Family Finding Resource Specialist

Brightpoint • Belleville, IL

4d • $19 - $20 • Hybrid

About The Position

Brightpoint invites you to join our team of mission-driven staff who share a common vision: an equitable world where all children and families thrive in strong communities. As a leader in the human services sector for 140 years, we aim to advance the well-being of children by investing in families and strengthening communities through data-informed, collaborative, and preventative solutions. The Family Finding Resource Specialist is a critical member of the region's child welfare team, persistently engaging in activities that support life-long relationship preservation and permanency achievement for youth in care. As a Family Finding Resource Specialist, you will engage in research, investigation, and outreach to locate relatives, community connections, and fictive kin of youth in care, as well as support the caregiver recruitment and licensing processes. The Family Finding Resource Specialist reports to the Family Finding Program Supervisor.

Requirements

• Highschool diploma or equivalent required.
• Ability to attend in-person meetings and events as needed required.
• Valid driver's license, insurance, and a reliable vehicle required.

Nice To Haves

• Bachelor's degree or college coursework in Social Work, Communications and/or a related field preferred.
• Prior experience in investigation or person location preferred.
• Familiarity with the child welfare system, specifically foster care, preferred.
• Ability to communicate in both English and Spanish preferred.

Responsibilities

• Engage in extensive research, investigation, and outreach in locating parents/guardians with lost connections to youth in care.
• Identify and locate potential extended family and fictive kinship relationships.
• Utilize creative and/or non-traditional search methods as needed to help ensure success in locating familial supports and connections, including the use of database and systems analysis, social media, web-based searches, genogram reviews, ecomaps, and other tools and methods to map and locate prospective supports and placement resources for the youth and family.
• Compose and send written correspondence and make announced and unannounced visits to homes of identified individuals with the goal of establishing communication and fostering engagement with the Child and Family Team.
• Engage with youth in an age-appropriate manner as part of the research and assessment process, utilizing a family-centered, trauma-informed, strength-based lens, and with a focus on inclusive and equitable practices.
• Serve as an active member of the Child and Family Team, collaborating with foster care specialists, supervisors, relative or nonrelative caregivers, biological families, and youth to facilitate connections between newly found family/fictive kin members, supports, and other collateral resources, and to resolve complex and stalled cases in order to improve permanency outcomes.
• Assist in developing and facilitating training and other resources for relative and non-relative caregivers and families of youth in care.
• Assist in the recruitment of caregivers, including attending recruitment and networking events and engaging in social media recruitment campaigns.
• Act as a support to prospective caregivers during the licensing process.
• Engage in community collaboration with other agencies, systems, and community providers to ensure continuity of care and coordination of services for youth and families.
• Work to mitigate risk and safety issues with the family and reports any suspected abuse or neglect to the Department of Children and Family Services per the Abused and Neglected child Reporting Act.

Benefits

• Medical/dental/vision insurance
• 3+ weeks paid time off in the first year including the week between Christmas and New Year’s Day (PTO increases with tenure)
• 11 paid holidays
• supplemental insurance options
• 401(k) with match
• Emerging Leaders will have access to leadership development opportunities and one-on-one mentorship.
• Brightpoint is an approved agency for Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF)

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Entry Level
• Education Level: High school or GED