Qualifications:
Bachelor’s degree in social work, other human services field, criminal justice, and communication experience in investigation and person location preferred. Strong communication skills, research skills experience working with children with special needs a plus. Possess strong leadership, organizational and communication skills. Must have a valid Illinois Driver’s License, ability to pass a background check.
Duty Responsibilities:
· Understand implicit bias and how to work within a system that impacts decisions for youth and their families when locating placement options. Has the ability to have crucial conversations with staff and other child and family team members.
· Will do extensive research, investigation, and outreach in locating absentee parents/guardians.
· Identify and locate potential extended family/fictive kinship relationships.
· Provides professional technical assistance and resource development support to casework staff who serve children with specialized and problematic behavior service needs.
· Will assist the family caseworker with facilitating the expansion of resources needed to better serve children and their families involved in foster care.
· Will drive to various locations to attend meetings, conferences, or to locate and assess family homes as needed.
· Will utilize a family-centered, trauma-informed, strength-based, and EDI lens through which youth and family needs are assessed.
· Have the ability to engage the youth (as age-appropriate), birth parents, family and social connections, foster parents, and staff to facilitate and support stability and permanency for the youth.
· Possesses strong, creative problem-solving skills, and can use non-traditional search methods to identify and locate family members and supportive connections.
· Has strong data analysis skills needed to conduct diligent search activities across multiple databases, systems, social media, and other websites. Will complete required forms and SACWIS documentation, send written correspondence, and log / track data for use by the foster care team.
· Uses ecomaps, genograms, and other tools to map and locate prospective supports and placement resources for the youth and family.
· Serves as a team member within the multidisciplinary team or Child and Family Team Meeting consisting of case manager, supervisor, foster parent, birth parents and youth to facilitate connections between newly found family/fictive kin members, supports, and other collateral resources to resolve complex and stalled cases to improve permanency outcomes.
· Possess the ability to identify and engage familial supports and connections including relatives and fictive kin for the purpose of life-long connections and permanency achievement.
· Assist in training potential foster parents and biological parents/relatives of foster children, as assigned.
· Engages in a variety of techniques to meet and communicate with potential foster parents, including attending events, networking, social media, and other strategies.
· Support potential foster parents to provide information and encourage engagement through the licensing process.
· Will take the lead in engaging in both proactive general and target foster family recruitment efforts for youth in the foster care system.
· Targeted recruitment efforts will include specifically reaching out to potential families who are most likely to meet the needs for the specific youth, including but not limited to, attending, and participating in community events throughout the area.
· Coordinates services and attends meetings with other agencies, systems, and communityproviders to meet the needs of the clients.
Must have:
*Full access to SACWIS in order to “file mine” (review investigative reports, previous assessments, case notes, placement history, collateral contacts, etc.) in the initiation of Family Finding activities.
*Internet accessibility to search tools and engines for deeper searches then we currently have.
*Access to and knowledge of completing background checks.
Job Type: Full-time
Pay: $45,000.00 - $48,000.00 per year
Benefits:
- Dental insurance
- Flexible schedule
- Flexible spending account
- Health insurance
- Life insurance
- Paid time off
- Retirement plan
- Vision insurance
Patient demographics:
- Adults
- Children
- Older adults
Schedule:
- 8 hour shift
- Monday to Friday
Education:
Experience:
- Social work: 1 year (Preferred)
License/Certification:
- Driver's License (Required)
- CWEL (Required)
Willingness to travel:
Work Location: Hybrid remote in Chicago, IL 60608