Senior Life Coach

$67,000 - $72,000/year

Position Summary: The Senior Life Coach is the central staff member to a set of programmatic enrichment, prevention and intervention strategies designed to support the holistic development of Children's Aid College Prep Charter School (CACPCS) students. CACPCS Senior Life Coaches work collaboratively with the Life Coaches and under the daily supervision of the Life Coach Director who works under the direction of the Community School Director and the Head of School.

As an employee of the Children's Aid working at the Children's Aid College Prep Charter School, the Life Coach is primarily responsible for working with their colleagues to ensure that the support necessary to meet the demands of academic excellence are in place while working aggressively to eliminate or significantly reduce any barriers that may impede a child's healthy academic, socio-emotional, or physical development.

Essential Duties:

Engage

• Foster positive and healthy relationships with each student, families, school staff, and all other school personnel.
• Reach out to other Children's Aid staff throughout the organization as needed for resources, services or other support as needed by students and their families.
• Apply knowledge of human behavior and the social environment, person-in-environment, and other multidisciplinary theoretical frameworks to engage with clients and constituencies.
• Identify social policy at the local, state, and federal level that impacts well-being, service delivery, and access to social services.
• Advocate for children, parents, families, and staff in order to access services.

Assess

• Develop mutually agreed-on academic and non-academic goals based on the critical assessment of strengths, needs, and challenges with elementary or middle school students.
• Track student progress around these goals that are aligned to larger outcomes in the areas of Attendance, Self-Efficacy, Life Skills, Avoiding Risky Behavior, and Health.
• Work with colleagues, supervisor, and director to identify and coordinate academic and socio-emotional resources for students and their families.

Intervene

• Critically choose and implement interventions to achieve practice goals and enhance capacities of clients and constituencies.
• Provide intensive one-to-one life coaching/counseling to 15-20 students identified based on a set of specific needs through either short-term therapy or long-term therapy using a variation of the following methods:

• Trauma-Focused Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (TFCBT), Play therapy engagement methods, Dialectical Behavior Therapy, Group Therapy, Family Therapy.




• Provide in class support for struggling students and provide recommendations for teachers to ensure children are able to learn.
• Maintain regular communication with students' parents/caregivers in order to support the school's Parent Involvement and Attendance goals.
• Work with Success Mentors to maintain Attendance goals, provide home visits as necessary, and develop creative interventions to address needs.

Evaluate

• Produce weekly progress notes and monthly reports documenting interventions and progress of students and create treatment plans as needed.
• Critically analyze, monitor, and evaluate intervention and program processes and outcomes.
• Apply evaluation findings to improve practice effectiveness at the micro, mezzo, and macro levels

Clinical Practice

• Use empathy, reflection, and interpersonal skills to effectively engage diverse clients and constituencies.
• Use supervision and consultation to guide professional judgment and behavior. Make ethical decisions by applying the standards of the NASW Code of Ethics, relevant laws and regulations, models for ethical decision-making, ethical conduct of research, and additional codes of ethics as appropriate to the context.
• Recognize the importance of diversity and difference in practice at the micro, mezzo, and macro levels.
• Apply self-awareness and self-regulation to manage the influence of personal biases and values in working with diverse clients and constituencies.
• Participate in ongoing training and professional development provided by CACPCS and Community Schools.

Program

• Plan and create lessons accordingly for the implementation of group curriculum and therapy on a weekly basis.
• Assess the needs of students, parents, and teachers, notice patterns of students.
• Design programming in coordination with the Life Coach Director to address these needs.
• Provide supervision to Junior Life Coaches.
• Ensure children and families are connected to as many community resources as possible based on needs, especially camp and mental health resources.
• Perform other duties as assigned.

Minimum Qualifications:

• 3-5 years of experience working with young people (in-school and/or out-of-school settings).
• Bachelor's degree in social work, or related field with 3+ years of direct social service experience.
• Master's degree in social work, psychology, sociology, or related field with 3+ years of direct social service experience (preferred).
• Licensure: LMSW, LCSW, LMHC, LMHP (Preferred) Provisional Licensures: LMSW, LCSW, LMHC, LMHP.

Key Competencies:

• SIFI certification.
• Bilingual in Spanish or French.
• Experience with group facilitation and classroom management.
• Excellent organizational and time management skills.
• A demonstrated commitment to goal-orientated work and focus on outcomes and results.
• Effectively work with students who have been traditionally under-served including English Language Learners, children with special needs, children who have been or are currently involved in the child welfare system, as well as children living below self-sufficiency.
• Willingness and ability to meet the professional expectations of a dynamic work environment like a school or other community-based educational setting.
• Demonstrated ability to engage and motivate young people in various settings.
• Ability to work independently and creatively as well as handle multiple tasks with exceptional attention to detail. Reliable and dependable.
• Ability and willingness to work collaboratively with colleagues to create a strong network of support for scholars and their families.
• Professionalism, sound judgment, foresight, flexibility and maturity.
• An entrepreneurial spirit that embraces creativity and hard work inherent in a start-up.