Healthy Steps Specialist (Mental Health Clinician)

Summary:

This role reports to the Regional Director or Program Director. The mental health clinician will be hired as a HealthySteps Specialist to support the HealthySteps Program. They will join the pediatric primary care teams at Kingston Family Practice, Kingston Pediatric Practice, and Ellenville Family Practice to provide interventions, referrals, and follow-up for families with patients ages 0-3. The HealthySteps Specialist builds strong relationships with families and providers to increase the efficiency of the medical system and support team-based comprehensive care. They also provide clinical mental health services, with a scope of practice including but not limited to diagnostic assessment, counseling, psychotherapy, brief treatment, behavior modification, crisis intervention, mental health consultation, and care coordination. The HealthySteps Specialist will report to the Regional Director and/or Program Director and work collaboratively with members of the health care team throughout the organization, while utilizing independent judgment in delivering care and services. This position is a learned professional, requiring achievement of specific advanced educational training related to the duties detailed.

Location: Kingston & Ellenville

Kingston Family Health Center: 1 Family Practice Drive Kingston, NY 12401

Ellenville Family Health Center: 6 Healthy Way Ellenville, NY 12428

Requirements

• Conducts team-based well-child visits before, during, or following the primary care provider; visits focus on monitoring development, social-emotional functioning, and relational health, and providing anticipatory guidance. Note: The HealthySteps Specialist is expected to participate in team-based well-child visits in-person, as an integrated member of the care team.
• Conducts consultations on a short-term basis for needs regarding development and/or behavioral concerns such as sleep, positive parenting, picky eating, etc.
• Maintains a family support line and responds to and tracks call requests within the designated response time
• May conduct home visits and may accompany families to key medical, specialty, and community agency appointments as needed
• May facilitate parent/caregiver groups
• Works closely with pediatric primary providers around care coordination, goal setting, coaching, and education about key aspects of a child’s development
• Provides consultation and/or facilitates training to medical professionals and all practice staff re: early childhood development, early relational health/infant early childhood mental health, and trauma informed practice
• Provides direct mental health services, which include crisis intervention, individual, family and group counseling in collaboration with other members of an interdisciplinary team and completion of relevant documents, psychosocial evaluations or case management services, using independent judgment.
• Completes patient care documentation in a timely manner, closes all patients electronic encounters within 24 hours. Utilizes collaborative documentation.
• Utilizes Phq9 in the assessment of patients, following agency guidelines for patients care with depression.
• Participates in department and organizational CQI projects as required.
• Manages caseload effectively, utilizing reporting tools for self-management.
• Actively participates in clinical supervision.

Qualifications

Qualifications

• Education/Licenses Required: Licensed Master Social Worker, Licensed Clinical Social Worker, or Licensed Clinical Psychologist; must have NYS Licensure.
• Experience and knowledge about early childhood growth and development, parent-child relational health, infant and early childhood mental health, and family systems
• Experience in working with a diverse populations i.e., HIV, homeless, mentally ill, elderly, children adolescents, etc
• Excellent working knowledge of behavioral medicine and evidence based treatments for medical and mental health conditions.
• Ability to work through brief patient contacts as well as to make quick and accurate clinical assessments of mental and behavioral conditions
• Should be comfortable with the pace of primary care, working with an interdisciplinary team and have strong communication skills
• Good knowledge of psychopharmacology
• Ability to design and implement clinical pathways and protocols for treatment of selected chronic conditions.
• Technical knowledge of medical social work and relevant community resources, ability to develop linkage with community organizations, as well as excellent communication and human relation skill
• Healthcare and mental health experience preferred
• Thorough knowledge of the social work profession and its standards.
• Ability to make independent judgments in all issues related to delivering consistently high standard of social work care and services.
• Bi-lingual, Spanish preferred
• Computer literacy with proficiency in MS Word, Excel, and PowerPoint.
• Demonstrates organizational, interpersonal, oral and written communication skills and the ability to handle multiple assignments at any time

As a member of the IFH community, we expect employees to: adhere to the organization’s policies regarding time, attendance, and dress code; demonstrate reliability and trustworthiness; manage time and resources to meet established goals/projects within the agreed upon time frames; demonstrate accountability; maintain patient/employee confidentiality; meet applicable regulatory and annual health assessment requirements; self- identify learning strengths and needs; demonstrate a professional, courteous, and respectful attitude in dealing with patients, families, significant others, members of the staff and extended community.

Equal Employment Opportunity/Affirmative Action:

The Institute for Family Health is an Equal Employment Opportunity Employer. This job summary is intended to be brief and may not list all the duties and functions required, however, it does highlight the essential requirements. Nothing outlined in this job summary is to be construed as an express or implied contract of employment.