Position Summary
The Behavior Support Specialist is a paraprofessional who provides direct support to youth in foster care, clinicians, and foster parents. This role involves helping manage and de-escalate behaviors, supporting foster families, assisting with transportation and appointments, and assisting the program to help creating a stable, trauma-informed environment for children involved in the foster care system.
Essential Duties and Responsibilities include the following. Other duties may be assigned:
- Work closely with other team members to provide holistic support to youth and foster parents.
- Provide behavioral support to children and youth in foster care.
- Accompany and assist with transportation to possibly include, but is not limited to, appointments, court hearings, school, transportation to different treatment facilities and/or family visitations.
- Utilize systemic treatment model interventions, trauma-informed and developmentally appropriate approach to help manage challenging behaviors or assist with youth in crisis.
- Help foster parents implement behavior strategies through teaching and demonstrating parenting skills and/or safety plans as guided by the clinical team.
- Provide behavioral observations of youth in foster care and report findings to clinical team.
- Document observations, incidents, and daily notes accurately and timely.
- Participate in team meetings, case reviews, and planning sessions, as needed.
- Support with supervised family visitation sessions.
- Participate in initial and ongoing training in areas such as de-escalation, child development, cultural competence, and trauma-informed care.
- Ensure child safety and compliance with organizational and licensing requirements during all activities.
- Have strong assessment and observation skills to be able to recognize and pick up on behavioral and safety trends.
- Provide professional communication and positive customer service with team members and external customers.
- Must be able to communicate effectively and exchange information with clients and families regarding their therapy and care.
- Must be able to efficiently operate a computer and other office machinery such as calculator, copy machines, and printer.
- This position will complete ongoing training required to learn and maintain skills including CPI (Crisis Prevention Intervention).
- Familiarity with trauma-informed care, behavior intervention strategies, or de-escalation techniques (e.g., CPI,TCI)
- Settings could include, but are not limited to, foster homes, community, hospitals, schools, and office buildings.
- Will be responsible for other support duties, as needed, as outlined by the leadership team
