Social Services Specialist

Job Announcement

This position includes a signing bonus of $2,500 (full-time) for new county hires.

If your goal is to build a career that makes a difference, consider joining the dedicated practitioners in the Division of Children, Youth, and Families (CYF) of the Department of Family Services (DFS). We are seeking a dynamic Foster Care and Adoption (FC&A) Social Services Specialist II to join our dedicated, multi-disciplinary team. In this role, you would provide clinical casework services to support the permanency of children in foster care as well as their parents and caregivers. We hire only the most caring and motivated individuals to serve families and children in our community. Learn more about the culture of DFS, meet our director and some of our employees, watch videos about our programs, and check out the great health benefits offered by Fairfax County.
Grow your career with Fairfax County

With more than 16,000 employees, Fairfax County is a diverse workforce offering employees stimulating and challenging opportunities across a broad scope of career opportunities. As a Fairfax County employee, you impact the well-being of our community every day.

This is an exciting time to join Fairfax County Government as we shape racial and social equity policies in the county through the One Fairfax Policy. Using this framework, we intentionally consider equity when making policies or delivering programs and services. To learn more, we highly encourage you to watch the Becoming One Fairfax-An Introduction to Key Concepts video by clicking here and visit the One Fairfax webpage here.

The Department of Family Services (DFS) is committed to strengthening the well-being of its diverse community by protecting and improving the lives of all children, adults, and families through assistance, partnership, advocacy, outreach, and quality services. To learn more about DFS and its Mission, Vision, and Values, please click here.

As an integral member of the FC&A Program, performs a vital role to achieve permanent living arrangements for children in foster care and adoption. Work hours are Monday-Friday, 8:00 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., however, evening and/or weekend work is required.
Duties and responsibilities include:

• Conducts face-to-face contacts and attends home visits to ensure children in foster care and adoption are safe and that their physical, emotional, and educational needs are being met
• Conducts comprehensive assessments to include but not limited to the following areas: safety, permanency, and wellbeing; educational, social, and independent living skills; substance abuse, and developmental concerns; family relationships such as parent-child conflict and domestic violence; assessing the family (i.e., parenting capacity, family relationships, social supports, physical health challenges and disabilities, and basic needs such as shelter, food, and clothing)
• Collaborates with the parents, prior custodians, foster parents, and children when appropriate, to develop a family-centered, solution focused service plan ensure safety, permanency, and wellbeing of the children in foster care
• Coordinates and collaborates with foster families and others to deliver services (i.e., home-based family and individual counseling, health insurance and medical care, parenting support, and domestic violence interventions) to children and parents/family members
• Responds and intervenes in emergency crisis around placement of children in foster home, congregate care facilities, and trial home placements with parent or relative caregivers
• Conducts court-related services to include writing and submitting service plans to court, consulting with county attorney, writing affidavits, filing petitions, and testifying in court
• Documents assessments, critical incident reports, detailed case contacts, progress notes, and service plans in a timely manner in accordance with local and state policy
• Participates in required trainings and meetings and serves as a representative on workgroups and contributes to development of written product
• Coordinates and attends intra-agency and inter-agency meetings
• May be required to be on-call rotation that includes evening, overnight, weekend, and holiday hours which may require immediate response into the field
• Performs other duties as assigned to ensure child safety and improve outcomes in families

KNOWLEDGE, SKILLS AND ABILITIES:

• Knowledge of child protection laws, rules, and regulations
• Knowledge of foster care and adoption laws, rules, and regulations
• Ability to interview, assess needs, counsel, and refer clients to other resource as needed
• Knowledge of childhood trauma and attachment
• Knowledge of the principles and practices of social work
• Knowledge of current social service problems and methods/approaches to address issues
• Ability to analyze case information and to reach sound decisions on the basis of such information
• Ability to communicate clearly and concisely, both orally and in writing
• Ability to use automated technology to establish and maintain case records
• Ability to maintain professional ethics and confidentiality of client information
• Ability to establish and maintain effective working relationships with a variety of individuals
• Ability to schedule and manage workload sufficiently to meet deadlines.

All Fairfax County Government employees are expected to adhere to the Standards of Conduct. In maintaining a drug free workplace, employees are prohibited from manufacturing, distributing, possessing, using or being under the influence of alcohol or illegal drugs while at work or on county premises.

Illustrative Duties

(The illustrative duties listed in this specification are representative of the class but are not an all-inclusive list. A complete list of position duties and unique physical requirements can be found in the position job description.)
Conducts comprehensive clinical assessments and prepares and implements service plans;
Works with clients to develop a plan of service to meet social, health, emotional and economic needs. With the client, formulates objectives and identifies actions to resolve the clients‘ problems;
Advocates for and assists families and individuals in obtaining services (e.g., mental health, intellectual disability, alcohol and drug, housing referrals, financial assistance for basic needs, home based services, training and medical services);
Works with the community to identify families, children and individuals needing social services and coordinates these services using a wrap-around approach;
Provides family counseling and conducts mediation services to families in conflict;
Performs emergency removal of children from their homes when required, places children in foster homes and residential programs, and coordinates services for them as needed;
Investigates complaints of alleged abuse or neglect, and in consultation with supervisor, makes assessment of risks posed to clients in accordance with state and local policies, and works to ensure risks are eliminated or minimized;
Provides crisis intervention on a timely basis to clients or families whose well being are seriously and imminently threatened, to include Adult Protective Services and Child Protective Services after-hours;
Represents the agency in court proceedings and prepares testimony and testifies in Juvenile, Circuit, Criminal, Civil and Federal Courts;
Interviews and counsels natural parents, adoptive parents, foster parents and children to be placed in foster homes or residential facilities and those involved in adoption placement;
Evaluates child‘s readiness for placement and recommends placement ensuring compliance with legal provisions;
Conducts and documents interstate and intrastate family home studies to evaluate and make recommendations on the family‘s ability to provide a safe and nurturing environment for children;
Evaluates and may assist in training foster and adoptive parents;
Communicates and works with colleagues, clients and the community in a manner that supports the agency and program goals and objectives;
Participates as a contributing member on interagency, multi-disciplinary teams, community groups and professional organizations;
Collaborates and contributes to child specific teams on non-agency cases as assigned to assist in identifying community resources and services for families;
Participates, collaborates and contributes to Comprehensive Services Act activities for families on caseload;
Provides training and community education on a variety of social work topics;
Assesses and authorizes purchase of social services to qualifying clients that will help to meet their social, health, emotional and economic needs;
Conducts home visits to families for the purpose of monitoring, counseling and supervision;
Recruits, develops, trains, and monitors individual service providers. Recruits volunteers and manages volunteer services;
Uses automated technology and hard copy files to maintain and update case data, notes,
documents, records, contacts and summaries of information. Maintains case notes, documents and records, enters and updates case load data, contacts and summaries of information;
Prepares and provides reports on casework;
Performs or reviews initial assessment of client‘s presenting need and conducts additional assessment as necessary to develop a coordinated service plan that establishes goals, tasks, and time frames with appropriate county and community-based service providers;
Addresses, and if necessary diffuses, initial crisis situation with clients, assesses safety issues and refers clients to emergency services as needed (e.g., mental health services, child protective services, adult protective services, women‘s shelter, homeless shelter);
Demonstrates expertise in community service resources to identify, classify and describe services that address a broad array of client service needs-collaborates with service delivery professionals from all disciplines to identify service resource information requirements-translates those requirements into an automated catalog of resources necessary for client referrals and the development of client service plans;
Negotiates, facilitates, and coordinates the creative use of limited community-based service alternatives and assists staff from other county human service agencies in creative use of community resources;
Consults with community-based organizations (CBO) staff on resources and service strategies that support service area work with individuals and families.

Required Knowledge Skills and Abilities

(The knowledge, skills and abilities listed in this specification are representative of the class but are not an all-inclusive list.)
Knowledge of the principles and practices of social work;
Knowledge of current social service problems and methods/approaches to address issues;
Knowledge of regulations and guidelines relating to the assigned area of social service specialization;
Ability to analyze case information and to reach sound decisions on the basis of such information;
Ability to communicate clearly and concisely, both orally and in writing;
Ability to use automated technology to establish and maintain case records;
Ability to maintain professional ethics and confidentiality of client information;
Ability to establish and maintain effective working relationships with a variety of individuals;
Ability to schedule and manage workload sufficiently to meet deadlines.

Employment Standards

MINIMUM QUALIFICATIONS:
Graduation from an accredited four-year college or university with a bachelor‘s degree, plus two years of professional social work experience. A master‘s degree in a related field may be substituted for one year of the required experience.

Contingent upon the area of assignment, some positions within this class may require specific certification(s) prior to employment and/or the ability to acquire necessary certification(s) within a specified time period following employment. The certifications are identified in the position description and employment advertisement.

CERTIFICATES AND LICENSES REQUIRED:
Valid driver‘s license.

NECESSARY SPECIAL REQUIREMENTS:
The appointee to the position must satisfactorily complete a criminal background check, driving record check, and a Child Protective Services check.

PREFERRED QUALIFICATIONS:

• Master‘s in social work (MSW) degree or a related human services degree
• Experience in performing case management services in a child welfare setting (child protective services, foster care, adoption, family prevention, permanency planning, or domestic/sexual violence)
• Experience in child welfare and/or mental health

PHYSICAL REQUIREMENTS:
Ability to navigate through and make decisions in stressful and crisis situations. Work requires performing tasks with risks of secondary traumatic stress (STS) Sufficiently mobile to travel outside the office for client contact, court appearances, community events, and to conduct family assessments and investigations of allegations of child abuse and neglect. Ability to communicate clearly and concisely, both orally and in writing. Ability to use automated technology. Must be able to operate a motor vehicle and make use of personal vehicle. Ability to lift up to 40 lbs. All duties performed with or without reasonable accommodation.

SELECTION PROCEDURE:
Panel interview; may include practical exercise.

This job announcement is listed with a closing date of 12/27/24 and interested applicants are advised to submit their applications as soon as possible. Interviews will be conducted on a regular basis throughout the recruitment with candidates whose qualifications best fit our needs. If your application is received later in the recruitment process, it may not be reviewed or considered. The application process may close prior to the currently advertised closing date when the position has been filled.

The population of Fairfax County is very diverse where 38.7% of residents speak a language other than English at home (Spanish, Asian/Pacific Islander, Indo-European, and others) and we encourage candidates bilingual in English and a foreign language to apply to this opportunity.

Fairfax County Government prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, national origin, sex, pregnancy, childbirth or related medical conditions, age, marital status, disability, sexual orientation, gender identity, genetics, political affiliation, or military status in the recruitment, selection, and hiring of its workforce.

Reasonable accommodations are available to persons with disabilities during application and/or interview processes per the Americans with Disabilities Act. Contact for assistance. TTY . EEO/AA/TTY.

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