Assistant Director - Program Management II - Lookout Mtn Youth Service Center

State of Colorado•Golden, CO

1d•Onsite

About The Position

This position is an Appointing Authority as delegated by the Youth Center Director. Reports to the Division as necessary or required, regarding the status or progress of the agency. The position implements DYS initiatives to include a trauma responsive environment, behavior management and/or treatment models. The position provides direct supervision of other supervisory and management positions to include Youth Service Specialist IIIs (YSSIII), Youth Service Counselor III (YSCIII), medical and food services managers as assigned by the Youth Center Director. Responsible for identifying, managing, and/or participating directly in leadership and management efforts aimed at improving youth center operations including implementation of the DYS strategic plan. This position participates in the Youth Center Assistant Directors Group (ADG); provides indirect supervision to all remaining employees; has on-call responsibilities; and, may serve as the liaison to the Facilities Management Division.

Requirements

Nine (9) years of professional experience in corrections, law enforcement, probation/parole, or another area of public safety.
Nine (9) years of professional experience in corrections, law enforcement, probation/parole, or another area of public safety, or an equivalent combination of education and experience demonstrating the ability to manage operations within a secure trauma responsive environment.
Secure juvenile custodial expertise which may include knowledge of detention or pretrial programming and/or knowledge of clinical and/or treatment considerations with youth sentenced to long terms, understanding of the Colorado Children’s Code or other laws pertaining to juveniles, criminal procedures, and/or SB94 mandates/functions and other prevailing statutory requirements.
Operation of secure custody settings, understanding broad spectrum adolescent development and how this is reflected in daily institutional needs and patterns.
Expertise in maintaining oversight of contractors and acting as liaison for contractors.
Full Background.
CBI name check and fingerprint check, ICON Colorado court database, Medicare fraud database, Reference Checks, Professional License verification (licensure requirements), Drug Screen, PREA (Division of Youth Services), Trails check (direct contact with children), CAPS (direct contact with adults – Mental Health Institutes, Regional Centers, Veterans Community Living Centers).
Be a minimum of 21 years of age, with no felony convictions or history of domestic violence.
Current/Valid and unrestricted Colorado Driver’s License
Continued employment is contingent upon successful completion of the DYS Pre-service Training Academy, Field Training Program (FTO), and mandatory annual training in all subject areas.
The Diana Screen®, a sexual risk screening tool, is administered to all applicants to the Division of Youth Services (DYS) seeking positions of trust with children and teens to help ensure that ethical boundaries between children and adults are maintained.
Former State employees who were disciplinarily terminated or resigned in lieu of termination must (1) disclose that information on the application (2) provide an explanation why the prior termination or resignation should not disqualify the applicant from the current position, (3) provide the employee number from the applicant’s prior State employment.

Nice To Haves

5+ years of supervisory and administrative experience in juvenile justice or secure residential settings.
Experience with quality assurance oversight and accountability.
Experience managing large, complex systems or organizations, including multi-site operations and cross-functional teams.
Expert knowledge of Colorado juvenile laws, criminal procedures, and state personnel board rules.
Experience with contractor oversight and agency liaison responsibilities.
Direct supervision of leadership positions, providing coaching and mentoring, performance oversight, and strategic direction.

Responsibilities

Supervision of direct care supervisory staff and assigned program area managers as well as indirect supervision of all other agency staff.
Serves as the Appointing Authority for assigned areas; sets performance standards; conducts performance planning and appraisal of staff; and, ensures subordinate staff development needs are met.
Initiates and concludes necessary corrective or disciplinary actions.
Ensures direct and indirect supervisory employees are performing supervision functions with their direct reports consistent with State, Department, Division, and Youth Center expectations.
Ensures that the Reflective Supervision Model is implemented as designed and trained to aid in mentoring and coaching of all DYS staff within the youth center.
Monitors and approves formal leaves of absence for staff and provides formal and regular interval performance evaluations of direct report staff ensuring all other staff are subject to the same procedures.
Makes recommendations for promotions, applies criteria to approve, evaluate, and determine appropriate use of personnel resources pursuant to the Colorado Code of Regulations, Department, and Division policy.
Responsible for ensuring all statutes and policy related to the use of seclusion and physical response are followed.
Provides programmatic planning, coordinating, monitoring, evaluation, and oversight to assigned youth center functions.
Responsible for quality control and continuous quality improvement for assigned youth center areas with the goal of operating healthy trauma-responsive organizational environment as demonstrated through prosocial, safe, and non-violent interactions.
Implements the DYS Strategic Plan to include, but not limited to, understanding the impact of trauma, skills development, small teams, safety and self care plans, calming spaces, group processes, DYS Behavior Expectations, Incident Debriefings, use of positive reinforcement, psychoeducation and/or treatment groups.
Partners with behavioral health, direct care, and other administrative supervisory staff to ensure quality programming.
Maintains effective working relationships and communication with School District Officials, Contract Providers, Detention Screening Agencies, Law Enforcement, DYS Client Managers, Regional Program Managers, Central Office Managers/staff, and DYS Leadership Team to facilitate effective bed management in the youth center and youth transition from the center.
Maintains required staffing levels according to prevailing standards and ratios through recruitment, selection, training, scheduling and retention of employees.
Works with Youth Center Director to develop annual budget based upon assessment of needs consistent with State, Department, and Division guidelines.
Approves and monitors expenditures to assure spending is consistent with budget.
Assures the appropriate use of resources to best address multiple needs of the youth center.
Creates partnerships as needed to forward agency interests (e.g. DFM).
Tracks and administers any recognition or reward monies permissible from personnel funds.
Acts as a signing authority for agency for P card and checkbooks as necessary or required.
Approves or plans for movement of allocation among specific job codes without jeopardizing or violating any encumbered or contractual agreement with the Youth Center Director.
Stays within the allocation in personnel funds monitoring vacancy savings, overtime usage and holiday accruals.
Plans of any PREA fund allocation to prevent sexual harassment, abuse or misconduct.
Ensures that the youth center and personnel are providing safe and secure care for all youth.
Inspects and modifies or improves architecture or processes to ensure safety and security.
Improves youth center operations by planning for additional or new/improved equipment or processes to assist with safe and secure custody.
Provides staff with functioning equipment such as radios/microphones, restraint equipment, convex mirroring or video recording, to improve safety and security.
Provides for oversight and quality control of processes such as youth movement or staffing schedules and distributions in the shift.
Oversees unit and room assignments or group composition to assist with safe and secure operation.
Oversees and monitor compliance of the Federally Mandated Prison Rape Elimination Act.
Oversees and monitors new staff training to ensure attainment of Safe Practices.
Oversees, with Youth Center Director, structured, engaging and trauma responsive programming.
Provides for and oversees regulated movement and staff spatial positioning.
Provides staff continual training to develop and practice both verbal de-escalation and physical response skills.
Ensures verbal de-escalation practices are consistently applied.
Provides staff training to increase their understanding of youth responses or developmental concerns so that their work to intervene may be made more effective and therefore, safer.
Assists Youth Center Director in the implementation of Division initiatives to include creating a trauma responsive environment and providing staff the training, coaching and mentoring ensuring safety in the youth center.
Ensures training of staff occurs per DYS Policy 4.1 at a minimum with specific agency training as indicated.
Responsible for comprehensive understanding and application of state personnel board rules.
Assists in recruiting efforts including testing and evaluating potential candidates, screening, interviewing, and selecting appropriate staff to advance the interests of the agency; training to specifications of agency; monitoring progress; correcting performance; and, applying appropriate State Personnel Board Board Rule for employees.
Works closely with other employee supportive structures and processes to include Family Medical Leave (FML), Short-Term Disability (STD), and Long-Term Disability (LTD).
Advises employees regarding the employee assistance program (C-SEAP) as needed.
Correctly applies resources to staff injured on the job, works collegially with HR, Timekeeping, Benefits, and the Attorney General’s Office.
Recognizes, consults with and correctly employs all elements found in the Code of Colorado Regulations or prevailing Personnel Rules.
Ensures that staff are evaluated according to prevailing instruments and standards.
Ensures compliance with DYS Policies.
Models, coaches, trains, teaches, mentors, and guides staff directly and ensures the same happens for indirect reports with the intent of advancing agency interests and assisting with personal job performance improvement.
Addresses the training needs of staff to deal with the serious mental health needs of detained and/or committed youth.
Ensures a work environment that supports a trauma responsive environment for staff.
May serve, as assigned by the Youth Center Director, on specific agency boards as requested or required.
Participates in department, division, regional and community processes that affect agency or scope of services overseen.
Provides for escorted educational tours through the building to ensure reasonable public access and understanding of our mission and practices.
Participates in broader Division work teams and assists in resolving Division issues as they arise and as assigned by the Youth Center Director.
Attends Assistant Director’s meetings or other committee meetings as assigned or elected.
Communicates effectively with all levels of the organization using any/all available mediums.
Documents and share learnings and new information with agency staff.
Ensures that constitutional and legal rights of youth in custody are not violated.
Maintains community contacts with parents, families, judges, vendors to affect residential adjustment or community transition of students.
Maintains Law Enforcement contact to communicate DYS Policies and Procedures, train new youth services specialists and facilitate criminal investigations.
Co-leads the application of current theory of trauma responsive treatment of juveniles to ensure effective programming.
With guidance from Youth Center Director, drafts, implements and monitors internal measurement systems designed to elicit programmatic improvements in safety and general programming.
Data collection specific to fights, assaults, staffing, seclusion, physical response, injuries, criticals and other areas should be kept, reported on and intervened by the Director and Assistant Director.
Identifies and corrects areas identified through a direct or delegated response.
Applies process improvement strategies and captures improvements in procedure to legitimize and standardize implemented change.
Responds to prevailing data concerns or requests as needed.
Employs data to make sound decisions.
Performs other duties as assigned.

Benefits

Strong, secure, yet flexible retirement benefits including a PERA Defined Benefit Plan or PERA Defined Contribution Plan www.copera.org plus 401(k) and 457 plans
Medical and dental health plans
Employer supplemented Health Savings Account
Paid life insurance
Short- and long-term disability coverage
11 paid holidays per year plus vacation and sick leave
BenefitHub state employee discount program
Employee Wellness program MotivateMe
Excellent work-life programs, such as flexible schedules, training and more
Remote work arrangements for eligible positions
Some positions may qualify for the Public Service Loan Forgiveness Program.