Synagogue & Community Social Worker

Jewish Family & Children’s Service is seeking a Synagogue & Jewish Community Social Worker to join the Betty Ann Greenbaum Miller Center for Jewish Healing team serving Greater Boston synagogues. The center supports members of the Jewish community through illness, loss, aging, and life transitions. This role brings that work directly into synagogues and communal settings, where people often turn first when they are struggling.

You will be embedded in partner synagogues and lead bereavement and support groups throughout the Jewish community. You will help clergy, staff, lay leaders, congregants, and families respond to grief, mental health, and social service concerns with compassion, skill, and appropriate referrals. This is a high-impact, highly visible position, well suited to someone who is skilled at leading groups, building trust, and partnering with clergy and communal leaders.

This is a full-time, hybrid position reporting to the Director of the Miller Center for Jewish Healing, with clinical supervision from the Director of Community Resources and Mental Health Supports. This role includes:

• Weekly on-site work at partner synagogues and group locations in Greater Boston
• Regular work at JF&CS Headquarters in Waltham
• Travel to partner communities
• Regular evening and occasional weekend availability

• $56,000 - $64,000 annual salary, commensurate with credentials and experience
• Hybrid schedule
• Travel/mileage reimbursement
• Immediate eligibility for dental and vision plans
• Medical insurance coverage is effective the 1st of the month following 30 days of employment
• Generous paid time off includes sick time, vacation time, personal time, and national and some Jewish holidays

• Serve as the on-site social worker for selected partner synagogues
• Consult with and train clergy, synagogue staff, and lay leaders as they respond to community members facing mental health, caregiving, grief, family, aging, or basic-needs concerns
• Provide supportive consultation, information and referral, short-term case management, and basic needs assistance to congregants, as appropriate.

• Develop, launch, and facilitate in-person and virtual bereavement and other support groups for synagogues and communal settings throughout Greater Boston
• Build and maintain relationships with the synagogues and partners that host groups
• Manage group clinical dynamics, assess when participants need a higher level of care, and make appropriate referrals
• Manage group administration, including outreach, intake and screening, scheduling and documentation

• Support other Center programs with projects assigned based on agency needs and your skills and interests

You are a confident, organized, and flexible professional and an experienced group facilitator with a strong presence, sound independent judgment, a working knowledge of mental health and social service resources, and deep familiarity with Jewish communal life.

• A master's degree or higher in social work, mental health counseling, marriage and family therapy, psychology, pastoral care, or rabbinic/cantorial ordination
• Social workers and clinicians must hold or be eligible for Massachusetts licensure (LCSW, LICSW, LMHC, or LMFT)
• Clergy must have completed at least two units of Clinical Pastoral Education and have demonstrated experience in bereavement, grief support, or chaplaincy

• Experience planning and facilitating support groups; bereavement group experience strongly preferred
• Clinical understanding of grief and loss, mental health, aging, caregiving, and family systems
• Experience with case management,…