Protective Services Worker

• Partnering with families, communities, and service providers to build a supportive team that addresses the safety, health, and well-being needs of the child, youth, and family
• Exploring safety, well-being, family relationships and natural supports through interviewing, field visits, and gathering collateral information in a timely manner
• Conducting comprehensive assessments of safety, risk and protective capacity utilizing designated assessment tools
• Taking appropriate action to ensure child safety, including promoting family strengths, mitigating safety threats and/or removal of children from the home
• Maintaining case information on applicable computerized case management system(s)
• Collaborating with families and stakeholders to develop behavioral case plans based on the assessment that addresses the family's needs and complies with relevant laws, rules and regulations
• Helping connect families to a broad array of services and supports and empowering them to utilize strengths in order to implement the provisions of a case plan
• Counseling and educating youth, families, care providers and community partners on the Child Welfare process, legal requirements and departmental policies and procedures by communicating verbally and in writing
• Building community partnerships through relationship building and educating community organizations about Family and Children’s Services
• Staying abreast of latest polices, initiatives, and best practices by attending trainings, reading literature reviews, accessing various online child welfare resources and participating in work groups and site teams
• Ensuring all assigned cases meet compliance standards and scheduling work accordingly
• Testifying in Court and adhering to Court protocol in compliance with legal requirements
• Ensuring the well-being of children placed in homes by identifying homes to meet children’s needs and closely monitoring their placement and providing assistance to out of home care providers
• Preparing written correspondence, electronic records and court reports by maintaining well documented records in a clear and timely manner according to agency procedures

• Possession of a Master’s Degree in Social Work from a school accredited by the Council on Social Work education (CSWE)
• OR Possession of a Master’s Degree from a two-year (2) counseling program from an accredited college or university (Qualifying Master’s Degrees in counseling include Marriage and Family Therapy, Clinical Counseling, Mental Health Counseling, Addiction Counseling and Counseling Psychology that included a supervised field placement as part of the course curriculum)
• AND Satisfactory completion of two semesters of graduate field placement, which involved the provision of direct services to families or children in one of the following or closely related areas: child welfare, family counseling, juvenile probation, pediatric social work, adolescent alcohol and drug counseling or school social work
• OR Six (6) months post baccalaureate professional work experience which involved the provision of direct services to families or children in one of the areas previously described
• AND Possession of a valid California class C driver’s license and clear Motor Vehicle Record (MVR)

Bilingual proficiency