Associate Director

The Associate Director provides day-to-day clinical nursing and operational leadership for Waypoint, a 24/7 adult crisis stabilization and withdrawal-management program. Working under the Vice President of Acute Services and in collaboration with the Medical Director and interdisciplinary team, this position helps ensure safe, trauma-informed, recovery-oriented, and person-centered care for individuals experiencing acute mental health and substance-use crises.

The Associate Director provides leadership for nursing operations, including staffing, supervision, scheduling, competency management, admissions and triage, withdrawal-management oversight, medication safety, emergency response, documentation, regulatory readiness, and quality improvement.

• Lead daily Waypoint operations in accordance with organizational policies, approved clinical protocols, staffing plans, and regulatory requirements.
• Serve as the on-site operational leader when assigned and elevate significant clinical, staffing, safety, compliance, or facility concerns to the Vice President of Acute Services.
• Promote a culture of accountability, teamwork, psychological safety, trauma-informed care, dignity, recovery, and respect.
• Provide nursing leadership during complex admissions, behavioral or medical emergencies, clinical deterioration, and other high-acuity situations.
• Participate in leadership coverage and an on-call rotation, including coordination of unexpected staffing needs.

• Lead or participate in recruitment, interviewing, hiring, onboarding, orientation, supervision, evaluation, and retention of nursing staff.
• Develop and maintain nursing schedules that support safe 24/7 coverage, census and acuity needs, planned leave, and staff training.
• Review timekeeping, attendance, PTO, overtime, and premium staffing within delegated authority.
• Maintain staff licensure, certification, training, and competency records and ensure required education and skills validation are completed.
• Coach and hold staff accountable for performance, attendance, conduct, and competency in accordance with Heartland policies.

• Support and oversee 24/7 referral screening, nursing assessment, admission triage, and placement using approved admission, exclusion, medical-stability, and level-of-care criteria.
• Ensure identification and appropriate response to medical, psychiatric, suicide, violence, intoxication, withdrawal, and overdose risks.
• Oversee nursing implementation of medical orders, standing orders, and approved withdrawal-management protocols.
• Ensure timely withdrawal scoring, vital-sign monitoring, reassessment, medication administration, symptom escalation, and transfer to a higher level of care when indicated.
• Promote medication safety, controlled-substance accountability, medication reconciliation, and appropriate response to medication variances.
• Coordinate with hospitals, emergency departments, EMS, referral sources, community providers, and other partners to support safe transitions of care.

• Monitor clinical documentation for accuracy, completeness, timeliness, and alignment with services provided.
• Review incidents, medication events, falls, emergency transfers, grievances, elopement or contraband concerns, and other safety events and coordinate follow-up.
• Track key clinical, staffing, operational, and quality indicators and use data to identify trends and support improvement.
• Support compliance with Nebraska DHHS, Medicaid and payer requirements, applicable regional/DBH expectations, organizational policies, and the approved program model.
• Participate in audits, inspections, licensing reviews, accreditation activities, emergency preparedness, safety drills, and future CARF preparation.
• Maintain confidentiality and protect health information in accordance with HIPAA, 42 CFR Part 2 when applicable, and organizational policy.
• Partner with the Vice President of Acute Services to develop and improve admission processes, staffing models, orientation, documentation standards, policies, and clinical workflows.
• Participate in interdisciplinary treatment, operations, quality, utilization, and leadership meetings.
• Support program launch and expansion from 12 to 24 beds, including implementation of crisis stabilization, social withdrawal-management, and medically monitored withdrawal-management services.
• Represent Waypoint with internal…