What are the responsibilities and job description for the Bilingual Youth Counselor position at Seneca Family of Agencies?
Overview
The Bilingual Youth Counselor works as part of a team to support children and their families, particularly foster and probation youth. Youth Counselors work with youth in their environments, building support systems, connecting them to resources, and helping them with their behavioral and mental health goals. The primary goal of our program is to provide children and families with services that will increase safety, stability, and permanency.
“I’ve had the privilege to work directly with youth and families from my community, whose resilience and inner strength motives me to go above and beyond. I get to hang out with kids, hear their stories, and work to break the chain trauma with a strength based approach. The functions of my job can be difficult at time, however our core value of unconditional care truly shines through every level of this work, making those challenges minor in the scheme of things.” - Seneca Employee
Seneca Family of Agencies is committed to providing traditionally marginalized communities a network of outstanding mental health, community based, and educational services. Celebrating diversity and creating a culture of inclusion increases creativity, innovation, problem solving, and teamwork. Seneca’s agency-wide DEI Advisory Board, Employee Resource Groups, and Language Practice Groups help our employees provide culturally and linguistically relevant services to the families we serve. For more information on our Diversity, Equity and Inclusion initiative, click here!
Responsibilities
- Assist the birth/foster parents in learning and mastering skills that their child may need to maintain a safe environment and achieve stabilization.
- Provide behaviorally-focused mental health support services to clients and their primary caregivers, biological families, and supportive kin.
- Plan and implement individual and group activities that encourage the child's social and emotional development.
- Provide crisis management and response to children’s emotional needs in a supportive and safe manner.
- Complete all documentation in an accurate and timely manner. .
- Provide supervision for visits with birth family when necessary.
- Maintain a close and supportive relationship with the child's educational placement that may include collaborating with school administrators, in-classroom support to implement behavioral plans that will help the child succeed academically, and tutorial assistance.
- Participate in family team meetings, treatment reviews, and IEP meetings, in order to advocate for child’s needs.
- Drive to meet clients and families in the community within a 90 mile radius from home site.
Qualifications
- Bilingual abilities in Spanish/English required
- Bachelor's degree required
- Must be at least 21 years of age
- Own vehicle, California Driver's License, and insurance
- TB test clearance, fingerprinting clearance, and any other State/Federal licensing or certification requirements
- Experience working with children in residential care and/or in the community, a plus!
Schedule
- Full-time
- Tuesday-Saturday or Sunday-Thursday
Benefits
- Competitive salary with an additional salary increase for bilingual Spanish/English abilities upon passing a bilingual proficiency exam
- Comprehensive employee benefits package, including medical, dental, vision and chiropractic coverage and partially paid premiums for dependents
- 4 weeks of flexible paid time off
- Employer paid Employee Assistance Plan (EAP)
- Scholarship opportunities, ongoing training, and professional development opportunities
