Education & Behavioral Support Content Specialist

Job Category: Educational

Requisition Number: EDUCA
007445

• Posted :
  October 20, 2026
• Full-Time

Showing 1 location

New York, NY 10001, USA

The Education & Behavioral Support Content Specialist strengthens program quality, inclusive practices, staff skills, curriculum, and participant engagement across three DYCD-funded COMPASS sites.

Working with Program Directors and frontline staff, the Specialist uses observation, coaching, modeling, training, and technical assistance to support accessible, culturally responsive programming for children and youth with a range of academic, social-emotional, behavioral, developmental, learning, and communication needs.

The role also helps staff improve lesson plans, classroom and group management, positive behavior supports, de-escalation, social-emotional learning, routines, and transitions. This is a program-support role and does not diagnose participants or provide clinical treatment; when additional services are needed, the Specialist works with program leaders, families, school partners, and other appropriate supports.

How You’ll Be Making a Difference

Program Quality, Instruction, and Inclusive Practice

• Conduct regular site visits and classroom or group observations across assigned DYCD COMPASS sites to assess program quality, participant engagement, staff practice, learning environments, and behavioral or supervision needs.
• Partner with Program Directors to implement high-quality, culturally responsive, inclusive youth-development programming aligned with DYCD content areas, program goals, participant needs, and positive youth-development principles.
• Review lesson plans, activity schedules, instructional materials, and staff practices; provide actionable feedback that strengthens engagement, differentiation, accessibility, instructional quality, and compliance with program-quality standards.
• Monitor participation, belonging, inclusion, and learning outcomes; identify patterns across sites and recommend practical quality-improvement strategies.
• Provide intensive technical assistance when observations, incidents, participant needs, program data, monitoring, or leadership identify an area requiring additional support.

Behavior Support, Inclusion, and Participant Engagement

• Provide in-the-moment coaching, modeling, and technical assistance to staff supporting participants with behavioral, developmental, social-emotional, learning, or communication needs.
• Train and coach staff in positive behavior supports, proactive classroom and group management, co-regulation, de-escalation, trauma-responsive practice, developmentally appropriate redirection, and relationship-based engagement.
• Support the meaningful inclusion of participants with IEPs, disabilities, autism spectrum disorder, ADHD, communication differences, and other developmental or learning needs.
• Conduct targeted observations; help staff identify antecedents, triggers, environmental factors, transitions, routines, communication needs, and supervision conditions that may contribute to persistent challenges.
• Develop and model practical supports, including visual schedules, transition strategies, reinforcement systems, sensory or environmental supports, predictable routines, effective facilitation, and classroom-management techniques.
• Collaborate with Program Directors on participant-support strategies, family and school communication, and appropriate escalation or referral while maintaining confidentiality, professional boundaries, and the scope of an after school program.
• Promote strengths-based approaches that recognize participants’ abilities, needs, cultures, identities, and developmental differences.

Curriculum and Activity…