Family Support Specialist

As a Family Support Specialist (FSS), you will play a vital role in providing essential support to families who need it most. Your primary responsibility will be to initiate and maintain regular, long-term contact (up to 3 years) and support with families.  Home visits will occur primarily within a family's home, each lasting at least one hour.  FSS use strategies that are family-centered and strength-based with a strong focus on establishing trusting relationships, assisting in strengthening the parent-child relationship, cultivating caretaking skills to optimize the home environment, improving the family support system, and expanding the family’s ability to problem-solve and assume the role of advocate for themselves and their children. 

As a Family Support Specialist (FSS) you will be responsible for assisting the family in establishing goals and a plan for accomplishment of those goals and help evaluate the typical growth and development of the target child using approved developmental assessments.  Activities may include modeling play, identifying and referring families to other supportive agencies, with emphasis on health care appointments and providing transportation, as needed.  The FSS must be able to make and manage appropriate decisions regarding multiple crises on an on-going basis along with maintaining detailed records as required by Healthy Families Indiana (HFI) and Healthy Families America (HFA).

At Iris Family Support Center, we are dedicated to strengthening families, nurturing children, and fostering a sense of empowerment within our communities. We believe every family deserves the support and resources needed to thrive!  As a Family Support Specialist (FSS) you will make a lasting impact on the lives of families in the community while working and collaborating within a dynamic, family-oriented environment, providing essential support, guidance, and resources. 

ESSENTIAL FUNCTIONS 

• Initiate services prenatal or within the first three months after the birth of a baby.
• Offer services on a voluntary basis. Utilize positive methods to build nurturing and trusting relationships.
• Improve the family support system and increase the family’s ability to problem-solve.
• Help families become advocates for themselves and their children.
• Provide transportation as needed.
• Utilize translation services for families who are non-English speaking.
• Plan and facilitate child development and parent child interaction activities and assess typical growth and development of the target child. 
• Handle multiple crises and make appropriate decisions on an on-going basis.
• Maintain detailed records in a database per timeframes as required by Healthy Families Indiana (HFI) and Healthy Families America (HFA). 
• Provide home visits that are at least one hour based on a family’s level status (weekly/biweekly/monthly).
• Allow variability in scheduling visits with families who have returned to school/work (evenings or weekends).
• Develop transition plans with families when exiting services.
• Develop goals in collaboration with families and create achievable steps and document celebrated successes.
• Address risk factors, stressors, and challenging issues identified from the initial assessment and over the course of services documented in the database and Family Service Plan.
• Utilize evidence-informed curricula to promote child development, parenting skills, and health and safety.
• Administer required tools in a timely manner and attend required tools training.
• Provide and document appropriate referrals for children with suspected developmental delays, parents experiencing depression or interpersonal violence (IPV) and other supportive referrals, as needed.
• Link all families/children to medical providers and help parents track/keep children current on immunizations. 
• Attend weekly supervision to discuss cases from a trauma informed perspective, how to best support families to encourage growth and be self-reflective and open to feedback. 
• Meet monthly billing requirements as developed by Healthy Families Allen County.
• Obtain releases of information, as required, for agency collaboration and to maintain confidentiality.
• Report any suspected child abuse and neglect to a supervisor and DCS, as appropriate/warranted.
• Attend regular staff meetings, case conferences, in-service training, and other meetings as required.  
• Attend required and on-going training locally, statewide, or nationally for professional development per standards and policies.
• Coordinate supervisor observed home visits as required/requested.
• Allow staff in training to observe home visits and day to day paperwork and documentation (all-day shadows and curriculum/activity shadows).
• This role is cross trained with the role of Family Resource Specialist and will be required to assist depending on agency needs.
• Participate in volunteer activities and community events as needed/required by the agency.  
• Performs other duties as assigned. 
• Minimum of a high school diploma or equivalent.
• Ability to communicate respectfully and effectively, in-person, email, phone or text, with families, peers, and management.
• Experience working with or providing services to children and families within a home-based model to overburdened communities, children, and families.
• Ability to establish rapport quickly and build trusting relationships.  
• Acceptance of individual differences. 
• Experience and humility to work with culturally diverse families.
• Willingness to work with interpreter/translator services. 
• Knowledge of infant and child development (attachment theory, parent-infant relationships, and effective/nurturing parenting techniques).
• Willing to engage in building reflective capacity (e.g., capacity for introspection, communicating awareness of self in relation to others, recognizing value of supervision, etc.).
• Willingness to allow staff in training to shadow job duties.
• Demonstrates quality writing and organizational skills.
• Ability to handle self professionally in a variety of different settings- office, homes and community events.

WORK ENVIRONMENT 

• This job operates in a professional office environment, at community events, and in family homes.  This role routinely uses standard office equipment.

PHYSICAL DEMANDS 

• The physical demands described here are representative of those that must be met by an employee to successfully perform the essential functions of this job.
• Get down and up from the floor several times a day.
• Climb and maneuver steps in narrow hallways and in small rooms.
• Tolerate strong odors.
• Lift and physically manipulate up to 60 pounds.
• Read printed material in poorly lighted areas.
• Recognize and evaluate sounds, interactions, and movements to determine the potential of child abuse and/or neglect.
• Use senses of sight, hearing, and smell to evaluate the safety of the environment for children or self.
• May be subjected to infectious diseases, substances, and contaminated articles (bed bugs, lice, etc.).
• May be exposed to rodents or evidence of them as well as various/multiple animals while in a family’s home.

EXPECTED HOURS OF WORK

• Family Support Specialists operate on a varied schedule to meet the needs of families and while some flexibility in hours is allowed, the employee must be available between the "core" work hours of 8 am to 8 pm and must work 40 hours every week to maintain full-time status.  At least two evenings a week are expected to be available and some weekend hours may be necessary to meet the needs of the families.

TRAVEL EXPECTANCY

• Travel within Allen County to and from family homes is expected.  Some required trainings may be held outside of Allen County. Transportation of participants is expected to help improve family functioning, obtain resources, stay up to date on medical appointments and attain goals.

REQUIRED EDUCATION 

• Minimum of a high school diploma or equivalent. 

PREFERRED EDUCATION AND EXPERIENCE 

• Bi-lingual preferred.
• Infant mental health endorsement.

ADDITIONAL ELIGIBILITY QUALIFICATIONS

• At least 21 years of age and able to operate a motor vehicle.
• Maintain a valid driver’s license, proof of insurance and have continuous use of a reliable vehicle where child safety seats can be installed, and multiple passengers can ride.
• Must be able to attend 130 hours of Healthy Families training within six months of date of hire, which may be out of town.

EEO STATEMENT 

• Iris Family Support Center, Inc. is an Equal Opportunity, Affirmative Action employer.