Participant Engagement Specialist, Supervised Release Program

Participant Engagement Specialist, Supervised Release Program

The Center for Justice Innovation is a nonprofit organization dedicated to advancing community safety and racial justice. Since 1996, we’ve worked alongside communities, courts, and those most directly affected by the justice system to build stronger, healthier, and more equitable neighborhoods. With a team of over 900 staff and an annual budget of $130 million, the Center carries out its mission through three core strategies:

• Operating Programs that pilot new ideas and address local challenges;
• Conducting original research to evaluate what works—and what doesn’t;
• Providing expert assistance and policy guidance to reformers across the country and beyond.

Backed by decades of on-the-ground experience and nationally recognized expertise, we bring innovative, practical, and lasting solutions to justice systems nationwide. Learn more about our work ovatingjustice.org.

THE OPPORTUNITY

Brooklyn Justice Initiatives (BJI), the largest operating project of the Center, seeks to re-engineer the experience of criminal court in Brooklyn, New York, by providing judges and attorneys meaningful alternatives to bail, fines, and jail sentences. Operating out of Kings County Criminal Court and community-based offices, BJI is a team of social service providers, court-based resource coordinators, mental health practitioners, compliance specialists, and others who seek to improve the quality of justice.

Supervised Release offers an alternative to jail by providing pretrial supervision, case management, and voluntary social services to people charged with misdemeanor and felony offenses, and in doing so, uses an arrest as a window of opportunity to change the direction of a participant’s life, avoiding the harmful effects of incarceration. Program participants are monitored to ensure their appearance at court dates and mandatory programming, and receive referrals to services like job training, drug treatment, and mental health counseling.

BJI seeks a Participant Engagement Specialist for the borough’s Supervised Release Program (SRP), which provides supervision, case management, and social service connection to thousands of court‑mandated participants each year. Reporting to the Case Management Coordinator, the Participant Engagement Specialist will leverage interpersonal and data‑management skills to support participants’ successful engagement with the program. The Participant Engagement Specialist will provide outreach to program participants who missed program orientation, intake, and those who have been disengaged for 21 days or more.

Additionally, this role will effectively communicate and collaborate with intake, case management, and compliance teams to ensure accurate court reporting and continued program engagement.

Responsibilities include but are not limited to:

• Complete outreach to all disengaged participants mandated to SRP in Brooklyn to re‑engage them in the program;
• Carry a caseload of disengaged participants who failed to meet with BJI SR's intake team, for outreach purposes;
• Engage in weekly outreach efforts by phone and email to participants and their collateral contacts and defense attorneys to support program engagement;
• Monitor all participants simultaneously assigned to bail and SRP, collaborating with the clinical intake team as appropriate;
• Maintain accurate and timely data entry and case documentation aligned with the program model, court reporting obligations, and best practices;
• Collaborate with the Clinical Intake Coordinator, the intake case management, and compliance teams to ensure outreach to all participants whose orientations or intakes are incomplete or who have been disengaged from the program for 21 days or more;
• Contribute to consistent and effective cross‑team communication;
• Participate in team and inter‑team meetings;
• Participate in individual supervision and regular staff trainings to develop program expertise and related skill sets;
• Participate in all‑staff and departmental meetings to build team cohesion, communication, and morale;
• Attend project events, community events, and meetings after hours, as needed; and
• Additional…