connection and telephone.

Our normal full-time working week is 40 hours. You can plan these hours to suit you within the working week (Monday-Friday) but must take business needs into account, i.e. be available for meetings when needed. You must inform your team and line manager of your plans.

At HBGI, we care about your wellbeing and want you to take time for yourself. We keep Fridays free of internal meetings, so you can end your week on a positive note, with your to-do list clear. You are expected to reflect this with your team.

The full-time paid, annual holiday allowance is 33 days. This total is inclusive of all federal and state holidays. After the first year, this then increases by a day a year until it reaches 38 (including national holidays).

We are committed to recruiting the best, most diverse HBGI team. We do not tolerate any form of negative discrimination, abuse, office politics or bullying.

How to apply

Please send: a) an up-to-date resume (no more than three pages), explaining any gaps, and; b) a covering letter (no more than two pages) which addresses the following:

• Why do you want this role?
• In what way is your experience relevant?
• Give us an example of when you transformed a service to increase its performance. What were the drivers of performance on this service? What wasn’t working, how did you fix it, and what was the result?
• Describe the outcomes that one of your services delivered that you are proudest of?
• What do you think might be some of the areas for improvement across State mental health systems in California?

Given the very high volume of applications, we greatly regret that we cannot provide individual feedback and will only follow-up with short-listed candidates. We are looking for exciting, interesting applications from people who clearly ‘get’ performance and have delivered it in challenging contexts, possibly against some resistance. You have to be able to communicate this to us, clearly and compellingly.

Please email your application to opportunities@hbgi.org with Performance & Partnership Directors (California) in the subject line.

The closing date is 27th October 2024 at 23.59 PST.

Please ensure you have provided all the detail requested for us to consider your application.