Director of Children and Family Services

POSITION:

Director of Children and Family Services

ORGANIZATION:

www.kidshome.org

ORGANIZATION BACKGROUND:

The Sacramento Children’s Home (SCH) has been dedicated to caring for the community’s most vulnerable children and families since the Home’s founding in 1867. Today, a comprehensive spectrum of prevention, early intervention and mental health treatment programs, residential, in the schools, at community-based centers, throughout Sacramento County, strengthen families and are aimed at ending the generational cycle of child abuse and neglect. Last year, SCH served some 4400 families and 7000 children. In 2017, SCH was honored as “Nonprofit of the Year.” A venerable and exceptional institution on the cutting edge of children and family services: a remarkable place for executive leadership that makes a real difference.

The Home is located on a handsome 16-acre campus in South Sacramento. Residential services are still provided for 30 boys, but with changing times, residential treatment has become more specialized and a rich array has been evolving of on-site and community-based mental health services. Foster youth services, family violence prevention services, wraparound services for families and their children, afterschool educational services for youth, a counseling center for children and young adults, a crisis nursery providing free emergency childcare for children age 0-5, and three community-based family resource centers to build strong families through education, intervention, and social support – all are offered in addition to the historic core residential services. As described below, the opportunity to expand and enrichen community-based services will make the leadership position described in this prospectus exciting to impact-makers.

Candidates from outside the Greater Sacramento region should know that many SCH staff manage sustainable commutes from 30-60 minutes and that within this range there are myriad housing/schools options, from the home of the University of California in Davis to the Sierra foothills/Gold Country to family-oriented agricultural communities throughout the Central Valley to the water-oriented life-style of the Delta. Sacramento, the capital of California, has a population of over 500,000 in a county of about 1.5 million, with all the amenities of an urban center surrounded by farmland and forests. Cost-of-living in the Sacramento area is as low as in any Western metropolitan region, which makes this area a relocation destination for professionals throughout the United States.

The Home currently employs about 245 staff, more than 90% in program services. The annual budget exceeds $20 million, with more than $2 million annually from generous donations, including contributions from three long-active volunteer-driven fund-raising auxiliaries. While the Home continues to grow in services and budget size under the eminent leadership of Dr. David Baker, there is always concern about the stability of funding streams for children and family services, underscoring the critical importance now and in the future of those hallmarks of the Home’s governance and administration – prudence, vigilance, responsiveness, agility, foresight. The Director of Children and Family Services, in this newly-created executive position, will become part of this exciting institutional story.

The Director of Children and Family Services oversees the family resource centers of the SCH. The Home leases three sites for its family resource centers – Valley High, Meadowview, and North Sacramento. A wide variety of no-cost family support services is provided to at-risk communities through these centers, including in-home visitation and counseling, pre-natal counseling, parenting classes, school readiness, and peer-family support programs. Aimed at curbing abuse and neglect, primarily concerned with the welfare of children and youth, a goal is to eliminate substantiated complaints to Child Protective Services. More specifically, staff at the centers deal with transportation, socialization and recreation, support groups, miscellaneous family services, play and learn classes, baby bonding classes, relaxation/stress management/coping, nutrition, arts and crafts, holiday events, fitness, parent leadership, car seat use, dads’ and moms’ groups, Girl Scouts, medical and dental referrals (including Medi-Cal services), domestic violence services, playcare, love and logic. At one of the family resource centers, two additional and separately-funded programs are offered: the “Village Program” offers services to reduce deaths of children 0-5 in the African American community from child abuse/neglect, homicide, infant sleep-related deaths; the “Cultural Broker” is an advocacy program supporting African-American families navigating the child welfare system, emphasizing child safety and family reunification.

The Family Resource Centers are three of the eight such services in Sacramento County; an important function of the Director of Children and Family Services is to be an effective participant in the collaboration of all County-based centers. Highly collaborative relationships with colleagues in other agencies as well as with government partners (e.g. Child Abuse Prevention Center, First 5 Sacramento, Department of Human Assistance, Child Protective Services) are essential to success.

Overall budget for the Family Resource Centers is about $3.3 million. Among the major funding streams are CalWorks, First Five, Sacramento County Department of Children and Family Services. Each of the centers has its own dedicated manager. Some 60 +/- staff are employed at the three centers, about half of them Americorps-funded, so that staff turnover is both systemic and typical of such service-providers, and, amplified by the cyclical nature of Americorps appointments. With such staff, and especially because of their sensitive work with at-risk youth and families, the importance of hiring, training, and supervision of line staff cannot be overemphasized.

The Director of Children and Family Services also oversees the Quality Improvement Department, a particularly important function in an organization with vulnerable clients, where compliance, best practices, data collection, and ongoing program evaluation is fundamental to organizational self-understanding and operational refinement. A QI manager and 3-4 FTE staff report to the Director, placing the executive recruited to this new position, with other members of the Leadership Team, at the influential vortex of SCH’s self-study and change management.

In sum, this leadership position offers the effective executive an unusual institution-building opportunity developing community-based services for at-risk youth and families throughout the Greater Sacramento community under the auspices of one of the region’s most highly respected nonprofit institutions.

REPORTING

RELATIONSHIPS:

The Director of Children and Family Services reports to the Chief Executive Officer and is a valued member of the CEO’s Leadership Team. Reporting to the Director are the Managers of each of the three Family Resource Centers and the Manager of Quality Improvement. Indirect reports total about 70 staff.

RESPONSIBILITIES:

The Director of Children and Family Services has five broadly-described important responsibilities:

(1)   The Director will oversee the services of the Family Resource Centers. These services, with the staff and facilities to support them, must be of highest quality. The Director will be vigilant about program development opportunities, identifying potential funding sources, working hand in hand with the Philanthropy Department to oversee grant application development, cultivating relationships with funders, managing grants and contracts to ensure success. The Director will represent SCH to the family service center “Collaborative” and wherever else the CEO believes that outreach by the Director will advance the work of the SCH.

(2)   The centers are located away from the SCH campus and in leased spaces. The facilities must be maintained, space needs anticipated and accommodated, relationships with landlords managed.  The Director will be responsible for ensuring that all facilities needs of the Centers are met.

(3)   The Home has a small number of facilities-related arrangements, either as property-owner where it owns facilities leased to others, or where it has multi-year leases from other owners for its own off-site uses. Because the Director is overseeing the facilities of the Centers, the Director will be asked to monitor these other miscellaneous facilities-related arrangements, coordinating closely when with the Chief Executive Officer when facilities issues may be imminent.

(4)   Quality Improvement and quality assurance and compliance is taken very seriously by SCH, with staff engaged in data collection, program evaluation, and support of evidence-based decision-making. Each program of SCH has a program committee setting goals, defining success, determining what information should be collected, and how analysis of data can lead to program and agency-wide improvement. The Director must have a sufficient understanding of QI and program evaluation to supervise this agency-wide function and, from time to time, with the CEO, report to the Quality Improvement Committee of the Board of Directors.

(5)   The collaborative leadership style of the CEO places emphasis on the power of group decision-making and leadership. As a result, the CEO has seven direct reports -- three program, four administrative – who work closely as an executive leadership team. As the Director of Children and Family Services is effectively a vice-presidential level appointment, with all of the leadership responsibilities that entails, s/he must bring thoughtful, wise, creative executive horsepower to that advisory, decision-making body.

PROFESSIONAL

QUALIFICATIONS:

The ideal candidate…

·         Is passionate about the mission of Sacramento Children’s Home, evidenced by a continuing interest in child and youth development, and families of youth at risk; is sensitive to social justice issues and dedicated to multicultural communities.

·         Is a well-trained and highly experienced human service professional, preferably licensed, familiar with the emerging modalities being used with youth and their families in trauma-informed systems.

·         Is a seasoned manager familiar with clinical settings and community outreach programs, able to recruit, train, and manage clinical and non-clinical staff, and to manage relationships with the many moving parts of the complex organization that affect the clinical and counseling function. Is comfortable through mentorship, suggestion, and example to enhance individual and group services. Understands Quality Improvement and program evaluation and will work with QI staff and Board members to support and promote best practices in all services.

·         Nurtures, mentors, and recruits a dedicated staff capable of maintaining high quality services that in every respect reflect core values and priorities. Embodies the understanding, sensitivity, sophistication, and high standards that inspire staff colleagues at all levels, is a respectful diplomat, consensus-builder, and natural collaborator, commands confidence and trust, and both appreciates and promotes longevity of service. Is approachable, likeable, and accessible, with a direct, transparent, and unaffected style that will wear well with all whom SCH touches. Has the self-confidence to lead; has the self-confidence to follow. Delegates comfortably to effective colleagues, avoids micromanagement where not required, while being able to micromanage deftly where necessary. Demonstrates the ability to hold all staff accountable for their performance, to anticipate, avoid, or manage conflict, and to make difficult personnel and financial decisions when necessary.

·         Is able to develop, maintain, follow, coordinate and monitor systems that ensure compliance with applicable federal, State, and local statutes and regulations, COA, HIPAA, funding standards, and SCH policies and practices. 

·         Has highly developed oral and written communication skills, and the vision, charisma, and dynamism necessary to project and promote the mission of SCH to children and youth, their families, staff, colleagues, governing Board, and community. Conversational Spanish a plus.

·         Demonstrates ability to be an active and effective partner to the CEO and member of the Leadership Team, anticipating community needs, leading, managing, and assessing strategic change within a complex, diverse, and rapidly changing environment, with demonstrated ability to work effectively in racially, ethnically, socio-economically diverse communities.

·         Demonstrates business and financial acumen, recommends and oversees budgets, revenues and expenditures, costs out programs and then monitors the implementation of programs within approved budgets, maintains internal controls and financial discipline, and works closely with other Leadership Team and Board members to ensure the financial well-being of Sacramento Children’s Home.

·         Has a can-do, no-job-too-small attitude and an ability to set priorities, to produce quickly and at a high level of quality, and is able to maintain a steady presence in a position where multi-tasking is necessary, and where stress and crisis are routine.

·         Avoids being a ‘desk jockey’, demonstrating the value of being highly present with staff, children, and families wherever they can be engaged, and understanding that in a community dedicated to positive interventions every informal engagement offers treatment opportunities.

·         Has exceptional listening skill, robust high energy, compassion, centeredness and maturity, a collaborative style, durability, adaptability, and a healthy sense of humor.

EDUCATION:

Ph.D., Psy.D., M.S.W., M.F.T. or the equivalent, preferably with a California clinical license. Qualification to supervise unlicensed clinicians a plus.

COMPENSATION:

Compensation is commensurate with the responsibilities of the position and negotiable based on experience, with excellent benefits and a profoundly gratifying work environment.