About

• Description

GENERAL DESCRIPTION

• The Healthy Steps Specialist I (HSSI) is an early child development expert who will join the pediatric primary care team at Hometown Pediatrics to provide interventions, referrals, and follow-up for children and families. HealthySteps, a program of Zero to Three, promotes nurturing caregiving, which supports families and improves healthy development and well-being of babies and toddlers, preparing them for school and life.
• The HealthySteps Specialist I builds strong relationships with families and providers to increase the efficiency of the medical system and support team-based comprehensive care. The HSSI is responsible for delivering HealthySteps services to caregivers in a timely and coordinated manner and according to program model parameters. HSSI is responsible for providing child behavior and developmental information, guidance, and checkups to families and for helping caregivers to develop confidence in their parenting abilities. The HSSI will create a solid relationship between the caregivers and the HealthySteps team, enhancing communication among providers/family/community partners. The HSSI will promote access to community services and the development of self-management skills among families, while also increasing health promotion activities. The HSSI will be supervised by the HealthySteps Supervisor.

• Schedule for this position is: Monday-Thursday 8:00-5:30 and Friday from 8:00-12:00

DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES

• Promotes HealthySteps within the practice to families and providers
• Build care relationships among family and team; support the primary caregiving role of the family
• Conducts team-based well-child visits before, during, or following the primary care provider. Visits focus on monitoring development, social-emotional functioning, and relational health, and providing anticipatory guidance
• Conducts consultations on a short-term basis for needs regarding development and/or behavioral concerns such as sleep, positive parenting, picky eating, etc.
• Maintains a child development support line and responds to and tracks call requests within the designated response time
• Identify quality resources and provide referrals and follow-up as appropriate to foster community connections
• Provide care coordination by assessing child/patient and family needs and create ongoing processes for families to determine and request the level of care-coordination support for their child/youth or family member at any given point in time
• Serve as the contact point, advocate, and informational resource for families and community partners
• Facilitate/lead parent groups
• Maintain timely and accurate data entry and reporting; Document all patient clinical activity and care coordination in EHR
• Tracks caseload to ensure capacity to deliver the HS services within the risk stratified service delivery model. This includes ensuring exit criteria is met and that families and children are elevated to higher levels of care or referred to community providers if needed
• Assist with the Reach Out and Read program
• Attend training as specified throughout the year
• Participates in reflective supervision meetings with supervisor
• Engages in Continuous Quality Improvement (CQI) initiatives to ensure the HealthySteps model is delivered with fidelity
• May conduct minimal home visits and may accompany families to key medical, specialty, and community agency appointments as needed
• Be available to serve families in non-traditional work hours if necessary
• Perform other duties as assigned which may be necessary to support the organization during times of critical activity

REPORTING RELATIONSHIPS

Responsible to

• Directly supervised by the HealthySteps Supervisor

Workers supervised

• None

Interrelationships

• Works in cooperation with all staff/providers and effectively serves patients and their families
• This is a grants-based program and dependent on availability of funds.
• This job description is not designed to cover or contain an exhaustive listing of activities, duties, or responsibilities that are required of the employee for this job. Duties, responsibilities, and activities may change at any time with or without notice.
• Requirements

REQUIREMENTS

• All employees of Carolina Health Centers, Inc. are expected to perform the duties of their job and behave in a manner consistent with the Corporate Philosophy which supports the values of: honesty, integrity, openness, the pursuit of individual and collective excellence, and unwavering mutual respect and appreciation.

In addition, this position requires

Education

• - Master’s degree in psychology, social work, counseling, early childhood education, or related field highly preferred
• - Clinically licensed mental health professional preferred

Work Experience

• - Experience and knowledge about early child growth and development, parent-child relationships, child health, and family systems
• - Experience assessing the growth and development of infants and children less than three years of age
• - Experience working with parents/caregivers; experience facilitating parent groups preferred
• - Experience working in a medical setting or with health professionals preferred
• - Experience working with vulnerable populations such as Children and Youth with Special Health Care Needs (CYSHCN) preferred

Licensure and Credentials

• - None required

Skills

• - Demonstrated flexibility to work on an interdisciplinary team; ability to work in various roles and capacities and to respect boundaries in each role
• - Commitment to working with underserved populations in a community setting
• - Ability to work with people of many backgrounds and cultures
• - Ability to work independently
• - Demonstrate oral and written communication skills
• - Strong motivational interviewing skills
• - Ability to take initiative and a willingness to learn
• - Ability to collect and enter data for program management, evaluation, and reporting purposes
• - Ability to multitask and triage/juggle multiple appointments and conflicting priorities
• - Comfort with an open-door policy, potentially frequent interruptions, and warm hand-offs
• - Proficient use of computers, word processing, and other software programs
• - Ability to establish trusting relationships
• - Knowledge of HIPAA and ability to maintain confidentiality
• - Willing to engage in building reflective capacity (e.g., capacity for introspection, communicating awareness of self in relation to others, recognizing value of supervision, etc.)
• - Bilingual in English and Spanish is preferred but not required
• - Pass a background check

Physical Abilities

• - Have the hand-eye coordination and manual dexterity needed to operate a computer, telephone, copier and medical equipment
• - Have a normal range of hearing and eyesight to be able to collect data and record where appropriate (i.e. computer and/or paper and telephone)
• - The employee is occasionally required to stand, walk, reach with arms and hands, and to stoop, kneel, or crouch
• - Visual abilities required by this job include close vision with periods of extended exposure to a computer screen

Work Environment

• This position involves exposure to customer/patient elements. The work environment is that of a medical practice that enforces safe OSHA compliant practice. HIPAA rules and regulations are stringently enforced. The position requires staff to work under pressure at times and with a diverse population. As a medical office, exposure to communicable diseases, bodily fluids, toxic substances, sharps, and other conditions are common.
• This job also operates in a professional office environment. This role routinely uses standard Office equipment such as computers, telephones, photocopiers, filing cabinets, and fax machines.
• Must be capable of regular travel within the Agency’s service area. Out-of-town and/or overnight travel are minimal