School-Based Counselor

“Every child deserves a champion; an adult who will never give up on them, who understands the power of connection and insists that they become the best they can possibly be” – Rita Pierson

Join our team! Be a champion and an advocate for children, teens and their families, by providing safe, responsive and confidential counseling services in a school-based setting. We provide affordable and immediate COUNSELING, CARE, and CONNECTION for clients to thrive.

Benefits to joining our team:

• Report to: Clinical Director
• Simple IRA option, Dental options
• 37.5 Hours/Week for 36 weeks (Total school year)
• Competitive Hourly Rates, Commensurate with Industry Best Practices

Keys to success:

• A personal desire to help those in need
• Care to make a difference in the life of a child.
• Connections on a personal and professional level

Title: School Based Mental Health Counselor

Responsible To: Clinical Director

Qualifications:

• Master’s degree in Social Work, Psychology, Counseling, Education, Child Development or related field
• Some prior work in schools or prevention preferred
• National Certified Counselor (NCC) preferred
• Licensed Professional Counselor, Licensed Social Worker, or Licensed Certified Social Worker preferred
• Student Assistance Program (SAP) certification preferred
• Act 33/34/73 Clearances.

Position Update: November 2024

Primary Responsibilities:

• This position will coordinate and provide preventive mental/behavioral health services in a middle school/high school contracted with Outreach Teen and Family Services.
• This position will serve as the specialist of the host system and Outreach.
• The position will be the key communicator, facilitator, needs assessor, and customer representative.
• This position may be asked to provide direct counseling to students, crisis intervention, participate on the SAP team, identify and coordinate linkages to treatment services, develop psycho educational classroom presentations, curriculum-based groups, support groups, individual psycho educational sessions, in-services, and parent education forums to the schools and other host settings.

Other Duties and Responsibilities:

• Implement and maintain the Outreach’s philosophy, principles and procedures in all facets of performance.
• Prepare or assist in preparation and implementation of educational plans and goals for the school.
• Assess or provide counseling, intervention and/or education to consumers in a professional manner.
• Complete timely and accurate documentation. This includes weekly schedules, accurate and timely billing forms, school logs, and monthly reports.
• Communicate, collaborate and meet with staff, families, external agencies and/or others as necessary to support services to consumers and the mission of the agency. Meets with the schools or host settings administrative staff regularly to continue to assess host settings needs and refers them to the appropriate level of community services.
• Maintains hours of services as per contract.
• Prioritizes high-risk situations including at-risk students and helps develop an intervention plan (as part of but not limited to core teams), that accesses and provides the appropriate interventions and critical incident documentation.
• Participates in planned supervision. Comes prepared with an agenda and keeps supervisor informed. Knows when to act independently and when to seek help.
• Fully participate as required in staff development opportunities, which are offered to enhance professional growth especially to maintain license, certification, or identified program performance skills.
• Perform other duties as assigned

Goal:

The goals of the program are to retain students within the system, to intervene with students who have social, family or emotional problems which could affect their functioning in school, and to facilitate an appropriate learning atmosphere within the school.