Family Finding Recruitment Specialist

PRIMARY The Family Finding Specialist/Recruitment Specialist position will identify and engage familial supports and connections including relatives and fictive kin for the purpose of life-long connections and permanency achievements. This position will work collaboratively with the licensing and casework teams, licensing target families to then transfer case to licensing team (will not carry licensing case load) it will also assit the family caseworker with facilitating the expansion of resources needed to better serve children and their families involved in foster care, including conducting extensive research, investigation, and outreach in locating absentee parents/guardians.

Responsibilities

Family Finding and Resource/Recruitment Specialist: 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 utilize a family-centered, trauma-informed, strength-based, and EDI (equity, diversity, and inclusion) 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. 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. Assist in licensing potential foster parents, fictive kins, and assist in training biological parents 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 and license potential foster parent/s or fictive kin. 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 community providers to meet the needs of the clients.