Job description

Child First Care Coordinator

Overview

Mid-Fairfield Community Care Center, a non-profit children’s mental health agency based in Norwalk, CT, is seeking a Care Coordinator with a passion for helping children and their families birth-age 6. The Bachelor-level care coordinator will work in the Child First Program providing home-based care coordination/case management services.

The Child First model is an evidence-based, two-generation intervention that works with very vulnerable young children (prenatal through age 5 years) and their families, providing intensive, home-based services to decrease the incidence of serious mental health problems, developmental and learning disabilities, and abuse and neglect. Child First provides (1) a psychotherapeutic, dyadic intervention to strengthen the parent-child relationship, and (2) care coordination to connect the family to needed services and supports. Child First is nationally recognized evidence-based home visiting model.

Mid-Fairfield Community Care Center is a behavioral health agency that serves as the community safety net for thousands of families in the greater Norwalk area unable access and/or afford private mental/behavior health services for their children/adolescents. Our mission is to help all children with mental/behavioral health needs achieve emotional stability, academic success, and happy and productive lives.

Summary of Position

The Care Coordinator partners with a licensed Mental Health and Developmental Clinician to engage families who are referred to the Child First home-based intervention. The Care Coordinator plays a crucial role in stabilizing the entire family system, while the Clinician provides psychotherapeutic caregiver-child intervention to facilitate and enhance this critical relationship. Working together, the assigned Care Coordinator and Clinician make upon of the three Clinical Teams who report to same Clinical Director within the Child Guidance Center of Mid-Fairfield County. The Care Coordinator takes the lead in connecting the child and family with desired, community-based services and supports while maintaining Child First’s reflective, relationship-based stance. The Care Coordinator also enhances caregiver executive functioning skills (e.g., planning, organizing, managing time, focusing attention, regulating emotions, reflecting on progress) and engages in interactive play with young children in the home. Ultimately, through connecting to family resources, the Care Coordinator both decreases the “toxic” stress in the home environment and enhances opportunities for optimal child development, thereby promoting healthy brain development for infants and young children.

Key Job Responsibilities

• Provide community resource expertise to Child First team and families, including identifying and collaborating with community-based service providers and supports.

• Engage with the Child First family and the Clinician in collaborative family assessment process (i.e., use data from interviews, observations, interactions, and standardized measures to identify family strengths, needs, and challenges).

• Promote family stabilization by identifying all needed and desired services, integrating services needs into the Child and Family Plan of Care, and addressing barriers to services as they arise.

• Avert crisis situations by assisting Child First family in times of urgent need (e.g., eviction).

• Enhance caregiver executive functioning skills (e.g., planning, organizing, managing time, focusing attention, regulating emotions, reflecting on progress) as needed and in consultation with the Clinician and Clinical Director.

• Maintain a reflective lens when engaging with the caregiver, in order to understand his/her motivation, needs, and possible barriers to new services and supports.

• Embrace use of videotaping to enhance both therapeutic work with families and reflective clinical supervision.

• Provide identified child and/or other children in the family with an interactive, growth-promoting play experience.

• Engage in weekly individual, Team, and group reflective clinical supervision with Clinical Director.

• Engage actively in all aspects of the Child First Learning Collaborative, including in-person trainings, distance learning curriculum, and specialty trainings.

• Track completion of all assessments and enter into the appropriate database.

• Keep all appropriate documentation for clinical accountability and reimbursement.

• Participate in other clinical and administrative activities as appropriate.

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in child development, psychology, nursing, human services, or related field.

• A minimum of three years working with culturally diverse families and young children under the age of six years.

• Openness to learning, capacity for self-reflection, and eagerness to participate in reflective clinical supervision.

• Knowledge of early childhood development, parent education, parent-child relationships, and individual, family, and community-level risk factors (e.g., poverty, homelessness, maternal depression, domestic violence, substance abuse, teen parenthood).

• Knowledge of and experience with community-based services and supports in service area, highly valued.

• Experience working in home and community-based settings with vulnerable populations of diverse cultures and ethnicities.

• Strong commitment to the vision, mission, and goals of Child First.

• Highly organized, self-motivated, reliable, and flexible (including willingness to work non-traditional hours, including at least two evenings).

• Eager and able to work as part of a team.

• Able to communicate well verbally and in writing.
• Bilingual (Spanish or Creole) highly valued.

• Comfortable with computers and experience with Work and Excel.

• Reliable vehicle and appropriate insurance for home visits.

Job Type: Full-time

Compensation & Benefits

Salary based on credentials, experience and skills. Excellent benefits package includes generous vacation policy, employee health and dental insurance, 403(b) savings plans.

EOE. Please submit resumes to: Kristin Charney, Program Director.

To learn more about the Child Guidance Center please visit our website at www.mfccc.org

Job Type: Full-time

Job Type: Full-time

Pay: $43,000.00 - $50,000.00 per year

Benefits:

• 401(k)
• 401(k) matching
• Dental insurance
• Employee assistance program
• Flexible schedule
• Health insurance
• Health savings account
• Life insurance
• Paid time off
• Professional development assistance
• Vision insurance

Schedule:

• 8 hour shift

Education:

• Bachelor's (Preferred)

Experience:

• working with children and families: 1 year (Required)

License/Certification:

• Driver's License (Required)

Work Location: In person

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