Executive Director

City of New York•New York City, NY

19h

About The Position

The Administration for Children’s Services (ACS) protects and promotes the safety and well-being of children and families through child welfare and juvenile justice services and community supports. ACS manages community-based supports and foster care services and provides subsidized childcare vouchers. ACS child protection staff respond to allegations of child maltreatment. In juvenile justice, ACS oversees detention, placement, and programs for youth in the community. The Family Services Division (FSD) and its network of contracted providers deliver one of the largest and most diverse continuums of community-based child welfare prevention services in the nation and across New York City to improve safety, well-being, and permanency for thousands of families and children each year. This position focuses on systems improvement, innovation, and strategy initiatives that require collaboration with major stakeholders to address urgent or emerging provider and family needs, city or state mandates, and high-priority strategic goals of ACS leadership. The Office of Program Management and Sustainability (OPMS) oversees a portfolio of multi-stakeholder (internal, intergovernmental, and external) prevention strategy, improvement, and innovation projects. The Office of Program Management and Sustainability (OPMS) manages numerous cross-functional projects focused on program design, data, and system sustainability. OPMS’s initiatives include collaborating with service providers, legal, finance, procurement, compliance, systems, and operations, and developing a strategy within the parameters of policy/regulations (city, state, and federal). The Program Design and Implementation (PDI) team within the Office of Program Management and Sustainability develops and implements strategies to ensure that the full continuum of prevention programs is implemented in alignment with service model fidelity and in full compliance with NYC child welfare requirements. The PDI team provides ongoing contract management and support for providers and model purveyors. The team holds monthly model cohorts to bring together providers and purveyors to discuss case practice challenges, program data, continuous quality improvement, and fidelity. The team also hosts trainings and convenings for providers and ACS staff to learn about using data effectively to improve practice, frameworks for effective implementation, and incorporating families’ perspectives into service delivery. Additionally, the team holds monthly administrative meetings with each model purveyor to discuss case practice expectations between child welfare and model requirements. This position is an opportunity for an outstanding candidate to bring a strategic lens to the portfolio of evidence based programs for the therapeutic and treatment models (BSFT,CPP, FFT, FFT Adaptations, MST-PRV, MST-CAN & TST) and the portfolio of programs implementing the family support frameworks (Solution-Based casework, Family Connections, Mobility Mentoring). This work will require leading critical workstreams to develop a strategy on fidelity monitoring and implement across multiple internal and external partners. The Executive Director will support the unit to implement processes that inform practice guidance, develop metrics for implementation, support the use of data for decision making, and successfully carry out the strategic goals of ACS leadership. The team oversees a portfolio of multi-stakeholder (internal, intergovernmental, and external) prevention strategy, improvement, and innovation projects. The team manages other cross-functional project teams with expertise in a wide range of topic areas to design and implement projects. This includes a mix of service provider, legal, finance, procurement, compliance, policy/regulation (city, state, and federal), technology, and data analysis stakeholder groups and topic areas. The ideal candidate can synthesize complex issues, be flexible to develop strategies to respond to identified challenges and has experience to support and guide staff on all levels (Directors, Program Officers and Program Associates) when there are competing priorities. The ideal candidate will be able to demonstrate cognitive flexibility when leading initiatives, has strong interpersonal and lateral leadership skills and can facilitate large groups to promote cross-collaboration to drive towards a path forward. The Executive Director will report to the Assistant Commissioner and will be tasked to fulfill the following duties:

Requirements

PERMANENT (NOT PROVISIONAL) IN THE CIVIL SERVICE TITLE OF ADMINISTRATIVE STAFF ANALYST.
A master's degree from an accredited college in economics, finance, accounting, business or public administration, human resources management, management science, operations research, organizational behavior, industrial psychology, statistics, personnel administration, labor relations, psychology, sociology, human resources development, political science, urban studies or a closely related field, and two years of satisfactory full-time professional experience in one or a combination of the following: working with the budget of a large public or private concern in budget administration, accounting, economic or financial administration, or fiscal or economic research; in management or methods analysis, operations research, organizational research or program evaluation; in personnel or public administration, recruitment, position classification, personnel relations, employee benefits, staff development, employment program planning/administration, labor market research, economic planning, social services program planning/evaluation, or fiscal management; or in a related area.
18 months of this experience must have been in an executive, managerial, administrative or supervisory capacity. Supervision must have included supervising staff performing professional work in the areas described above.
A baccalaureate degree from an accredited college and four years of professional experience in the areas described in "1" above, including the 18 months of executive, managerial, administrative or supervisory experience, as described in "1" above.

Nice To Haves

Synthesize complex issues
Be flexible to develop strategies to respond to identified challenges
Experience to support and guide staff on all levels (Directors, Program Officers and Program Associates) when there are competing priorities.
Demonstrate cognitive flexibility when leading initiatives
Strong interpersonal and lateral leadership skills
Can facilitate large groups to promote cross-collaboration to drive towards a path forward.

Responsibilities

Manage the day-to-day operations of the unit including providing support to the director overseeing Brief Strategic Family Therapy (BSFT), Child Parent Psychotherapy (CPP), Functional Family Therapy (FFT), Functional Family Therapy - Child Welfare Adaptations, Multisystemic Therapy - Prevention (MST-PRV), Multisystemic Therapy – Child Abuse and Neglect (MST-CAN) & Trauma Systems Therapy (TST) and oversee the portfolio of programs implementing the family support frameworks (Solution-Based casework, Family Connections, Mobility Mentoring).
Develop team processes and facilitate procedures for claiming for Family First Prevention Services Act (FFPSA).
Provide direct supervision of staff and guide strategic thought partnership using project management, research methods, data analytics, and human-centered design to spearhead high-level, highly visible initiatives that require collaboration with major stakeholders for the therapeutic treatment programs and family support programs.
Trains staff in performance of work activities, by holding individual and unit informational meetings, inviting and answering questions, demonstrating/providing examples of proper work methods, to increase employees’ areas of capacity.
Promotes training sessions/workshops for staff, by presenting information/using activities/experiences/audio visual/other aids/following training designs/lesson plans/notes/encouraging discussion/participation/ eliciting/answering questions, to achieve training objectives/offer an opportunity to increase employee’s areas of capacity.
Conducts/participates in staff meetings, by attending/facilitating agenda, encouraging relevant discussion, to keep staff informed of unit goals and changes in programs/policies/procedures.
Monitors staff involved in the development and implementation of new initiatives/projects, by observation, conveying information, directing the analysis/analyzing data, to provide reports/recommendations to improve customer service and workflow.
Collaborate with the division’s leaders and staff to develop strategies to ensure models across prevention programs are implemented in alignment to service model fidelity and in alignment with NYC child welfare requirements and state policies.
Develop workflows and processes to collect practice themes from all cohort and admin meetings, and fidelity reports, and develop an ongoing reporting structure and strategy to share findings with internal ACS teams.
Support the development and continuous improvement of unit’s strategy to define and assess fidelity measures for individual programs and across a cohort of programs implementing a model and charts approaches for improving implementation.
In partnership with the Division of Financial Services and Division of Policy, Planning and Measurement, this role will lead to build out guidance and support ongoing training and development of staff to learn and perform contract management functions for prevention programs that include monitoring fiscal and programmatic activities.
Plan, facilitate, and lead communication strategies with internal and external stakeholders regarding the prevention continuum and intersections between prevention and other critical programmatic and policy areas within ACS and at other city agencies.
Represent the Family Services Division (FSD) and OPMS team at meetings with Federal, State, and City Officials; local and national stakeholders and at conferences and external learning events.
Apprise FSD’s leadership on emerging and operational issues and technical assistance for the provider agencies.
Act as a liaison between ACS and its contracted prevention service providers; facilitating close collaboration with other key City agencies to promote access and availability of needed resources on a community level.
Incorporate various partner voices into systemwide projects and initiative, including those of children and families, providers, and advocates.
Work closely with contracted resources to ensure that the prevention service systems are responsive to the needs of families involved with the child welfare system and to maximize efficiency in the delivery of those services.