Director Family Support Programs

THE SELECTED CANDIDATE WILL BE OFFERED A SALARY BETWEEN $95,.00 - $,.00*

The Administration for Children’s Services (ACS) protects and promotes the safety and well-being of children and families through child welfare and juvenile justice services and community supports.

ACS manages community-based supports and foster care services, and provides subsidized child care vouchers. ACS child protection staff respond to allegations of child maltreatment.

In juvenile justice, ACS oversees detention, placement and programs for youth in the community.

The NYC Administration for Children’s Services is seeking four outstanding candidates to serve as Community Coordinators for the Community Based Strategies (CBS) team in the Division of Prevention Services (DPS).

DPS and its network of contracted providers deliver community-based services across NYC to improve safety, wellbeing, and permanency for thousands of families each year.

DPS focuses on system improvement, innovation, and strategy initiatives that require collaboration with major stakeholders to address urgent or emerging provider and family needs, city or state mandates, and high priority strategic goals of ACS leadership.

Community Based Strategies (CBS) is committed to strengthening prevention services for children, families, and communities through collaborative program management and strategic initiatives that leverage innovation, data and research, and human-centered design.

• The team’s work seeks to enhance racial equity, incorporate multi-stakeholder voices, and elevate family choice. The Community Based Strategies team is charged with overseeing a coordinated implementation of evidence-based and research-informed prevention service models;
• designing a robust and consistent system to monitor and support programs’ sustained alignment to service model fidelity, contractual expectations, and ACS standards for service delivery;

and partnering with contracted providers to ensure services are high quality and socially just, including the development of meaningful race equity plans at each provider agency.

CBS is seeking one exceptional candidate to serve as a Director of Family Support Programs on the CBS team. Family Support Programs are expected to deliver prevention services to families using one of the three research-informed case practice frameworks (Family Connections, Mobility Mentoring, or Solution-Based Casework).

Family Support programs are intended to provide services for any family whose identified needs can be stabilized through one of the case practice frameworks and whose needs do not fit the inclusionary criteria for a therapeutic model.

Each framework provides a structured approach, concrete tools, and tangible benchmarks to govern case practice - the values, principles, relationships, approaches and techniques the case planner uses to enable children and families to achieve the goals of safety, stability, permanency, and well-being.

The Director of Family Support Programs and will carry out various duties, including but not limited to :

• Provide day-to-day supervision, guidance, and coaching for up to three lines comprised of program officers and / or community coordinators.
• Oversee the contract management functions for a portfolio of programs that include fiscal and programmatic activities. The Director of Family Support Programs will oversee a small team of Program Officers and / or Program Associates who are responsible for ongoing review and approval of program and model-purveyor budgets and invoices, providing program oversight and ongoing measurement of contract requirements.

Ideal candidate will have excellent excel skills to support these functions.

• Implement and follow processes for contracting, budget review, collecting and reviewing data metrics of programs in partnership with various ACS Divisions;
• Oversee the team’s successful implementation of learning collaboratives among contracted provider staff implementing the framework and model purveyors in order to strengthen evidence-based or research-informed practice, surface and resolve challenges, and share lessons learned
• Provide guidance and support for program development and management via quantitative and qualitative data collection. Leverage system-wide and program-specific data, monitor and assess outcomes of service delivery, conduct site visits, facilitate ongoing feedback and collaboration from families being served, and have ongoing collaboration with all stakeholders in alignment with sustainability derived from best practices and / or implementation science.
• Build strong understanding of prevention contract expectations, ACS standards for prevention service delivery, and service model fidelity to promote integration and coordination of high-quality services delivered to families and overall system performance in collaboration with external trainers and ACS’ Division of Policy, Planning, and Measurement (DPPM).
• Bring a racial equity and social justice lens to the work and help drive and support program initiatives that promote equity, accessibility, and economic mobility, ensuring families are at the center of all decision making.
• Prepare documents, make presentations, and facilitate goal-oriented meetings with key stakeholders to generate buy-in, improve the quality of families’ experiences and circumstances, and effectively manage projects and workstreams.
• Provide direction to conduct research and use data analytics and qualitative methods to better understand program operations and performance, including utilization and program engagement, and to drive programmatic improvement and evaluation in Family Support Programs.
• Represent DPS in internal and external working groups

Preferred Skills :

• Must have excellent written and verbal communication skills, and produce high quality documents
• Professional and responsive in interactions with external stakeholders
• Ideal candidate is flexible, open to new ideas, and comfortable with iterative processes
• Willingness to take on new tasks and challenges
• Deep commitment to social justice and anti-racist practices
• Familiarity with reviewing and analyzing program budgets and invoices
• Experience in working with data and research to improve programs
• Reflective thinker with experience with conducting systems analysis to identify discernible trends
• Knowledge of child welfare, most especially prevention services
• Familiarity with one of the three research-informed case practice frameworks (Family Connections, Mobility Mentoring, or Solution-Based Casework).
• Familiarity with human-centered design
• Successful communicator who is comfortable speaking in large, varied audiences
• Team player who is flexible, grounded, and mission-driven

Additional Skills :

Experience with and comfortable using the following computer programs : Microsoft Office Suite (Word, Outlook, Excel, Teams, Power Point, Publisher, Visio, IE);

Adobe Acrobat; Google Workspace (Docs, Sheets, Forms, Chrome); Survey Monkey (or other survey program), Airtable; Tableau

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION :

Section -A of the New York Social Services Law requires an authorized agency to inquire whether a candidate for employment with child-caring responsibilities has been the subject of a child abuse and maltreatment report.

TO APPLY :

APPLICATIONS MUST BE SUBMITTED ELECTRONICALLY USING ONE OF THE OPTIONS BELOW :

For current city employees, go to Employee Self Service (ESS), Recruiting Activities, Careers and search for Job ID# .

For all other applicants go to and search for Job ID# . Click on the "Apply" button.

If you do not have access to a computer, most public libraries have computers available for use.

Only candidates selected for an interview will be contacted.

Minimum Qualifications

1. For Assignment Level I (only physical, biological and environmental sciences and public health) A master's degree from an accredited college or university with a specialization in an appropriate field of physical, biological or environmental science or in public health.

To be appointed to Assignment Level II and above, candidates must have :

1. A doctorate degree from an accredited college or university with specialization in an appropriate field of physical, biological, environmental or social science and one year of full-time experience in a responsible supervisory, administrative or research capacity in the appropriate field of specialization; or

2. A master's degree from an accredited college or university with specialization in an appropriate field of physical, biological, environmental or social science and three years of responsible full-time research experience in the appropriate field of specialization; or

3. Education and / or experience which is equivalent to "1" or "2" above. However, all candidates must have at least a master's degree in an appropriate field of specialization and at least two years of experience described in "2" above.

Two years as a City Research Scientist Level I can be substituted for the experience required in "1" and "2" above.

NOTE : Probationary Period

Probationary Period

Appointments to this position are subject to a minimum probationary period of one year.

Public Service Loan Forgiveness

As a prospective employee of the City of New York, you may be eligible for federal loan forgiveness programs and state repayment assistance programs.

For more information, please visit the U.S. Department of Education’s website at class "jobad-residencyRequirement">

Residency RequirementNew York City residency is generally required within 90 days of appointment. However, City Employees in certain titles who have worked for the City for 2 continuous years may also be eligible to reside in Nassau, Suffolk, Putnam, Westchester, Rockland, or Orange County.

To determine if the residency requirement applies to you, please discuss with the agency representative at the time of interview.