Hope Worker; Foster Family Support – Denver Region

Hope Worker (Foster Family Support) – Denver Region

Job Description:

The primary goal of this role is to engage families with the Hope & Home community – help foster families make connections with each other, with resources, and with Hope & Home as a whole. Ideal candidates will love working with both children and adults and be able to demonstrate thoughtfulness, empathy, and hospitality in all interactions.

This role will carry a caseload of Support Groups, focusing their efforts to support the families in those groups. They will also share responsibilities of family event preparation and engagement, leading a team of child care staff and volunteers for their assigned groups, as well as facilitating community connections and wrap-around family supports.

Full-time, primarily in-office. This role will include two evening groups per week; hours outside of those groups are flexible but will need to be scheduled and consistent. This role does have the option of working four 10s if preferred. Additional weekend hours will be expected of this position for scheduled events (scheduled in advance).

Salary: $20.00 per hour

Responsibilities Include:

Family Support for a Caseload of Families:

The Hope Worker is responsible for providing practical, wrap-around supports to families. Caseload of approx. 50-75 families.

• Placement Support
  :
  The Hope Worker is responsible for coordinating resources and practical supports, as well as providing friendly and thoughtful emotional support and check-ins.
• Support Groups
  :
  The Hope Worker is the host for assigned support groups. In coordination with the region’s Program Manager, they are responsible for the preparation, execution and follow-up of each group for adults, children, teens, foster parent leaders, churches, volunteers and staff. In this capacity, ideal staff would have experience working with children and teens.
• Ongoing Foster Family Support
  :
  The Hope Worker is responsible for maintaining regular contact with families on their caseload through encouragement, thoughtful connection, and practical supports.

Program Support:

This role is a part of the Program Team, as such, general support around resources, volunteers, events, building use, etc. will be required. This role is also responsible for providing “overlap” between clinical and marketing departments, sharing appropriate stories and content for various marketing needs.

• Events
  :
  This role will be responsible for planning, preparing, and executing events for foster families. Attendance is mandatory at family/community events. This role should encourage family, staff, and volunteer participation at these events, as well as ensuring that reporting is completed in a timely manner.
• Donations and Family Resources
  :
  This role will be responsible for ensuring donations are sorted and distributed appropriately with useful and meaningful items available for children and families, while also maintaining and encouraging positive relationships with donors providing these resources.
• Volunteers
  :
  The Hope Worker should seek to engage with and support volunteers, encouraging them towards meaningful volunteering in support of the mission of Hope & Home.
• All activities promoted and sponsored by Hope & Home should seek to provide stability and community to children and teens placed in foster care with the goal of placement preservation.
• All activities (especially volunteer activities) should reinforce the primary relationship between the foster parent and the youth in care.
• Communication with other staff is crucial to this position. The Hope Worker will prepare reports, communication records, etc. for various uses as determined by supervisor.

Skills and Abilities:

• Effective communication skills. Well written, thoughtful, and thorough communication.
• Loves children and comfortable leading others around work with children.
• Self-motivated and able to prioritize duties.
• Able to work well with others.
• Demonstrates integrity.
• Able to set and maintain interpersonal boundaries.
• Gracious towards others. Engaging and high-functioning people skills.
• Highly organized.
• Comfortable with technology and able to learn new programs quickly.

* This role is not “clinical”…