You Gotta Believe (YGB) is a New York City-based, national organization specializing in finding permanent families for young adults, teens, and pre-teens in foster care. YGB focuses exclusively on preventing youth from aging out of foster care without family; thus reducing the risk of homelessness, incarceration, and poverty due to a lack of stable connections. Founded in 1995, YGB achieves this mission by collaborating with foster care organizations to recruit, match, and provide indefinite, comprehensive support to adoptive foster parents and youth.
The Permanency Specialist position is a full-time role working directly with youth living in congregate care facilities or foster home settings who are in need of a permanent family to prevent them from aging out of care without permanency. The Permanency Specialist uses established, youth engagement and family recruitment methods to develop a trauma-informed plan to help youth achieve permanency by identifying adults in the life of the youth who are willing and able to “answer the call” and make an unconditional lifetime commitment to parenting. The Permanency Specialist works diligently, collaboratively, and creatively on targeted family recruitment strategies while partnering with YGB’s Youth Advocate, Home-finding and Family Supports services teams, foster care agency workers and community stakeholders to ensure excellence in pre and post moral/legal permanency journey of youth.
Lived Experience in Child Welfare System
We strongly encourage applications from individuals with lived experience in the child welfare, foster care, or adoption systems. Your insight and understanding of the challenges, needs, and strengths of youth and families navigating these systems are invaluable in shaping our work and building trust with those we serve.
Sharing your personal experiences can be a powerful tool to connect with young people, inspire hope, and inform strategies that are truly youth-centered. At the same time, we recognize that revisiting certain experiences can sometimes evoke difficult emotions, especially if past trauma has not been fully processed.
Before applying, we encourage candidates to reflect on their own readiness to share and engage with these experiences in a professional setting. We are committed to providing a supportive environment to help ensure that your voice and story can be shared in ways that are healthy for you and impactful for our community.
OVERVIEW OF RESPONSIBILITIES
- Agency-Wide Collaboration
- Engaging Youth and stakeholders (in person several times a week) about YGB model and permanency journey; Family Recruitment
- Network Development & Communication
GENERAL QUALIFICATIONS
- Have personal lived experience with the child welfare system and have an active, moral or legal family connection
- Must possess a strong belief that a family is essential to the success of any youth before they age out of the foster care system and advocate for this for all youth
- Ability to explain the importance of having a permanent family to youth and various stakeholders
- Must absolutely love kids
- Possess demonstrated compassion for youth, families and stakeholders
- Have an eagerness to learn and develop both personal and professional skills
- Must be a team player, flexible, and flourish in a creative environment
- Excellent organizational skills and attention to detail
- Strong in commitment management and dependability
- Highly motivated self-starter with the ability to work independently and in a collaborative team
- Ability able to work in a fast-paced, nimble environment Ability to build strong working relationships; experience working with a variety of stakeholders
- - staff, clients, volunteers, and investors
- Have a sense of humor
- Have proficiency with Google Workspace and Microsoft Office Suite (Word, Excel, Outlook, PowerPoint)
EDUCATION and EXPERIENCE
- A bachelor’s degree in social work or a related human services field is preferred
- Significant experience working with child welfare-involved youth
- 2-5 years in a teaching or coaching role preferred
- Must possess a strong understanding of the issues that youth in foster care experience, the impact of trauma, and the stigma faced by youth in care
- A combination of education, personal experience, and skills will be considered
LOCATION. This position is in New York City and will have a hybrid work arrangement.
WE OFFER. Benefits include medical, dental, life insurance, and 403(b) retirement plan; 3 weeks of vacation (which includes the week between Christmas and New Year’s) and holidays.
PHYSICAL DEMANDS. The position primarily involves traveling in the inner city, standing for two hours or more for workshops and presentations, and computer-based work from a seated position.
COMPENSATION. The compensation range for this position is $45,000 - $50,000 and is commensurate with experience.
WE BELIEVE IN EQUAL EMPLOYMENT. You Gotta Believe is an equal opportunity employer. Applicants and employees shall not be discriminated against because of race, religion, sex, national origin, ethnicity, age, mental or physical disability, sexual orientation, gender (including pregnancy and gender expression) identity, color, marital status, veteran status, medical condition, or any other classification protected by federal, state, or local law or ordinance. Reasonable accommodation will be made so that qualified differently abled applicants may participate in the application process. Please advise in writing of special needs at the time of application.