Counselor Advocate, Child Specialist

Center for Victims (CV) is growing! Have you recently earned a degree and are looking to gain skills, work experience and professional development? Are you a seasoned professional looking to make an even bigger impact? We invite you to join us today!

CV is seeking an enthusiastic and detail-oriented team player to join our team as a Counselor Advocate, Child Specialist. The Counselor Advocate, Child Specialist provides specialized and enhanced crisis counseling, legal and medical systems accompaniment and other mandated and supportive services throughout the justice system to child victims, witnesses, and their non-offending family members. This position supports and empowers victims and/or witnesses in their personal decision making process and provides outreach to various systems professionals to ensure appropriate first responses to child abuse, child victim sensitivity, and meeting the unique needs of child victims. In addition, their role is to provide education and assistance as to various systems that a client may encounter.

The successful candidate will perform a variety of tasks that will include: extensive crisis intervention and counseling, legal and medical advocacy and accompaniment, education and training to various systems professionals and other mandated and supportive services to crime victims.

Responsibilities:

• Provides extensive crisis counseling and ongoing counseling to child victims, witnesses and non-offending significant others via phone, hospital visits, court or law enforcement proceedings, home, office or other designated locations.
• Utilizing age appropriate case management standards assesses clients’ needs; provides appropriate internal and external referrals including follow-up services.
• Educates clients with accurate information about the Criminal Justice System and processes, and Victims’ Rights.
• Provides accompaniment to legal / court system proceedings including but not limited to: police and forensic interviews, preliminary hearings, trials, sentencing hearings, and other post-trial hearings.
• Provides psycho-educational information to clients on the impacts of violence and trauma.
• Serves as a liaison to various systems within the Criminal Justice System and obtains early referrals and provides subsequent outreach to the referred victims.
• Provides individual and personal advocacy on behalf of child victims, witnesses and significant others throughout all relevant systems such as the medical, legal and court systems including providing information and advocating for the victim’s rights and needs.
• Provides Emergency Advocacy coverage during assigned shifts or on-call rotation. Emergency Advocacy entails hospital emergency department visits, police interviews, emergency protection from abuse order assistance as well as other emergency in-person responses.
• Serves as a member of Community Crisis Response Teams as assigned, once required training is completed.
• Provides systems advocacy on local and state levels on behalf of child crime victims.
• Provides and contributes to all assigned reports, grants and statistics as required by CV and/or the various funding sources.
• Provides timely and accurate data regarding client demographics, service plans, and staff efforts utilizing CV established data collection and reporting systems.
• Participates as an active member with all client focused staffings, trainings, in-services, and team and agency meetings.
• Perform other VOCA eligible duties as assigned.

Qualifications:

• Bachelor’s degree in Social Work, Psychology, Criminology, or a related field or an Associate’s degree in the same fields with three years minimum related work.
• Prior experience in working with children.
• Excellent verbal and written communication skills.
• Completion of mandatory victim assistance training including domestic violence, sexual assault/rape crisis, & other crimes and basic conflict resolution training – provided by the organization.
• Ability to commit to additional training hours as required.
• Ability to secure Act 33 and 34 (Child Abuse and Criminal History) and FBI clearances.
• Ability to secure additional clearances/testing that may be required by funding regulations.
• Proficient in Microsoft Office Programs; computer/database skills including ability to learn state, county, and CV’s various software programs.
• Ability to work closely with others in a team environment.
• Supportive of organization’s mission along with sensitivity of cultural diversity and workplace harmony.
• Ability to adhere to CV’s confidentiality policy along with respect to sensitive, confidential client data and adherence to all Federal, State and local statutes.
• Access to a personal cell phone for safety and immediate business communications.
• A readily available and reliable means of transportation.
• Self-directed with strong problem-solving abilities and flexibility to meet the needs of the program.

CV offers the following benefit package for full time staff:

• Employee Health, Dental and Vision Benefits
• Paid Time Off Benefits
• 15 Paid Holidays
• Short Term Disability and Life Insurance
• Retirement Plan
• Employee Assistance Program
• Opportunity for employee reimbursements for mileage, parking and cell phone usage (position dependent)
• Opportunity to apply for PSLF Program (Paid Student Loan Forgiveness Program) for your work with a non-profit

CV is an equal employment opportunity employer. Employment decisions are based on merit and business needs, and not on race, color, citizenship status, national origin, ancestry, gender, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, age, religion, creed, physical or mental disability, genetic information, pregnancy, marital status, parent status, veteran status, political affiliation or other factor protected by law. CV complies with the Affirmative Action requirements and the Americans with Disabilities Act regarding reasonable accommodation for qualified employees with a disability.