LGBTQ+ Child Welfare Specialist

ROLE SUMMARY

The LGBTQ+ Child Welfare Specialist reports to the assigned program supervisor and provides comprehensive child welfare case management and advocacy for youth living in the Lakewood affirming Care Group Home. The position coordinates placement, service planning, visitation, permanency, family and supportive-adult engagement, education, health care, court involvement, transition planning, and required documentation in partnership with youth, families, DCFS, schools, providers, legal partners, and the interdisciplinary Lakewood team.

This role is intentionally LGBTQ+ affirming and centers youth voice, identity, strengths, safety, family and community connection, and long-term stability. Practice must be trauma-informed, culturally responsive, developmentally appropriate, and consistent with Lawrence Hall and DCFS requirements.

Lawrence Hall fosters a culture built upon four core values:
Respect, Empowerment, Safety, and Teamwork. Through CARE-informed practice, the LGBTQ+ Child Welfare Specialist uses relationships, reflection, collaboration, and an understanding of the impact of trauma to help youth build safety, regulation, connection, competence, and hope. These principles guide engagement, case planning, advocacy, and responses to challenging situations.

• Provide comprehensive child welfare case management for youth in the Lakewood program, including placement, assessment, service planning, visitation, monitoring, permanency planning, transition planning, and coordination of services.
• Develop and update individualized Client Service Plans in collaboration with youth, families, supportive adults, the supervisor, and the treatment team; present plans and progress at Administrative Case Reviews and other required meetings.
• Maintain a strong focus on permanency and relational stability by engaging birth parents, relatives, siblings, fictive kin, chosen family, and other supportive adults when safe and appropriate.
• Attend court hearings and provide timely, accurate information regarding case status, progress, barriers, recommendations, and permanency efforts.
• Participate in Child and Family Team Meetings, school meetings, clinical/treatment meetings, staffings, and other case-related conferences.
• Maintain regular contact with educational, medical, behavioral health, legal, and community providers; follow up on recommendations and integrate information into case planning.
• Advocate for youth and ensure their voice, identity, strengths, goals, relationships, and preferences are reflected in planning and decision-making.
• Connect youth to affirming community, educational, health, behavioral health, developmental, and transition-age resources.
• Support youth in navigating child welfare, education, health care, behavioral health, housing, legal, and community-based systems.
• Maintain accurate and timely documentation in SACWIS and other required systems, including case notes, court reports, ACR reports, service plans, unusual incident reports, hotline reports, and permanency documentation.
• Conduct diligent searches and family-finding activities when parents, relatives, or other important connections are unknown or unavailable, and support appropriate engagement when connections are identified.
• Apply CARE-informed, trauma-informed, and healing-centered strategies that seek to understand what a youth's behavior may be communicating, recognize survival responses in the context of trauma and development, and respond with curiosity, regulation, relationship, and support rather than relying solely on compliance-based responses.
• Use active and reflective listening, affirmations, respectful language, and strengths-based engagement to build trust, strengthen relationships, support co-regulation, and help youth and families identify strengths, needs, and achievable next steps.
• Provide services in a culturally responsive and LGBTQ+ affirming manner, including respect for each youth's name, pronouns, gender identity and expression, sexual orientation, family relationships, and individual understanding of identity.
• Use CARE principles to look beyond the immediate behavior and consider the underlying need, emotion, trauma response, relationship dynamic, or environmental factor that may be influencing a youth's response.
• Support youth in developing emotional regulation, problem-solving, self-advocacy, healthy relationships, and other competencies that promote resilience, permanency, and successful transition to adulthood.
• Participate in reflective supervision and team reflection to consider the impact of the work, identify relational and systemic barriers, and maintain thoughtful, consistent, and youth-centered responses.
• Collaborate closely with Lakewood residential, clinical, nursing, education, permanency, and leadership staff to support coordinated care and consistent case planning.
• Keep the supervisor informed of significant case developments and involve supervisory and program leadership in…