Qualification Requirements
To perform this job successfully, an individual must be able to perform each essential function satisfactorily. The requirements listed below are representative of the knowledge, skill and/or ability required. Reasonable accommodations may be made to enable an individual with disabilities to perform the essential functions.
Essential Functions
- Develops and prepares service plans to meet needs in areas such as physical/mental health and housing; handles referrals for counseling and mental health services
- Responsible for providing services to strengthen, preserve and/or reunite families by helping them to improve the conditions that caused Agency intervention
- Responsible for providing services to children and adult determined to be in need of protection, with the goal of preventing out of home placement or if out of home placement cannot be prevented, provide the necessary services to affect an appropriate placement
- Interprets laws, policies and regulations to specific area of responsibility
- Completes home studies and/or home visits on ongoing cases; testifies in criminal and civil court cases
- Investigates child and adult protective service complaints from schools, hospitals, etc.; performs family assessments; determines validity of protective service complaints
- Conducts continuous assessment of client and family needs and develops appropriate treatment plans
- Arranges placements in day care centers, nursing and/or rest homes, foster homes and adoptive homes
- Responsible for ensuring safe, permanent and nurturing families for children/adults who are in DSS custody/guardianship and for whom DSS has placement responsibility
- Responsible for ensuring appropriate temporary living arrangements for children in DSS custody and achieving an alternative safe, permanent home for children that cannot return home
- Responsible for helping children, whose parents are incapable of assuring continuing parental responsibilities, to become a part of a new family by finding an appropriate home for them
- Responsible for recruiting of potential adoptive families and providing on-going services (supervision) to adoptive children and adoptive parents that will provide for their needs and protect the interests of all parties to an adoption
- Makes referrals for adult and child protective services
- Prepares a variety of reports and other types of correspondence; submits required reports to State; maintains files and records; enters a variety of data into computer system
- Coordinates service with other agency services and programs
- Reviews foster care and child protective services records; recruits families for foster care of children; researches funding sources
- Provides services to women experiencing unwanted or unplanned pregnancies; assists women in contacting maternity homes and accessing maternity home funds
- Reviews intervention plans and staffing with family and supervisors on case progress to determine if families are meeting established goals
- Assesses parental ability to provide for children's physical and emotional needs
- Receives adult protective services phone calls and office visits; gathers information and determines if an Adult Protective Services investigation is warranted in accordance with established criteria; conducts investigations when reports are screened in
- Assess adult clients to determine if there is a need for a guardian; gathers information from physicians to determine diagnosis and mental status
- Assists wards who reside in group homes, family care homes, assisted living facilities, skilled nursing facilities, etc. as an advocate for their medical, social and environmental and mental health need on an ongoing basis
- Assists individuals and their families in arranging for placement via interviews to determine client needs; assists with completion required applications
Knowledge, Skills and Abilities
Thorough knowledge of department policies and procedures; thorough knowledge of applicable local, Federal and State laws, rules and regulations; thorough knowledge of community resources; thorough knowledge in preparing reports and other types of correspondence; thorough knowledge in the use of standard office equipment and associated software (e.g. NC FAST, WIRM, NC ID, NC MUST, and NC TRACKS); ability to plan and organize work and to understand and interpret laws, policies and regulations; ability to multi-task; ability to make arithmetic computations; ability to compute rates, ratios and percentages; ability to apply governmental accounting practices in maintenance of financial records; ability to assess and analyze budgets; ability to communicate effectively in oral and written form; ability to establish and maintain effective working relationships with clients, associates, court staff, law enforcement staff, mental and medical health providers, social agencies and the general public.
Physical Requirements
This work requires the occasional exertion of up to 25 pounds of force; work regularly requires speaking or hearing and using hands to finger, handle or feel, frequently requires repetitive motions and occasionally requires standing, walking, sitting, stooping, kneeling, crouching or crawling, reaching with hands and arms, tasting or smelling, pushing or pulling and lifting; work requires close vision, distance vision, ability to adjust focus, depth perception, night vision and peripheral vision; vocal communication is required for expressing or exchanging ideas by means of the spoken word and conveying detailed or important instructions to others accurately, loudly or quickly; hearing is required to perceive information at normal spoken word levels and to receive detailed information through oral communications and/or to make fine distinctions in sound; work requires preparing and analyzing written or computer data, visual inspection involving small defects and/or small parts, operating machines, operating motor vehicles or equipment and observing general surroundings and activities; work occasionally requires wet, humid conditions (non-weather), working near moving mechanical parts, exposure to fumes or airborne particles, exposure to outdoor weather conditions, exposure to extreme cold (non-weather), exposure to extreme heat (non-weather) and exposure to blood borne pathogens and may be required to wear specialized personal protective equipment; work is generally in a moderately noisy location (e.g. business office, light traffic).
