Family & Community Engagement Specialist, PS 197

Position Overview:

The Family & Community Engagement Specialist will play a valuable role at The Child Center of NY Community School @ PS 197Q in Far Rockaway, Queens. This primary worker leads our community school’s primary strategies for family engagement, parent/school connectedness and he/she will serve as an advocacy resource for our parents and their families. The Family Engagement Worker is responsible for making the school a welcoming and supportive environment for families through the creation of resources, workshops, classes and opportunities for advocacy. The Family Engagement worker is supervised by the Community School Director. In many ways the Family Engagement Worker’s role is essential to successful outcomes that are related to family involvement, advocacy and wrap around family-based services. Our Family Engagement Worker will deliver quality programming which is essential to optimal functioning of our family-based services offered in our Community School environment.

Essential Functions:

• Responsible for developing and enhancing parental involvement in the Community School with dedicated activities in family room, classes, events, etc. 
• Foster relationships with parents and other members of the school community such as the PTA, Principal and community-based collaborations through formal and informal contacts. 
• Establish linkages with neighborhood-based organizations for the purpose of information gathering, referral and advocacy for families. 
• Develop parent resource center to provide information and referral services for families.
• Maintain attendance records for all parent activities and classes. 
• Submit attendance and applications for all adult classes in a timely fashion. 
• Keep accurate documentation of parents who solicit assistance and wrap around services. 
• Keep parents informed of all services, trainings, and program opportunities available throughout the community. 
• Attend agency-sponsored events or training relevant to the role of Family Engagement Worker. 
• Meet monthly with parent coordinators from other sites to discuss program goals and procedures, share community resources and plan activities. 
• Inform Community School Director of all planned activities. 
• Plan ongoing workshops, trainings and seminars for parents. 
• Plan monthly meetings with parents to discuss topics of interest to parents.
• Additional duties as deemed necessary by the Community School Director.
• Performs other related duties as assigned.

Minimum Qualifications:

• Bachelor’s Degree is preferred or current Bachelor’s student majoring in student counseling, social services, education, or related field; experience working with parents in an educational and community-based setting; at least 1 year of related experience in youth services, education, public administration or social work. 
• Must be bilingual. 
• Outstanding communication skills (including internet); collegial personality; 
• Strong group facilitation skills. 
• Knowledge of youth development. 
• Ability to work well as a member of a team. 
• Experience in hosting parent workshops, trainings and planning community-based events. 
• Strong ability to create, maintain and to develop effective communication and promotion strategies. 
• Ability to engage parents and to organize and plan parent based services, workshops and events. 
• Ability to interface with school administrators, partners, managers, parents, and all stakeholders effectively. 
• Effective organizational skills and attendance record keeping systems. 
• Time management skills and ability to meet short deadlines. 
• Word processing skills and experience working with Excel. 
• Must be able to work 20 hours per week including some day and evening hours.  Some Saturdays required.

Job Category: 

Work Schedule:

• Monday – Friday between  4:00 – 7:00 pm
• Some Saturdays