Eligibility Specialist Social Services : Family Discovery Specialist

Family Discovery Specialist

Open until filled

General Description:

As a Family Discovery Specialist, you'll take on an exciting and challenging role as a dedicated "social services support specialist," focused on uncovering and strengthening family and supportive connections for youth in congregate care. While social services workers manage day-to-day needs, your mission is clear—lead the Discovery and Engagement process to find meaningful connections and open doors to permanency.

In this role, you'll use curiosity, persistence, and strong investigative skills to identify relatives and supportive individuals, break down barriers, and help ensure every child has the opportunity to return to their community and connect with people they know and trust.

You'll be part of a passionate team tackling one of the most important and complex challenges in child welfare: ensuring no child remains in a group setting without a path to family connection. This is a powerful opportunity to make a lasting impact—changing the trajectory of a child's life by helping them find belonging, stability, and support.

The Wyoming Department of Family Services' work centers around three values:
Safe at home;
Giving families opportunities for success; and Supporting the people who support the families. Join the DFS family and support Wyoming families!

Working for the State of Wyoming offers more than a paycheck. Our total compensation package includes: comprehensive health, dental, and vision insurance; paid vacation, sick leave, FMLA, and holidays; retirement - pension and 457B plans that help you build a secure future; flexible schedules and work-life balance options; meaningful work that makes a difference for Wyoming communities and MUCH MORE!

Human Resource Contact:
Michelle Johnson / michelle.johnson

Essential Functions:

• Conduct deep-dive reviews of physical and electronic historical records to identify kinship, maternity and paternity links, and past connections.
• Utilize specialized tools (e.g., Lexis Nexis, Accurint, White Pages) and social media platforms to locate current contact information and known associates for identified kin.
• Create visual family trees and "Connectedness Maps" to identify a minimum of 40 potential kinship connections for each youth.
• Maintain "Diligent Search" documentation to meet legal requirements and provide primary caseworkers with actionable contact lists.
• Assist the Department of Family Services in efforts to keep youth in their homes or return them to community-based placements.

Preferences:

Associate's Degree and 1-2 years of progressive experience in Child and Family Services. Training in Kinship Care Practice regarding the use of genograms and eco-maps.

Knowledge:

• Customer Service and Communication:
  Verbal communication and empathy skills, necessary for engagement with a wide variety of individuals. Proficiency in professional, succinct written communication for drafting comprehensive "Diligent Search" documentation and presenting clear, actionable contact lists to primary caseworkers.
• Judgement and Decision Making:
  Sound judgment and discretion when discerning viable leads from complex, massive historical records and while utilizing specialized search tools and platforms. Ethical decision-making capacity regarding the appropriate handling and sharing of confidential and legally sensitive case file information.
• Cross Agency
  
  Collaboration:
  
  Ability to coordinate and align specialized search efforts with the objectives of primary caseworkers and multi-disciplinary teams to support community-based placements and permanency goals.
• Leadership:
  Strong capacity for self-directed work and initiative to autonomously manage the full scope of discovery and engagement of family and connections finding for a caseload of youth in congregate care.
• Accountability:
  Demonstrated commitment to meticulous, accurate record-keeping required for maintaining legally compliant diligent search documentation.
• Professionalism:
  Steady and professional composure when navigating sensitive family histories, dealing with complex emotional dynamics, and facing setbacks in the search for connections.
• Technical Proficiency:
  Skill in…