About Job

Position Summary:

Founded in 1959 by two visionary women, Sara O’Meara and Yvonne Fedderson, Childhelp has blossomed into a global movement dedicated to ending child abuse and neglect. Today, Childhelp stands as the nation’s largest nonprofit devoted to rescuing abused and neglected children through innovative intervention, prevention, and treatment programs impacting the lives of over 13 million children.

As a member of the Victim Advocacy Team, assesses the support needs of the families and children served by the Center, providing advocacy, referral and resources, and education. This position will facilitate and work closely with other victim advocacy services in the community to ensure seamless coverage and transition for clients.

This position does not have direct reports.

Essential Functions:

Advocacy Services

Provides culturally specific, trauma informed, and inclusive advocacy and support to child victims of crimes and keeps families abreast of the ongoing events occurring during the investigative and legal process of a crime while ensuring the child and family is treated with fairness, respect, dignity, and freedom from intimidation, harassment, and abuse throughout the criminal justice process by carrying out the following:

Provides professional advocacy and psychosocial support, including, but not limited to:
- Working with the family to assess the impact of the crime
- identification of family’s needs;
- Facilitating resolution of practical problems created by victimization;
- Identifying resources available to the family; and
- Providing information, referrals, advocacy, and follow-up contact for continued services, as needed
Coordinates cases by:
- Assessing and prioritizing each family’s needs, establishing goals, and providing continuous outreach and follow-up support for the family via weekly or bi-weekly engagement beginning with the initial assessment.
- Assisting families in understanding the process and steps that occur during the investigation of the crime to include helping the victim and family understand the forensic interview process, medical exam, how to access mental health services including Childhelp clinical services, the role of detectives, and typical court proceedings.
Provides families with community referrals and information for various resources, including but not limited to counseling, shelters, housing assistance, childcare, food, and education.
Assists in the completion of public benefits/entitlements, housing, Crime Victims Compensation, and other applications as needed.
May attend court sessions with victims during the civil court process, as needed.

Advocacy Liaison

Coordinates and communicates with partners to identify and refer clients for the Victim Advocacy Program.
Establishes and maintains contact with the local police departments, County Attorney’s Office, and others related to pending litigation on behalf of the victim.
Serves as a liaison between the victims and the investigating officers and/or case workers to provide clients with updates on the status of the investigation of their case.

Documentation & Reporting

Documents all activities utilizing the Electronic Health Record, and completes required reports, in a timely manner, grammatically proficient and in an articulated manner.
Reports information to appropriate authorities, when legally bound to do so.

Quality

Completes follow-up with families who receive investigative services from the Center to ensure quality of services received.
Remains current on all laws, regulations, polices, protocols, and practices surrounding physical, sexual, and emotional abuse, child abuse, neglect, and legal reporting requirements; and applies knowledge to the work in accordance with quality standards.
Supports the development and documentation of the Victim Advocacy Program, identifying standards of practice, policies and procedures, and reporting requirements.

Continuous Improvement, Knowledge sharing and Collaborative Problem Solving

Attends trainings for on-going education and career development, as needed.
Participates in assigned work teams, as requested and appropriate.
Engages in continuous improvement efforts, as assigned.

Driving

Provides in-person attendance at civil court proceedings as needed for the victim.
May provide mobile advocacy as needed on assigned region.

Miscellaneous

Performs other duties, as assigned by the Director and Supervisor, which may aid in supporting the Victim and their family through the investigative process.

Requirements:

Education/Experience/Knowledge/Understanding

Bachelor’s degree (B.A.) from four-year College or university in Psychology, Social Work, or related field; or one to two years related experience and/or training; or equivalent combination of education and experience.
Working knowledge of characteristics and dynamics of abuse, neglect, victim/offender cycle, substance abuse, domestic violence, and trauma, including evidence-based techniques.
Knowledge of community resources with the ability to effectively network, navigate and access resources.
Successfully complete a minimum of 24 hours of Victim Advocacy instruction including, but not limited to: Dynamics of abuse; Trauma-informed services; Crisis assessment and intervention; Risk assessment and safety planning; Professional ethics and boundaries; Understanding the coordinated multidisciplinary response; Assistance in accessing/obtaining victims’ rights as outlined by law; Court education, support and accompaniment; and Assistance with access to treatment and other services, including protective orders, housing, public assistance, domestic violence intervention, transportation, financial assistance, interpreters, among others as determined for individual clients.
A current and valid unrestricted Arizona Driver's License with clean driving record
A current and valid unrestricted Driver's License with clean driving record
Clear fingerprint background screening through the Department of Justice, FBI and Child Abuse Index prior to start
AZ ONLY: Bilingual in English and Spanish with strong reading, writing, and speaking proficiency om both languages.

Skills

Excellent verbal, written, and listening communication skills to include communicating clearly, effectively, tactfully, and patiently to a diverse population.
Strong interpersonal skills and demeanor with the ability to build rapport and garner trust with others.
Proficient in the use of a PC; in a Windows environment; in the use of the Internet; and in the use of MS Office Applications such as Outlook, Word and Excel.

Abilities

Ability to work in a confidential manner, ensuring information shared with internal and external individuals in an appropriate manner.
Ability to develop and maintain positive and effective professional relationships with clients including effective assessment skills using diverse techniques and methods.
Ability to operate a vehicle and willingness to travel as needed.
Ability to understand and solve problems by applying intermediate analytical skills to include collecting all the relevant information and data needed to address the problem; organizing, classifying and synthesizing the data into fundamental issues; from the information, identifying the most probable causes of the problem; reducing the information down into manageable components; identifying the logical outcomes from the analyses of the data collected; and, identifying the options and solutions for addressing the problems analyzed.
Ability to work collaboratively as part of a team.
Willingness and ability to embody Childhelp’s core values of Acting with Honor and Character, Being Open and Receptive, Caring About and Relating to Others; Nurturing Diverse Relationships; Performance Excellence; and Inspirational Leading & Managing.

Physical Demands

Exerting up to 10 pounds of force occasionally and/or negligible amount of force frequently or constantly to lift, carry, push, pull or otherwise move objects, including the human body.
The worker is not substantially exposed to adverse environmental conditions (such as in typical office or administrative work.)

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