The Village Family Services is a community-based nonprofit organization focused on the prevention and treatment of child abuse and family violence. The agency serves children and families of primarily Latino descent living in the greater Los Angeles area that includes North Hollywood, Glendale, Burbank, Van Nuys, and San Fernando. Our holistic approach towards accomplishing our mission is to provide comprehensive bilingual/bicultural mental health services that address and prevent child abuse and neglect. Services are provided through five major areas: Mental Health, Foster Care, Domestic Violence, Parenting Support, and Wraparound Services.

Current position openings are listed below. If you would like to apply for a position, please submit resume and cover letter to Human Resources at hr@thevillagefs.org.



Post Date: March, 2010 Type: Part Time
Start Date: ASAP Salary: Excellent Salary and Benefits
Location: United States - California - North Hollywood
Position Summary: The role of the Parent Partner is to establish a positive and helpful relationship with parents. In the role of interventionist, the Parent Partner will provide direct peer support, coach the parent with specific problem solving or skills development, and connect parents to resources in their community. All interventions will be short-term and need specific. The Parent Partner will also work collaboratively within the agency to increase family driven practice.

PURPOSE OF THE POSITION: 

    The purpose of this position is to provide active, hands-on peer support to parents/caregivers of youth receiving services. Effective peer support should be friendly, helpful, accessible and flexible. Peer support may be delivered in individual or group settings at the agency, in family homes or in community environments. The role of the Parent Partner is to provide peer support but also to work collaboratively to support systems change by increasing family involvement and decreasing unintentional, bias about parents.

MINIMUM QUALIFICATIONS:

  • Must be the biological, adoptive, kin parent, or non-related family member of a youth with emotional or behavioral challenges or has had systems experience with their child in a child serving system ((i.e. mental health, child welfare, probation and special education).
  • Must have direct experiences with child serving systems (i.e. mental health, child welfare, probation and special education).
  • It is optimal for the Parent Partner to have experienced the level of care with their youth equivalent to program assignment.
  • Must have life experience as the parent of a youth with emotional or behavioral challenges. Education in the area of social services is optimal but not necessary.
  • Demonstrates an ability to maintain a non-judgmental attitude towards families.

ESSENTIAL FUNCTIONS OF THE ROLE OF THE PARENT PARTNER:

I.    Engagement Phase Core Skills

  • Decide collaboratively with the facilitator details about the initial engagement meeting with the family.
  • Introduce yourself as a peer who is the parent of a child with emotional or behavioral challenges and explain the role of the Parent Partner.
  • Encourage the family to share their own story including their culture, beliefs, and situation.
  • Consider the family’s story to identify family strengths, possible team members, and what parts of the Parent Partner’s story would be helpful for the family to hear.
  • Effectively share your own story in a way which builds connection, confidence, and hope for the family relevant to the family’s culture, beliefs and situation.
  • Participate collaboratively in identifying potential team members and what might motivate them to participate in the team process.
  • Explore the parent’s situation regarding the need for rest, relief, and safety and work collaboratively with the facilitator to develop and support stabilization.
  • Work collaboratively with the family and facilitator to determine potential team members, both formal and informal, and decide who will invite them.
  • Decide with facilitator who will contact potential team members to hear their perspectives on family strengths and needs.
  • Secure agreement with family about the attendance of team members at the first child and family team meeting.
II.   Planning Phase Core Skills
  • Explain the parent’s perspective, culture, and beliefs in a way that increases understanding by others while decreasing differences and highlighting similarities.  
  • Check with team members to ensure they understand the parent’s perspective and reassure others that having differences is acceptable.
  • Periodically facilitating the Wraparound process, as appropriate, including presenting and explaining the list of strengths prepared prior to the meeting and asking the team to identify additional strengths during the meeting.
  • Assess the level of support that is needed by the parent based on the families support network, their ability to involve their support network, and the ability of the parent to be heard by others.
  • Meet with the family regularly and consistently in order to encourage and support an understanding of their vision for the future.
  • Work with the parent to develop plans/strategies of how the Parent Partner can support the parent during meetings to ensure the parent’s culture, beliefs, experience, voice and choice are heard by the team and are incorporated into the Child and Family Team Plan or Plan of Care.
  •  Share information with other wraparound team members about the parent’s perspective, culture, and beliefs including how the parent experiences being heard by the team.
  • Participate with the facilitator and the family in planning and developing a family team meeting agenda that includes timelines.
  • Assist the team in recognizing and acknowledging the family’s lived experience, culture, and beliefs to build agreement for a common team vision statement.
  • Assist the team to reach agreement about underlying unmet needs that may be driving the situation in the family.  Clarify unmet needs versus service provision.
  • Actively participate as needed, by speaking up and through actions, to support the family’s perspective during the family team meeting.
  • Assist the team during brainstorming with identifying additional needs and strengths.
  • Participate with the team in brainstorming a wide range of interventions to prioritize needs, reminding team members of potential family strengths that will match interventions.
  • Volunteer for tasks if the Parent Partner’s strengths match the intervention and encourage all team members to do the same.  Document the action into the written Child and Family Team Plan or Plan of Care.
  • Actively participate with the family and other team members in the development of the initial Child and Family Team Plan or Plan of Care.
  • Assist the team in making sure that the family’s culture, beliefs, voice and choice is reflected in the final Child and Family Team Plan or Plan of Care.

III.  Implementation Phase Core Skills

  • Provide individualized, peer to peer support to parents.
  • Attend and participate in all Child and Family Team meetings.
  • Develop plans/strategies with family to ensure their concerns are heard and understood.
  • Communicate on a regular basis with families, according to their identified needs.
  • Support, respond, and/or implement proactive responses to families in crisis, both during and after business hours as designated in the safety/crisis plan.
  • Connect the family with identified community resources.  Assist in introducing and engaging the family with the community resource, ensuring they can access the service after transition.
  • Provide direct interventions as specified in the Child and Family Team Plan or Plan of Care.
  • Maintain direct communication with the parent between team meetings on the effectiveness of the interventions.
  • Develop communication strategies with the family to ensure their perspective is being heard.
  • Communicate information about the effectiveness of the interventions/process related to the Child and Family Team Plan or Plan of Care with the facilitator for inclusion on team meeting agendas.
  • Work with parents and other team members to continue to identify unmet needs that the team has agreed to address.
  • Recognize, celebrate and document team strengths and successes collaboratively with the team.

IV. Transition Phase Core Skills

  • Help introduce the transition phase of Wraparound and the completion of the Wraparound process to the family and team members.
  • Discuss the transition planning phase with the family related to their culture and beliefs, their mission statement and their identified needs.
  • Practice implementation and rehearse crisis responses with the family as identified in the Child and Family Team Plan or Plan of Care.
  • Continue to assist the family in accessing needed resources/supports utilizing the family’s culture and beliefs and each team member’s individual strengths ensuring that the family is engaged with new resources.
  • Assist the facilitator in preparing the transition phase of the Wraparound process by ensuring the family’s culture; beliefs, voice and choice are evident in the process.
  • Celebrate the family accomplishments with a Transition/Family Achievement Portfolio and event that highlights their progress always considering the family’s culture.

CONSIDERATION:

  • The qualifications for a Parent Partner must be deliberated carefully. The value of the role as one of peer to peer support should guide all decisions when hiring Parent Partners. The importance of hands on, real time experience with a child serving systems is imperative. A parent of a child with an emotional or behavioral challenge is one qualification but also a parent who had their child/children involved in child welfare could yet be another qualifier (even without a mental health diagnosis). The key is the parent/caregiver has lived the experience, managed to navigate the system, and been directly affected by services with their child. This might be a biological or adoptive, parent, a kin parent (grandparent), or even a non-related family member such as a long term foster parent.
  • When a Parent Partner is employed by an agency providing services to their child, sensitivity to the Parent Partner’s confidentiality must be a priority. The child’s records should be accessable to their assigned Team (need to know) and HIPPA requirements must be followed to respect the child’s and Parent Partner’s privacy.
  • Many Wraparound programs have made an effort to define the different and distinct roles of the facilitator and Parent Partner. It should be noted the role of the facilitator is to remain neutral while the Parent Partner role is to ensure family voice and provide peer support. When it is necessary for a Parent Partner to facilitate a Child and Family team meeting, it should be announced that the Parent Partner is stepping out of their role temporarily and peer support to the parent may be suspended during that time.
  • Care should be taken to ensure Parent Partners are not utilized as merely an extra pair of helping hands and that their role not take on the semblance of the gofer/assistant less the uniqueness of their peer support role be lost. This would apply also in the case of translating and transporting.
  • There is a tendency to stay “in the moment” as teams try to assist families and youth. This results in teams that are not able to make progress. The Parent Partner should remind others about the team vision and that it should be future oriented.
  • The Parent Partner is often the most appropriate person to present the family strengths at the Child and Family Team meeting because of their unique relationship with the family.

Additional Information:

  • All positions are subject to qualification review, clean driving record, medical release and DOJ fingerprinting.