Job Description:
The primary goal of this role is to engage families with the Hope & Home community – help foster families make connections with each other, with resources, and with Hope & Home as a whole. Ideal candidates will love working with both children and adults and be able to demonstrate thoughtfulness, empathy, and hospitality in all interactions.
This role will carry a caseload of Support Groups, focusing their efforts to support the families in those groups. They will also share responsibilities of family event preparation and engagement, leading a team of child care staff and volunteers for their assigned groups, as well as facilitating community connections and wrap-around family supports.
Full-time, primarily in-office. This role will include two evening groups per week; hours outside of those groups are flexible but will need to be scheduled and consistent. This role does have the option of working four 10s if preferred. Additional weekend hours will be expected of this position for scheduled events (scheduled in advance).
Location: 4945 North 30th Street, Colorado Springs, CO, 80919
Salary: $18.00 per hour
Responsibilities Include:
Family Support for a Caseload of Families:
The Hope Worker is responsible for providing practical, wrap-around supports to families. Caseload of approx. 50-80 families.
- Placement Support: The Hope Worker is responsible for coordinating resources and practical supports, as well as providing friendly and thoughtful emotional support and check-ins at initial placement, during placement, and after return home.
- Support Groups: The Hope Worker is the host for their assigned support groups. They are responsible for the preparation, execution, and follow-up of each group for adults, children, teens, foster parent leaders, volunteers, and staff. In this capacity, ideal staff would have experience working with children and teens, as well as leading a team of people.
- Ongoing Foster Family Support: The Hope Worker is responsible for maintaining regular contact with families on their caseload through encouragement, thoughtful connection, and practical supports.
Program Support:
This role is a part of the Program Team, as such, general support around resources, volunteers, events, building use, etc. will be required. This role is also responsible for providing “overlap” between clinical and marketing departments, sharing appropriate stories and content for various marketing needs.
- Events: This role will be responsible for planning, preparing, and executing events for foster families. Attendance is mandatory at family/community events. This role should encourage family, staff, and volunteer participation at these events, as well as ensuring that reporting is completed in a timely manner.
- Donation Boutiques and Family Resources: This role will be responsible for ensuring donation stores are kept in good condition and stocked with useful and meaningful items for children and families, while also maintaining and encouraging positive relationships with donors providing these resources.
- Volunteers: The Hope Worker should seek to engage with and support volunteers, encouraging them towards meaningful volunteering in support of the mission of Hope & Home.
- Child Care Spaces: The Hope Worker team is responsible to ensure that the childcare spaces are kept clean, well-stocked, and organized; restocking and replacing items as needed to ensure a safe and engaging environment.
Additional Details:
- All activities promoted and sponsored by Hope & Home should seek to provide stability and community to children and teens placed in foster care with the goal of placement preservation.
- All activities (especially volunteer activities) should reinforce the primary relationship between the foster parent and the youth in care.
- Communication with other staff is crucial to this position. The Hope Worker will prepare reports, communication records, etc. for various uses as determined by supervisor.
Skills and Abilities:
- Effective communication skills. Well written, thoughtful, and thorough communication.
- Loves children and comfortable leading others around work with children.
- Self-motivated and able to prioritize duties.
- Able to work well with others.
- Demonstrates integrity.
- Able to set and maintain interpersonal boundaries.
- Gracious towards others. Engaging and high-functioning people skills.
- Highly organized.
- Comfortable with technology and able to learn new programs quickly.
*This role is not “clinical” and should refrain from giving families explicit clinical advice or instruction. It will be important for this position to keep clear distinctions between these roles.
Certifications/Requirements:
- Must be at least 18 years of age, 21 and older preferred
- Must complete CPR and First Aid training (upon hiring)
- Must complete Hope & Home orientation and training (upon hiring)
- Employee will often lift and/or move up to 50 lbs. Full mobility is required.
- Must have reliable transportation and adequate insurance. Mileage is reimbursed.
Benefit Information:
Full-time employees at Hope & Home are eligible for the following benefits:
About Hope & Home:
As a nondenominational Christian charity, Hope & Home trains and actively supports foster families all across Colorado. Abused and neglected children who’ve been removed from their birth homes get a stable and nurturing family to live with until it’s safe to go home again, or — when that safety isn’t possible — a family to give them a “forever home” through adoption.