Specialized Services Child Welfare Specialist

Specialized Services Child Welfare Specialist

Specialized Services Child Welfare Specialist (S‑CWS) at Lutheran Child and Family Services of Illinois

Reports to: Specialized Services Program Manager

Status: Full Time, Exempt

Office location: The office location will be based on the office nearest to the candidate’s residency. Travel is required across the 102 IL counties of which cases are assigned. Opportunities currently available in O'Fallon and Mt. Vernon.

Benefits:  to view LCFS’ Full-Time Employee Benefits.

Salary Range: $51,336 - $56,336

Lutheran Child and Family Services of Illinois improves the well‑being of people across the state by protecting children, strengthening families, and building futures for those who have experienced trauma. We are a leading provider of child welfare services.

• Champions in supporting children, youth and families throughout Illinois so they can reach their full potential.
• Dynamic and innovative leaders who collaborate with their team of professionals and revolutionize the impact of services to families.
• Committed to a culture of welcoming, inclusive, diverse, and equitable.
• Address institutional racism and implicit bias to increase positive outcomes for children and families of color.
• Creators of a culture focused on supporting families and ensuring all children find safe, loving permanent homes, particularly by reuniting them with their families.

• Safety, permanency and well‑being.
• Successful and sustainable transitions and maintenance in the least restrictive arrangements.
• Intensive wraparound and case coordination services for social, emotional and physical well‑being.
• Natural and formal life‑long supports, connections, safety, stability and permanency.
• Supportive youth‑led strength building, positive development, pro‑social life skills, behavior and medical adaptability, skills and empowerment.

• Serve with a team of supervisors and direct‑service child welfare professionals in partnership with children, parents and community providers to assess, plan, evaluate, and make linkages for safety, permanency and well‑being outcomes.
• Implement and refer individualized and targeted services for youth and families, such as counseling, respite, mentoring, educational support, case management, crisis intervention and continual language to services to meet specialized needs.
• Collaborate with multidisciplinary teams and partners for continuous quality improvement, interventions, service delivery and the achievement of program outcomes.
• Participate in System of Care principles to include ensuring the provision of social/emotional/mental/behavioral/mental health specialty services and regular participation in clinical and medical staffing evaluations.
• Participate in regular supervision, mediation, problem resolution, and crisis response by effectively responding to parent, child, provider and other stakeholder concerns, including on‑call support.
• Assess and maintain knowledge of child welfare and population‑specific laws, policies and trends for recommending program adjustments that aid program effectiveness, children, families and communities.
• Achieve organizational performance outcomes on key performance indicators and metrics toward safety, permanency, well‑being and overall agency performance outcomes.
• Represent clients’ needs and agency interests to referral sources, DCFS, the judicial system and government agencies.
• Exercise discretion and judgment in performance of duties in conformance with applicable policies, procedures, statutes, rules and regulations.
• Perform other duties as required or assigned which are reasonably within the values, philosophy, policies, procedures and scope of the duties as enumerated above.

• Primarily responsible for overseeing children and families assigned, monitoring child well‑being, the birth parents’ progress toward reunification, facilitating home visits and communicating appropriate information to foster families.
• Transport children and parents in own vehicle; may work evenings and some weekends to complete tasks; may…