Support Employment Specialist

Sea Mar Community Health Centers, a Federally Qualified Health Center (FQHC) founded in 1978, is a community-based organization committed to providing quality, comprehensive health, human, housing, educational and cultural services to diverse communities, specializing in service to Latinos in Washington State. Sea Mar proudly serves all persons without regard to race, ethnicity, immigration status, gender, or sexual orientation, and regardless of ability to pay for services.

Sea Mar's network of services includes more than 90 medical, dental, and behavioral health clinics and a wide variety of nutritional, social, and educational services.

As a mission-driven organization, the core values of, and the services offered at Sea Mar are based on the belief that everyone deserves to be respectfully treated in a way that preserves dignity and enhances self-worth. Sea Mar is an advocate for its clients and aims to achieve industry-leading, client-centered, culturally-aware services. Sea Mar employees serve as an extension of this mission and demonstrate their commitment to an excellent client experience by:

• Understanding and empathizing with client needs
• Surpassing client expectations
• Demonstrating a high level of integrity
• Exhibiting compassion and commitment
• Advocating for social justice
• Taking pride in individual work as well as that of the team
• Continually learning to stay current with industry standards, best practices and technology

Job Description As a Sea Mar employee, the individual in this position commits to adherence to these values to their utmost ability and endeavors to strengthen and embody this mission daily.

• Provide IPS Model SEE services to help clients find and maintain employment or school enrollment in community-based and integrated settings of their choosing.
• Conduct consistent engagement of enrolled consumers on the many economic, social, medical and recovery benefits of employment and/or education.
• Assess consumer employment and/or academic interests, abilities, preferences, barriers, likes, dislikes and strengths through a vocational and/or educational assessment as per the IPS Model of SEE. Continued assessment as consumers are placed in community-based jobs or school. Fully attend to the risks and benefits of disclosure as part of the assessment as these will impact the delivery of services.
• Attend to the need for benefits planning to evaluate the impact of working and wages on consumer public benefits.
• Assess the effect(s) of the client's mental illness on employment, with Identification of specific behaviors that interfere with the client's work performance and development of interventions to reduce, manage or eliminate those behaviors in collaboration with other members of the FEP team.
• Develop a consumer driven, consensual and specific employment or education goal.
• Conduct community-based development based on consumer’s specific job or education goal.
• Develop and maintain relationships with employers and area schools to facilitate consumers’ specific job or education goal through repeat visits and continuing cultivation of the relationship.
• Work closely with consumers in areas such as interviewing skills, resume development, completion of applications, attending to gaps in employment or school history, background checks, financial resources needed to enroll in school, and so forth.
• Utilize the relationships with area employers and school to get consumers considered for employment or enrollment and affirmative decisions in hiring or enrollment. Assist and support consumer, based on his/her preferences, with all human resources and/or admissions requirements to get started in work or school.
• Provide job coaching and supportive counseling to assist…