Director of Client Safety

Bierman Autism Centers•Berkeley Heights, NJ

8d•Onsite

About The Position

We're building the Teaching Hospital for pediatric therapy. At Bierman Autism Centers, we're creating a category of one by delivering exceptional outcomes for children, developing world-class clinicians, building payer trust, and embedding systems that drive excellence across everything we do. Safety is the foundation that makes all of that possible. We're looking for an experienced Director of Client Safety to build, own, and continuously strengthen the enterprise-wide systems that protect our clients, families, and team members. This isn't a traditional compliance role. It's an opportunity to build the safety infrastructure that supports one of the nation's leading pediatric autism organizations. If you're energized by designing scalable systems, improving operational excellence, and creating environments where children can safely thrive, we'd love to meet you.

Requirements

5–10+ years of leadership experience in healthcare, pediatric services, behavioral health, ABA, quality management, risk management, patient safety, or related operational environments.
Experience designing and implementing enterprise-wide policies, standards, operational systems, or risk management programs.
Experience leading incident management, investigations, root cause analyses, or corrective action planning.
Strong knowledge of child safety, risk management, regulatory expectations, and operational best practices.
Demonstrated success building scalable systems across multi-site organizations.
Strong analytical skills with experience using data to identify trends, monitor performance, and drive improvement.
Excellent communication and facilitation skills with the ability to influence leaders across departments.
A systems-oriented mindset balanced with strong operational execution.
Sound judgment, professionalism, and composure when navigating complex or sensitive situations.
A passion for creating environments where children, families, and team members feel safe, supported, and protected.

Nice To Haves

Master's degree in Healthcare Administration, Nursing, Public Health, Behavioral Health, Psychology, Social Work, Risk Management, or a related field.
Experience in pediatric healthcare, ABA, behavioral health, children's hospitals, or other child-serving organizations.
Experience supporting multi-state healthcare operations.
Knowledge of healthcare compliance, accreditation, licensing, and regulatory requirements.
Experience developing enterprise training programs and operational audits.
Familiarity with Safety Care and Safety Care certified, crisis management, or similar behavioral safety frameworks.

Responsibilities

Design, implement, and continuously improve Bierman's comprehensive client safety operating system, including enterprise-wide policies, standards, documentation requirements, and operational expectations.
Establish and maintain clear operational standards for situations that directly impact client safety, including physical interaction, bathroom procedures, elopement prevention, transportation, supervision, emergency response, and environmental safety.
Ensure safety standards are practical, scalable, and consistently applied across every Bierman location.
Create systems to verify implementation and identify opportunities for improvement, including leading enterprise-wide safety audits, conducting protocol adherence reviews, performing operational spot checks, and reviewing documentation quality.
Build tools to proactively monitor safety performance, including developing enterprise safety scorecards, early warning indicators, safety dashboards, and trend analysis.
Create engaging, practical training for all team members on their role in protecting clients, including new hire onboarding, recurring enterprise safety training, and leadership safety education.
Serve as a key leader during significant safety events, coordinating cross-functional responses and ensuring lessons learned are embedded into the operating system.
Build an enterprise safety system that scales with organizational growth.
Improve consistency across every Bierman center.
Strengthen leadership confidence around safety expectations.
Reduce recurring incidents through proactive systems.
Equip leaders with practical tools to respond effectively.
Increase visibility into organizational safety performance through meaningful metrics.
Foster a culture where safety is embedded into everyday decision-making.