Social Worker; FHL and Visitation

Social Worker Position

The Forsyth County Department of Social Services is seeking to hire a full-time Social Worker to serve the primary purpose of ensuring the safety and wellbeing of children (birth - 21 years old) in Forsyth County who have been reported and/or adjudicated by Juvenile Court to be abused, neglected, dependent, or delinquent juveniles by facilitating the visitation process. This is achieved by supervising and coaching visitation interactions between parents and their children, and FHL to facilitate licensed foster families and placement of foster children in their homes, as well as evaluating, training & licensing new foster care families.

This position has been identified to interact with children and must comply with NC G.S. 153A-94.2(b) "requires an applicant for employment to work with children in any capacity, must require the applicant, if offered the position, to be subject to a criminal history record check conducted by the SBI." These checks must be conducted in accordance with G.S. 143B-1209.26, the statute which authorizes the SBI to provide a fingerprint-based state and national criminal record check to cities and counties.

The Visitation position will ensure child(ren) are visiting in a safe environment by providing observation, encouragement, mediation, coaching, and interventions as needed. Visitation interactions and activities must be documented to address appropriateness, needs, and outcomes of the parent-child interactions. Participation in Child and Family Team meetings and Permanency Planning Review meetings is expected. Collaboration and communication with social workers, GAL's, and other case involved parties is required.

Transporting children and families to and from their supervised visitation could be required. The visitation social worker could be asked to testify in court.

The FHL position will provide assistance to social workers with locating appropriate placements for foster children, and effectively communicating with foster families, DSS social workers, and community partners. Thorough and timely documentation of case information required. Is responsible for sharing after hours on-call duties with other staff is required. Will prepare foster family for placement and separation and provide ongoing counseling to alleviate family crises and/or improve parenting of children with behavioral and/or emotional problems.

An employee in this position will work with social workers to locate placements and complete paperwork for children requiring placement. This worker will develop a recruitment plan and develop community relationships to support recruitment efforts.

Requires organization and documentation skills to perform job duties and responsibilities. The primary hours of work are from 8:00am until 5:00pm but flexibility in scheduling is needed to meet the needs of the families served and the mandated time frames, as well as participating in monthly recruitment events that typically occur after 5pm and on weekends.

Bachelor's degree from an accredited school of social work or;
Master's degree in Counseling or;
Four-year degree in a Human Service field or related curriculum including at least 15 semester hours in courses related to Social Work or Counseling and six months of Social Work or Counseling experience or;
Four-year degree and one year of experience in Counseling or in a related Human Service field which provides experience in techniques of counseling, casework, group work, or community organization. A higher education level may be considered as a substitution for all or part of the experience requirement. Bilingual (English/Spanish) speaking candidates are a plus. Valid driver's license required. A…