Senior Policy Advisor

Position Title: Senior Policy Advisor
Department: Strategic Partnerships & Policy
Reports to: Chief Policy Officer (CPO)
Location: 3450 Third Street, San Francisco, CA 94124

ABOUT THE ORGANIZATION
Safe & Sound is a children’s advocacy organization working to prevent and reduce child abuse, neglect, and trauma. We have been a pioneer in the field of child abuse prevention, working within San Francisco for more than 50 years. Recently, the organization has begun to expand its impact working throughout the state of California.

Child maltreatment is a complex problem, but a preventable one. Our data-informed approach leverages three primary strategies: we empower children with knowledge and confidence; we support families providing resources and skills; we activate the community and the change-makers within it to create a thriving social safety net for children and their families.

The organization has an annual operating budget of approximately $15.4 million and is supported by approximately 70 staff, interns, and more than 80 volunteers. Safe & Sound headquarters is located in a historic firehouse in the Haight-Ashbury neighborhood of San Francisco, with a second office in the Bayview neighborhood. Safe & Sound recently merged with The Center for Youth Wellness (CYW), a national leader in the effort to advance pediatric medicine, raise public awareness, and transform the way society responds to children exposed to Adverse Childhood
Experiences (ACEs). Founded by California’s first Surgeon General Dr. Nadine Burke Harris, CYW has created a national call to screen, treat, and heal ACEs and toxic stress.

More information is available at: www.safeandsound.org.
 

OVERALL SUMMARY
The Senior Policy Advisor plays a key role in shaping, supporting and implementing the strategic direction of the organization’s advocacy and policy work. This position is responsible for creating an expanded advocacy program, program research, development, strategy, and implementation; community and policymaker engagement; and communication related to advocacy projects. The Senior Policy Advisor will be primarily responsible for overseeing and developing local San Francisco advocacy related to supporting families, preventing child abuse and neglect, and improving the local child abuse response system. The Senior Policy Advisor will work with the Family Services Alliance (FSA), a network of approximately 40 family support organizations to support their advocacy work and to create a powerful movement of families, community partners, and policymakers to help ensure San Francisco families and the community organizations serving them have essential resources allowing all families to thrive.

The ideal candidate will be familiar with San Francisco’s and California’s policy and advocacy landscape, particularly in the areas of family support, early care and education, and child welfare and will have experience and comfort in developing people as leaders in their communities and running local advocacy efforts. This position requires innovation, flexibility, strategic thinking, excellent project development and project management skills, the ability to communicate (written/verbal) effectively, advocacy or community engagement experience, and knowledge of the needs of vulnerable children and families.

The position reports to the Chief Policy Officer, receives strategic direction from the FSA Steering Committee, and works frequently with FSA members, executive directors of family support organizations, local policymakers and elected officials, political experts, and a variety of community members.

ESSENTIAL FUNCTIONS
Advocacy and Community Engagement
● Develop and implement advocacy strategies and activities that will build a shared vision and create public/political will for support of children and families, including the goal of increasing resources for improved outcomes for children and their families; identify multiple, creative ways to further the advocacy goals of Safe & Sound and the Family Services Alliance, and represent these goals when engaging in advocacy;
● Develop and implement a plan to create a diversified and powerful voice for San Francisco families with children living in vulnerable circumstances; mobilize community members, including families, through ongoing and progressive activities, including training and support to participate in meetings, press events, public awareness activities, and hearings;
● Support related state advocacy efforts;
● Foster and maintain relationships with key community-based organizations, faith leaders, elected officials, civic, community, and public sector leaders, and parent/caregiver leaders that will help create positive activation of communities at the local and state level;
● Identify and work with other coalitions that work to strengthen all San Francisco and California families; and
● Manage and maintain a timely and comprehensive list of current and potential members called on for advocacy;
● Provide oversight for and work with consultants, related to advocacy and policy activities, when necessary.
Communications
● Develop and implement external communications and public awareness strategy to support advocacy efforts; and
● Track outreach and communications efforts.
Project Management
● Pursue creative solutions to project management of advocacy and communication efforts;
● Create comprehensive project plans, outlining goals and timelines to meet advocacy targets and those of coalitions and partnerships;
● Oversee development and implementation of systems to ensure data and documentation of advocacy efforts and partnership collaborations is properly recorded and maintained; and
● Work in collaboration with the department members and other Safe & Sound departments to develop and implement new projects, based on ongoing and emerging needs.
Facilitation
● Facilitate key stakeholder meetings.
● Prepare and disseminate necessary information for meetings and follow-up on action items when appropriate.
Data and Evaluation
● Oversee the collection, tracking, analysis, and reporting of data relating to relevant advocacy and policy outcomes and outputs; and
● Assist the Chief Policy Officer and other staff in developing metrics that track the effectiveness of local, state, and federal advocacy and policy efforts and drive toward outputs and outcomes.
Development and Budgeting
● Provide support to the Chief Policy Officer and the Development department for development and maintenance of funding efforts related to designated advocacy and policy efforts; this includes support in drafting and revising public and private grant proposals and reports; and
● Develop and manage budgets for advocacy and coalition-building efforts.
Additional Responsibilities
● Continually broaden expertise; pursue cutting-edge knowledge relevant to the work; and serve as a resource for colleagues, partners and community-members;
● Attend meetings in the community, other meetings, webinars, and conferences specific to duties mentioned above as well as all internal staff meetings as required;
● Work with the SPP department to develop effective and efficient internal communication tools so that team members are apprised of relevant information; and
● Maintain files and documents in compliance with legal, organizational, and funding requirements.

Undertake other duties as assigned.

ESSENTIAL QUALIFICATIONS
● Bachelor’s degree or equivalent in public policy, public administration, law, public relations, communications, early childhood, social science, education, or related discipline;
● Minimum of 5-7 years of professional work experience in public policy, advocacy, law, nonprofit/social service management, community engagement, and/or in the ECE/Family Support sector;
● Experience in campaigning, lobbying, organizing, advocacy, public policy, or law; and
● Strong commitment to racial and economic justice.
PREFERRED QUALIFICATIONS
● Experience with policy advocacy in San Francisco;
● Knowledgeable about San Francisco and California government processes and the needs of vulnerable families;
● Experience working on cross-sector initiatives;
● Experience managing multiple, simultaneous work efforts and a strong ability to plan strategically and marshal resources toward implementing that plan while staying on top of specific tasks and consistently meeting deadlines;
● Ability to take initiative and assume high levels of ownership for outcomes while exercising sound judgment in day-to-day decision-making;
● Outstanding project management skills and an ability to handle a complex environment with multiple priorities;
● Ability to navigate ambiguous, fast-paced environments and handle uncertain situations; ability to maintain flexibility to respond to changing circumstances or priorities;
● Strong written and oral communication skills with demonstrated ability to develop and deliver reports, recommendations, and presentations;
● Ability to engage with and build authentic relationships quickly with diverse stakeholders;
● Ability to embrace obstacles that will arise and be creative in coming up with solutions; capable of remaining steadfast and resilient in the face of opposition;
● Ability to work well as a team member and independently while collaborating
with others to achieve desired goals/results; and
● Action-oriented: Greatly enjoys getting people together to take action and willing to step outside of their comfort zone and awareness of how to motivate others to get out of theirs.
POSITION SPECIFICATIONS
● Full-Time
● Exempt
● Position will be fingerprinted, E-verified and reference checked.
PHYSICAL REQUIREMENTS
● Typical Working Conditions
○ Standard office; heavy keyboard work; phone and video meetings;
● Equipment Used
○ Computer, phone, fax, and copier;
● Essential Physical Tasks:
○ Ability to lift/push/pull up to 20 pounds unassisted;
○ Ability to travel around San Francisco, the Bay Area, and to Sacramento
when necessary.

The base salary for this position is $95,400.00 annually and is eligible for agency-sponsored benefits. (To know more about our benefits, visit www.safeandsound.org.)

Pursuant to the San Francisco Fair Chance Ordinance, we will consider all qualified applicants with arrest and conviction records. Safe & Sound provides equal employment opportunities to all employees and applicants for employment and prohibits discrimination and harassment of any type without regard to race, color, religion, age, sex, national origin, disability status, genetics, protected veteran status, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, or any other characteristic protected by federal, state or local laws.

This policy applies to all terms and conditions of employment, including recruiting, hiring, placement, promotion, termination, layoff, recall, transfer, leaves of absence, compensation and training.

The SPP team strives to cultivate a team that reflects the diverse population we serve and thus strongly encourages diverse candidates from underrepresented communities to apply, including but not limited to individuals who identify as QT/BIPOC, those impacted by the child welfare/foster care systems, and public benefits recipients.

Qualified candidates should submit a resume and a detailed cover letter to Human Resources at employment@safeandsound.org.