Senior Director, Direct Services

Think of Us•Washington, DC

9d•$150,000 - $180,000•Hybrid

About The Position

Think of Us (TOU) is transforming the child welfare system into one where young people and families can heal, develop, and thrive. We drive purpose-driven work aligned with meaningful systems change, powered by data and the insights of lived experience. Our focus is on prevention, keeping families strong before crisis, and on building kinship-first systems so children grow up with people they know and trust. Through bold collaborations with leaders and innovators across the public and private sectors — from Presidential Administrations to local providers — we identify leverage points and co-create solutions that re-architect child welfare for the future. This is a cross-functional leadership role that sits at the intersection of direct service delivery, operational management, and systems innovation. The Senior Director will ensure both teams are delivering high-quality, lived-experience-centered support while building the infrastructure, practice standards, and learning systems needed to sustain and scale TOU’s direct service model. The Senior Director will directly supervise the Senior Manager of Care Navigation and the Senior Manager of the Beta Team, creating alignment across both programs while honoring the distinct contexts and goals of each. At Think of Us, direct service is not separate from systems change — it is systems change in action. The Senior Director of Care Navigation holds the vision that every family and young person served is both supported in the moment and contributing to the evidence base that transforms child welfare at scale.

Requirements

8–12 years of progressive experience in child welfare, social services, human-centered direct service programs, or related fields, including at least 3–4 years of senior program leadership experience overseeing multiple teams, programs, or geographies.
Personal or professional experience with the child welfare system or other social impact work, and carry a deep commitment to Think of Us’ mission to build a Child and Family Well-Being System centered on healing, development, and thriving.
Approach this work with humility, curiosity, and a willingness to grow alongside the communities we serve.
Senior leader who creates trust, accountability, and shared purpose across diverse teams and geographies — equally comfortable setting strategic direction and rolling up your sleeves to solve operational challenges.
Experienced people leader who develops other managers, not just individual contributors. Knows how to coach leaders, not just staff, and builds the conditions for strong management practice throughout the teams they oversee.
Strong communicator who models Unconditional Positive Regard and trauma-informed care in all interactions and expectations.
Understands systemic inequities and is committed to building fair, healing-centered systems.
Strategic thinker who connects frontline practice to data insights, organizational learning, and system transformation — and who can translate operational realities into senior leadership recommendations.
Thrives in complex, multi-program environments and brings clarity, composure, and a solutions-oriented mindset to ambiguity and rapid change.
Working familiarity with AI-assisted tools and human-technology collaboration in service delivery, and brings an active learning orientation to how emerging tools can strengthen the work.
Willing and able to meet the hybrid working requirements of this role.
Experience working with or alongside systems that impact youth and families — or is deeply committed to learning about these systems and approaching the work with humility, curiosity, and care.
Motivated by impact and systems change.
Thrives in a fast-growing, evolving organization and sees change as an opportunity to innovate, learn, and make things better.
Actively explores and applies AI tools to make their work more effective — using them thoughtfully to increase efficiency, improve insight, and support sound, human-centered decision-making.
Bachelor’s degree in social work, counseling, human services, public policy, or related field required.

Nice To Haves

Bilingual in Spanish
Master's degree in Social Work (MSW), Public Administration, or related field strongly preferred.
Significant senior leadership experience in lieu of advanced degree will be considered.

Responsibilities

Provide direct supervisory oversight of the Senior Manager of Care Navigation (California) and the Senior Manager of the Beta Team (Texas), ensuring both leaders have the clarity, coaching, and support needed to lead their respective teams effectively.
Set and sustain a shared leadership culture across both teams that centers lived experience, trauma-informed practice, unconditional positive regard, and continuous learning.
Hold programmatic accountability for service quality, team performance, and outcome achievement across Care Navigation and Beta Team operations.
Create alignment between the two teams — identifying opportunities for shared learning, cross-pollination of practice insights, and coordination without collapsing the distinct purposes of each model.
Partner with the Executive in Residence to translate frontline learning and operational insights into organizational strategy and senior leadership decision-making.
Represent the direct services portfolio in cross-functional leadership conversations, ensuring the voice of families, youth, and frontline staff informs TOU’s broader systems change agenda.
Provide strategic and programmatic oversight of TOU’s Care Navigation model in California, ensuring the delivery of whole-person, relationship-centered support to kinship families, foster youth, and transition-age youth.
Ensure the Care Navigation model is implemented with fidelity to TOU’s values — centering lived experience as a core design and accountability mechanism throughout service delivery.
Support the Senior Manager of Care Navigation in building and sustaining a team of Care Navigators who deliver proactive, system-navigating support rather than transactional referrals.
Monitor program performance against key outcomes, using data and qualitative learning to identify practice trends, gaps, and opportunities for model refinement.
Ensure compensation structures, engagement protocols, and participation supports for people with lived expertise are equitable, accessible, and consistently implemented across the California program.
Provide strategic and operational oversight of TOU’s digital resource navigation model in Texas Region 7, ensuring service quality and the integrity of the navigation model as it evolves.
Support the Senior Manager of the Beta Team in managing day-to-day operations, coaching Beta Community Responders, and maintaining the human-centered quality of support delivered to TAY and kinship caregivers.
Ensure frontline learning from the Texas Beta Team is systematically captured, synthesized, and fed into TOU’s broader program design and strategy.
Serve as a senior liaison between the Beta Team’s operational realities and TOU’s design, data, and engineering functions, ensuring staff insights shape tool and workflow development.
Monitor the Texas program’s KPIs and ensure the Beta Team’s work is contributing meaningfully to TOU’s national learning agenda on human-AI collaboration in direct service delivery.
Build and maintain the operational infrastructure — workflows, protocols, quality standards, and accountability mechanisms — needed for both teams to function with consistency, efficiency, and integrity.
Establish shared performance frameworks across Care Navigation and Beta Team operations, with clear KPIs for responsiveness, engagement, lived experience integration, and outcome achievement.
Lead cross-team learning and knowledge management processes that ensure insights from both programs inform each other and contribute to organizational learning.
Oversee resource allocation, staffing, and workflow planning across both teams in coordination with the Senior Managers, ensuring sustainable coverage and team well-being.
Ensure adherence to quality standards, service protocols, data privacy requirements, and ethical guidelines across all user interactions and programmatic activities.
Identify and address operational risks, practice gaps, and capacity constraints proactively, escalating to the Executive in Residence as appropriate.
Oversee data collection, reporting, and measurement across both direct service teams, ensuring accuracy, consistency, privacy, and alignment with TOU’s organizational learning agenda.
Partner with TOU’s data and design teams to analyze trends across both programs, synthesize cross-team learnings, and generate insights that inform program strategy and system change.
Generate senior-level learning briefs, program reports, and strategic recommendations that communicate what is working, what needs adaptation, and what is next for TOU’s direct service model.
Contribute to funder reporting, grant deliverables, and external communications related to Care Navigation and Beta Team outcomes.
Ensure both programs are building the evidence base — through rigorous documentation and learning practices — that supports TOU’s broader advocacy and systems change goals.
Cultivate and maintain relationships with government agencies, community-based organizations, philanthropy partners, and other stakeholders connected to TOU’s direct service work in California and Texas.
Represent TOU’s direct services model in external convenings, partner meetings, and cross-sector learning spaces.
Surface insights about access barriers, resource gaps, and systemic patterns from both programs to inform TOU’s policy and advocacy work.
Support the communication and outreach of both the Care Navigation and Beta Team models across providers, partners, and key stakeholders in relevant regions.

Benefits

100% employer-paid medical, dental, and vision coverage for employees; 50% for dependents.
Access to Talkspace for confidential therapy and mental health support.
Short-Term Disability, Life, and AD&D Insurance included.
Optional Long-Term Disability and Supplemental Life Insurance.
Health Care and Dependent Care FSAs available.
401(k) Plan for pre-tax retirement contributions.
Work-from-home setup stipend to optimize your workspace.
Flexible PTO policy, plus sick leave and paid leaves of absence.
8 company holidays, plus two organization-wide seasonal breaks.
Regular organization-wide learning sessions on relevant and reflective topics.