Senior Director of Crisis Response & Community Preparedness

The Jewish Board • New York, NY

4d • Hybrid

About The Position

Jewish Community Services (JCS) enhances the resilience and mental health of New York City’s Jewish community through a population health approach. JCS supports Jewish-serving organizations and communities in navigating community-wide crises and collective trauma, including violence, loss, antisemitism, and other destabilizing events, through trauma-informed response, recovery, and preparedness initiatives. JCS extends emergency response support to the broader New York Community when needed. The Senior Director of Crisis Response & Community Preparedness will lead JCS’s trauma-informed response to community-wide crises, providing operational leadership, coordination, and mental health grounded guidance to Jewish-serving organizations during and after critical incidents. This role is responsible for building and maintaining the infrastructure, frameworks, and partnerships necessary to rapidly mobilize trauma-responsive supports following events such as shootings, acts of violence, antisemitism, sudden loss, and other collective disruptions. In addition to leading response during active crises, the Senior Director will continuously advance preparedness, recovery, and population-level capacity-building efforts, including training, train-the-trainer models, and integration of crisis-informed practices that strengthen long-term community readiness. All work in this role is grounded in trauma-informed, community-based mental health principles rather than individual psychiatric emergency services. Reporting to the Deputy Director, the Senior Director will supervise assigned staff and coordinate closely with internal JCS teams, Jewish Board support departments, and external partners to ensure aligned, effective, and scalable trauma response efforts.

Requirements

• Demonstrated experience leading or coordinating responses to community-wide crises or critical incidents
• Ability to remain calm, decisive, and relationally grounded in high-stress, emotionally charged environments
• Strong understanding of trauma-informed, population-level mental health approaches
• Capacity to translate crisis response experience into scalable systems, trainings, and institutional practices
• Deep understanding of the New York Jewish community and its unique needs, with sensitivity to cultural and religious practices.
• Strong skills in creating and delivering training focused on mental health and well-being.
• Strong project management and organizational skills to oversee multiple initiatives.
• Excellent verbal and written communication skills, with the ability to engage diverse audiences.
• Capacity to foster collaboration across teams
• Master’s degree in Social Work, Psychology, Public Health, Emergency Management, or a related field required.
• Minimum of 7-10 years of experience in mental health, crisis response, training, or emergency preparedness, preferably within Jewish communal settings or human services
• Experience responding to or leading efforts following community-wide crises, collective trauma, or critical incidents, preferably in community-based, healthcare, or human services settings.
• Proven experience in developing and delivering training programs for diverse audiences, including community members and professionals
• Strong cultural competence regarding Jewish religious, spiritual, cultural and communal practice.
• Excellent skills with relevant software and technology including PowerPoint, Excel, Outlook, and Word
• The candidate should be able to read paper and electronic documents and perform significant data entry into various computer programs. Manual dexterity and hand-eye coordination to travel independently using public transportation.
• To perform the essential functions of this job the candidate must be able to travel within the five boroughs carrying equipment such as a notebook, forms, laptop, mobile hotspot and cell phone weighing up to approximately 10 pounds.
• To perform the essential functions of this job, the incumbent is routinely required to sit (80% of the time) and stand (20% of the time)
• The work environment generally does not involve physical risk or hazardous conditions

Responsibilities

• Provide leadership during active community crises, including real-time decision-making, coordination of trauma-informed supports, and collaboration with communal and external partners.
• Design, implement, and maintain trauma-informed crisis response frameworks, including workflows, staffing models, and activation protocols that can be rapidly deployed.
• Lead post-crisis recovery and stabilization efforts, integrating lessons learned into future response and preparedness strategies.
• Develop and deliver training and preparedness initiatives for Jewish-serving organizations, including train-the-trainer and capacity-building models.
• Coordinate staff deployment and cross-team collaboration during crisis response efforts, leveraging population health personnel as needed.
• Establish performance metrics and evaluation processes to assess the impact of trauma response, recovery, and preparedness initiatives.
• Represent JCS in community coalitions, task forces, and forums related to trauma, crisis response, and communal mental health.
• Key member of the JCS leadership team, participating in strategic priority goals and projects and providing coverage for other JCS services, as needed.
• Other duties, as assigned.

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Director
• Number of Employees: 1,001-5,000 employees