What are the responsibilities and job description for the Specialist-Counselor position at Region III Education Service Center?
Provide effective and efficient technical assistance and training to ESC clients for the development and implementation of instructional and assessment support to improve student performance. Required frequent in-region and occasional out-of-region travel, occasional prolonged and irregular hours.
Minimum Qualifications:
- Bachelor's Degree
- Master’s Degree in ONE of the following: social work, mental health counseling, counseling, psychology or closely related field
- Must hold one or more of the following licenses:
- Certified School Counselor
- School Psychologist
- Licensed Mental Health Professional in the state of Texas
- Licensed Clinical Social Worker (LCSW)
- School experience preferred, but not required
Knowledge/Skills:
- An in-depth knowledge of counseling practices
- An in-depth knowledge and content expertise, specific to role
- Knowledge, skills and abilities necessary to facilitate training, awareness, promotion, and family engagement in collaboration with state and local partners
- Ability to design, deliver, and facilitate high-quality professional development for adult audiences, both in person and virtually
- Ability to connect with students and provide counseling supports
- Ability to connect with diverse audiences and understand complex and unique circumstances in order to support growth among individuals and across regions/districts
- Ability to coach, model and provide feedback on performance
- Highly organized; ability to manage multiple projects at once and meet deadlines
- Attention to detail with an ability to produce high quality work in diverse environment
- Ability to break down complex information into comprehensive parts, ask questions, synthesize and analyze
- Ability to influence others to achieve outcomes, both within and outside formal management structures
- Collaborative and results-oriented
- Excellent written and oral communication skills
- Expertise in virtual platforms and virtual facilitation to ensure the continued ability to meet client needs
- Demonstrates a growth mindset, desire to self-reflect, give/receive feedback and continuously improve
- Strong sense of personal accountability; takes initiative to meet ambitious goals
- Builds strong relationships without compromising outcomes
- Knowledge of and experience using Microsoft Office, Google, video conferencing tools, and multimedia equipment
Essential Functions:
- Designs, delivers, and/or facilitates job-embedded professional development for relevant clients at district, school, or classroom level, including:
- Whole-group trainings that build a shared understanding of skills, practices, or systems and include opportunities for practice
- Support for participants implementing a new skill, practice, or system within their context, including co-planning, observation, and real-time feedback
- One-on-one coaching sessions that identify participant successes and develop their capacity to improve high-leverage areas of growth
- Technical assistance that provides direct, responsive training or support to individuals or small groups around compliance, systems, or state requirements
- Partners closely with classroom/school to assess areas in need of capacity building and to develop intentional scope and sequences of professional development aimed at effectively addressing those growth areas
- Effectively supports stakeholders to analyze data to drive instructional growth (at relevant classroom/school) by identifying areas of strength and opportunity as applicable for their role and context
- Contributes to the scaling and aligning of best practices in instruction and/or instructional leadership with other individuals, teams, or departments
- Contributes to the scaling and aligning of best practices in school safety with other individuals, teams, or departments
- Contributes to building and strengthening the culture of individual teams and the entire Academic Services Department
- Complies with federal and state laws, State Board of Education Rules, and ESC board policy and procedures
All positions at ESC 3 are defined as security-sensitive. Security-sensitive positions are those which require employees to be entrusted with the certain types of data, whether electronic or in paper form. Those data elements, as defined by the ESC 3 Data Classification and Handling Policy may include, but not limited to:
- Sensitive Personal Information (SPI)
- Personally, Identifiable Information (PII)
- Protected Health Information (PHI)
- Family Educational Records (FERPA Data)
- Federal Tax Information (FTI)
- HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability Accountability Act)
It is the employees on-going responsibility to safeguard this type of data and to report any instance of lost or stolen data.
