Lead Researcher, Behavioral Health

ABOUT THE OFFICE:
The Mayor’s Office of Criminal Justice (MOCJ) advises the Mayor of the City of New York on criminal justice policy. MOCJ develops and implements strategies, with partners inside and outside government, to reduce crime and incarceration and to promote fairness and legitimacy. MOCJ works with law enforcement, city agencies, non-profits, foundations, and others to implement data-driven strategies that address current crime conditions, prevent offending, and build the strong neighborhoods that ensure enduring safety.

The Research Innovation Policy team drives the development and effective implementation of precision public health and public safety initiatives. Drawing on evidence-based and community-based insights, the Research Innovation operates through four main pillars: data-driven policy development, evaluation, quality assurance, and interagency coordination.

ABOUT THE ROLE:

Reporting into the Executive Director of Research Innovations, and as part of the Policy Unit, the Lead Researcher for Behavioral Health is responsible for driving the development, evaluation, and communication of data-driven policy solutions relating to behavioral health and trauma for justice-involved people. This involves both leveraging existing evidence-based insights to drive policy and crafting a research agenda that supports the resolution of the most pressing issues.

It will also involve incorporating nuanced therapeutic messages into trainings, curriculums, external messaging, and other high-impact contexts. The successful candidate must be able to develop and maintain relationships with research, program, agency, community, and justice-involved partners. They must be creative, highly motivated, and able to manage projects from inception through implementation.

• Generating a strategic behavioral health and trauma research agenda to drive policies related to systematic approaches for reducing violence and furthering positive life outcomes for justice-involved people and families, including resolving key barriers to successful implementation.
• Leveraging existing evidence on behavioral health and trauma to further violence reduction.
• Designing and adapting curricula and structured solutions to deliver therapeutic supports.
• Translating and communicating data-driven and clinically relevant research on behavioral health and trauma-informed practices to a wide audience to inform policy and partners.
• Partnering with program staff, communities, and justice-involved people to appropriately weave these strands of wisdom together with research-derived insights to produce effective solutions.
• Developing meaningful indicators that are responsive to nuanced policy issues and that can be embedded into existing integrated data dashboards for ongoing analysis.
• Conceptualizing and managing funded studies implemented by external research partners.
• Identifying creative ways to make causal inferences to address large, multi-faceted policy questions while taking into account complex externalities.
• Preparing insights for publication or for internal use only as appropriate.

• PhD in psychology or related discipline required Five years of professional experience preferred.
• Working knowledge of therapeutic, cognitive behavioral, trauma insights required.
• Research experience required both quantitative and qualitative research preferred.
• Detailed knowledge of structured behavioral health curriculums preferred.
• Experience adapting evidence-based practice to match group-based distinctiveness preferred.
• Experience working with justice-involved or other marginalized populations preferred.
• Ability to generate and drive a project from conception to implementation, to identify gaps, relevant partners, criteria for decision-making, and analytic strategy.
• Preferred: experience generating a cohesive research agenda detailed knowledge of research in one or more relevant fields (e.g. decision making, social emotional learning, motivation, emotional regulation, anxiety, avoidance) prior policy work experience translating clinical concepts to different audiences.
• Clinical experience welcome but not required.
• Ability to balance competing priorities, complex situations and tight deadlines ability to think outside of the box and develop novel strategies for analysis ability to work…