Behavioral Health Specialist Supervisor

Behavior Health Specialist Supervisor

Behavioral Health Specialists work in partnership with caseworker staff across DHS’ Office of Children, Youth, and Families (CYF, our child welfare system) to advise on cases where a youth is experiencing mental and/or behavioral health challenges (often including mental illness and/or addiction). Specialists support connections to care, advise on complex behavioral health situations, and assist caseworker staff by rolling up their sleeves to ensure that treatment plans are followed. They also support caseworker staff is more deeply understanding mental health psychoeducation and child development.

While Specialists are embedded with various CYF offices, they (and this supervisor role) are members of DHS’ Office of Behavioral Health (OBH).

The Behavioral Health Specialist Supervisor will be responsible for leading this team. By providing thoughtful leadership that supports and galvanizes the team to improve their individual work, you’ll have a broad impact on our child welfare system and the youth it seeks to improve outcomes for.

Duties and Responsibilities

• Supportive and galvanizing leadership of the team of Behavioral Health Specialists, including leadership that stretches from daily support and consultation to annual performance evaluations.
• Supervises planning and day-to-day operations.
• Provide individual supervision for each Specialist every 1-2 weeks that focuses on individual case review, often in-person at the CYF regional offices where Specialists are embedded.
• Ability to interview, hire, onboard, and train new Specialists.
• Conduct yearly performance evaluations.
• Facilitate team meetings (monthly in-person, plus additional, ad-hoc meetings as needed).
• Ensures timely documentation within the reporting system.
• Visits each CYF regional office monthly to build rapport with regional office staff.
• Meet monthly with each regional office leadership team/staff to review and discuss concerns and identify opportunities for improvement.
• Provide Specialists with an additional resource for consultation regarding challenging and complex cases.
• Participate in the OBH Mental Health leadership meetings and in the Children’s Department Leadership meetings.
• Meet twice a month with Children’s MH Administrator for supervision.
• Work with HR and OBH leadership to resolve any personnel issues that may arise.
• Maintain a schedule for BHS team members for remote work, holiday coverage and vacation coverage.
• Provide updates to CYF and OBH leadership regarding complex cases as the need arises.
• Report any case related concerns or incidents to the Children’s MH Administrator.
• Act as a liaison with Community Care and the RTF Group.

Skills and Knowledge

• Participate in training and conferences for continuing education.
• Establish and maintain working relationships with families, staff, and community providers.
• Have ability to communicate effectively both orally and in writing.
• Ability to work in a team-oriented atmosphere.
• Ability to be attentive to detail.
• Demonstrates organizational skills.
• Ability to work with minimal supervision – to be self-directed in learning new skills.
• Knowledge of the drug and alcohol system and an understanding of how to access care.
• Possess thorough knowledge of the county wide continuum of care for children’s mental health services.

Education and Experience

• Bachelor’s Degree (4 year) in Social Work, Psychology, or other Human Service-related field.
• 5+ years of desired experience at an organization or in an environment that directly or indirectly serves children and/or adolescents with behavioral health needs.
• Extensive knowledge of the child mental health service continuum in Allegheny County.
• Act 33, 34 and FBI clearances
• Valid Driver’s License & Insurance