Family Advocate

Family Advocate

Bronx, NY, US

Salary: $55,000.00 Annually

The mission of the Committee for Hispanic Children and Families (CHCF) is to bring a relentless focus on positive child and family outcomes to close the achievement gap and build a better future for children, families, and communities served by the Head Start program.

The Family Advocate will work as a member of a team whose primary role is to engage all families to partner with us to promote children’s healthy development and school readiness. The Family Advocate uses knowledge of the principles of family engagement to support families in their roles as their child’s primary educator, encourage parent/child interactions that promote children’s school readiness and healthy development, and enhance family well‑being.

In this role, the Family Advocate will provide more intensive and targeted support to vulnerable families and families of children with chronic health conditions and special needs in order to assure that our engagement strategies meet their specialized needs.

The Family Advocate will work as part of the program’s broader team to expand family engagement strategies that will create a sense of belonging and shared community among families, with the goal of enhancing the relationships and support that families provide to one another in their shared aspirations for their children and themselves. The position may involve reassignment of caseload and/or center location as deemed necessary for program operations.

• Engage families as partners in their children’s healthy development and school readiness.
• Participate in outreach, recruitment and attendance follow‑up activities to engage families in our program; and to motivate their active participation.
• Engage families in the Family Engagement Contract process in order to build relationships and shared accountability for promoting children’s development.
• Individualize family engagement and relationship‑building to be appropriate to families’ cultural context, as well as respectful of family circumstances.
• Engage families in individualized, in‑home and group experiences to enhance parent/child interactions that research shows foster school readiness through consistent family routines, positive guidance and discipline, experience‑rich home environments and literacy activities.
• Utilize in‑classroom time and home visits to build deeper understanding of the relationship between children’s development and their home environments; as well as to model and coach families in positive parent/child interactions.

• Engage in a process of collaborative partnership building with families of children receiving center‑based (Early) Head Start services.
• Utilize family self‑assessment information to assist families with self‑identified goals to enhance self‑sufficiency in areas such as education, employment, housing, and access to community resources.
• Provide more intensive weekly face‑to‑face or phone contact with vulnerable families on caseload as identified through their self‑assessment or family interactions/communication. Assure that families receive immediate support during times of crisis, and assist with referrals to community‑based resources to meet counseling, treatment, entitlement or other needs.
• Identify and access services and resources responsive to family interests and goals and follow‑up with parents to ensure that services meet their expectations and needs.
• Analyze self‑sufficiency data and utilize data/results to plan and coordinate a variety of parent cohort groups that allow families to support one another to achieve self‑sufficiency goals.
• Coordinate or refer families to opportunities for continuing education, employment training and other employment services through formal or informal networking in the community.

• Foster a sense of community and sense of belonging among families in order to strengthen social capital.
• Conduct group and center‑based workshops and activities designed to…