Director of Secure Treatment Services

The State of New Hampshire, Division for Children, Youth & Families, Sununu Youth Services Center has a full-time vacancy for Director of Secure Treatment Services

The Director of the Sununu Youth Services Center (SYSC) provides overall strategic and operational leadership for the State’s sole secure treatment facility for adjudicated and detained youth. The Director oversees all programmatic, personnel, fiscal, regulatory, physical plant, and facilities management functions to ensure safe, secure, trauma‑informed, and therapeutic residential services. This role leads the development and implementation of a unified operating philosophy that blends trauma‑informed treatment with security requirements and ensures that SYSC’s mission, vision, and Practice Model principles are consistently upheld across multidisciplinary residential, educational, and clinical programs.

• Provides leadership and direction in executing transformational initiatives, including developing and implementing a strategic plan and a core set of initiatives that advance clinical and therapeutic models of care, reducing recidivism, and strengthening post‑discharge transition planning within the broader behavioral health system of care. Ensures all operational practices reflect trauma‑informed, youth‑centered approaches, embedding evidence‑based and de‑escalation focused models of care across all program areas while sustaining a safe, secure and therapeutic environment with clear accountability structures for committed and detained youth.
• Accountable for all aspects of SYSC administrative, business, and program operations, including long‑range planning, safety and security; authorizing system‑wide policy and procedures; analyzing staffing requirements; approving staffing and personnel management actions; and performing contract oversight. Implements transparent data‑driven performance metrics for youth outcomes, staff safety, program utilization, and compliance with statutory requirements (including RSA 126‑U and Prison Rape Elimination Act (PREA).
  
  Ensures timely review and communication of incident trends, root‑cause analyses, and corrective actions. Implements new systems and processes that are compliant with all statutory mandates and yield increased cost efficiencies and/or enhanced service delivery. Analyzes, interprets, and integrates programmatic, regulatory, financial, and outcome data to inform planning efforts and decision‑making
• Ensures a safe and secure environment that promotes the attainment of educational, vocational, and treatment goals for youth in a secure residential facility setting. Ensures youth in residence are monitored appropriately within the established standards, protocols, and policies of DCYF, SYSC, DHHS, and other outside regulatory entities while ensuring excellence in programmatic service delivery. Provides continuous staff development and training
• Provides direct oversight of facility for daily operations, ensures staffing levels are sufficient for continuity of daily programming, and collaborates with DHHS Facilities regularly on physical plant issues, needs, and challenges to maintain safety and security while implementing a trauma informed treatment model.
• Oversee the performance of a range of contracts and contracted staff to complement a safe, trauma‑informed, therapeutic model. Includes contracted clinical staff, psychologist, psychiatrist, and education professionals. Ensures educational services meet state and federal requirements and are coordinated with Local Educational Agencies (LEAs). Provides collaborative opportunities to engage contracted staff in transformative design and implementation initiatives including daily programming, design, and location of a new…