Peer Specialist
The Jewish Board

Job Info

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Make a bigger difference

At The Jewish Board, we don't just make a difference - we make a bigger difference as we serve 45,000 New Yorkers every year. Join our dedicated team that's been helping communities across New York City for almost 150 years and see just how big of a difference you can make.

Reasons you'll love working with us:

• If you have a particular age range or population you're interested in working with, you can find your niche here. Our clients and staff are as diverse as the city we work in, and include people of all cultures, religions, races, gender expressions, and sexual orientations.

• We're committed to supporting your career development by encouraging mobility and advancement across different program types and jobs.

• With 70 locations throughout the five boroughs, you can work close to where you live.

• Generous vacation time and 15 paid holidays will help you achieve a healthy work/life balance.

• We offer an excellent benefits package with affordable, high-quality health and dental insurance with low co-pays.

• You'll receive ongoing support through high-quality supervision, specialized trainings from our Continuing Education team, and an education benefit.

How you can make a bigger difference:

The OnTrackNY program is part of the Community Behavioral Health Division located at our Crossroads Clinic. The program serves adolescents and young adults who have experienced early psychosis. The model uses a multidisciplinary team approach. Professionals use evidence-based interventions and recovery-oriented models to enable participants to reach goals and reduce disability. The program provides emotional and practical therapy and support to help participants and their families in their recovery journeys. The multidisciplinary team includes the Team Leader, Primary Clinicians, Outreach and Recruitment Coordinator, Supported Education and Employment Specialist, Peer Specialist, Psychiatrist, and Registered Nurse. Services are either provided at the clinic site, in the home, or other off-site locations that are convenient for the participants and their families. 24-hour on-call services are included. Intensive education will be offered to all members of the OnTrackNY Team regarding the evidence-based model and their roles for members to adhere to fidelity standards and successfully support program participants.

The Peer Specialist provides program participants with supportive psychiatric rehabilitation services that facilitates their full integration into the community. The program aims to help each participant achieve their chosen life goal related to housing, work, education and/or building their socialization skills. The services are provided using a recovery-oriented, person-centered, strengths-based approach with the goal of empowering individuals to improve their quality of life, achieve personal life goals as they take a more active role in their community. The Peer Specialist will draw on their lived experience with mental illness to model the recovery process for program participants by supporting them to articulate their goals for recovery, learn and practice new skills and monitor their progress in effectively overcoming mental health barriers.

Some responsibilities include, but are not limited to:

• Provide concrete service delivery to clients as per program needs.
• Lead and co-lead a variety of recovery-oriented groups, especially on topics of self-advocacy, work and entitlements, daily living skills, independent housing skills, prepare participants for employment and support their ability to maintain employment
• Meet individually with participants as needed to provide additional support, facilitate problem-solving and implementation of tasks
• Communicate with collaterals and other agency staff to support consistent and effective service delivery
• Participate in team meetings, supervision, Initial Case Conferences and discharge planning meetings
• Complete all documentation for services provided, outreach efforts and collateral communications within program time-frames.
• Develop, implement, coordinate and monitor a range of client-centered activities
• Develop and maintain a Participants' Resource Manual of community based recovery resources.
• Take a leading role with the Consumer Advisory Board to train, model and support program participants to develop and practice their own peer advocacy skills.
• May be assigned additional tasks and duties as needed for the program and participants' service needs
• Ability to articulate the program's philosophy, mission and goals to a varied audience via presentations and meeting participation.
• Demonstrate sound judgment and good decision-making skills to reasonably manage unexpected events
• Ability to effectively present information to clients and staff in verbal and written formats.
• Attend trainings, meetings, case conferences
• Other duties as assigned

Qualifications:

The Jewish Board is currently looking for talented individuals of all cultures, religions, races, and gender expressions with the following qualifications:

• GED/HS Diploma
• NYS certification as a Peer Specialist or an ability to obtain certification within one year of hire
• Demonstrated interpersonal communications skills and the ability to empathize with, relate to, and effectively work with participants of mental health services.
• Active participation in mental health self-help activities, peer support, peer advocacy programs, participant-run organizations, or similar experiences.
• Ability/ willingness to disclose about their experiences of mental health services for the purposes of empowerment.
• Willingness to work outside of office setting, in the community and homes of participants.
• Excellent judgment and ability to understand boundaries when working with participants of mental health services.

If you join us, you'll have these great benefits:

• Generous vacation time, in addition to paid agency holidays and 15 sick days
• Affordable and high-quality medical/dental/vision plans
• Tuition assistance and educational loan forgiveness
• Free continuing education opportunities
• 403(b) retirement benefits and a pension
• Flexible spending accounts for health and transportation
• 24/7 Accessible Employee Assistance Program
• Life and disability insurance
• Diversity, equity, and inclusion working groups that are available for you to join, including Confronting Structural Racism (COR), Coalition Against Anti-Semitism (CAAS), and the LGBTQ Steering Committee

Who we are:

The Jewish Board delivers innovative, high-quality, and compassionate mental health and social services to over 45,000 New Yorkers each year. We are unique in serving everyone from infants and their families to children, teens, and adults. We are proud to employ and serve people of all religions, races, cultural backgrounds, gender expressions, and sexual orientations. We are committed to building diverse, equitable, and inclusive teams to help support our mission, and we strongly encourage candidates from historically marginalized backgrounds to apply to work with us.

More on Equal Opportunity:

We respect diversity and accordingly are an equal opportunity employer that does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, creed, religion, national origin, alienage, citizenship status, age, disability, sex, gender, gender identity or expression (including transgender status), sexual orientation, marital status, partnership status, veteran status, genetic information, or any other status protected by applicable federal, state, or local law.

This applies with respect to recruiting, hiring, placement, promotion, transfer, training, compensation, termination, assignments, benefits, employee activities, access to facilities and programs, and all other terms and condition of employment as well as general treatment during employment.

We will endeavor to make a reasonable accommodation to the known physical or mental limitations of qualified employees with disabilities, without regard to any protected classifications, unless the accommodation would impose an undue hardship on the operation of our business. Any employees who need assistance to perform their job duties because of a physical or mental condition should contact human resources.

Other details

• Job Family Direct Care [200s]
• Pay Type Hourly
• Employment Indicator 8857 - Case Worker - Social Services - Traveling
• Min Hiring Rate $23.63

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