Youth Support Specialist

Competition: (2024-415-CC)_

**_ Youth Support Specialist (2024-415-CC)_**

**Employment Type**:

- Permanent Part-Time, Bargaining Unit (1 Vacancy)

**Work Hours**:

- 21 hours/week - Scheduled days vary 11:00 a.m - 7 p.m

**Work Setting**:
**Salary**:

- Hybrid - Opportunity to work remotely after orientation & training period
J: $30.11/hour

**Application Deadline**:

- November 12th, 2024, by 11:59 pm

As part of a collaborative project between Michael Garron Hospital and WoodGreen Community Services funded by the Slaight Family Foundation, a new community-based service for youth has been developed. This initiative will provide outreach services to aid and uplift youth, ages 16-29, with complex mental health and/or substance use concerns in East Toronto. The program will be designed, named, and intermittently reevaluated with the support of young people with lived experience of mental health and substance use through focus groups and advisory committees.

**A. **GENERAL ACCOUNTABILITY**

The Youth Support Specialist is a member of the Community Care Unit (CCU) and reports to the Supervisor, Youth Outreach Team. The Youth Support Specialist role makes up a core feature of this holistic, collaborative team, working alongside an intake coordinator, clinical counsellors, peer support workers and psychiatry. Working within an anti-oppressive, anti-racism, trauma-informed, harm reduction, disability justice, and mental health recovery framework, the incumbent is responsible for providing system navigation and service coordination; assessment for acute/crisis needs, telephone, virtual and in person clinical consultation; supportive counseling; and referral and connection to appropriate services and supports. This position requires superior clinical skills; comprehensive knowledge of services and programs for children, youth, and their families; and excellent organizational and administrative skills.

**B. **NATURE AND SCOPE**

This position is responsible for supporting children and youth clients by engaging, screening, assessing, referring, and providing supportive counseling and system navigation / coordination support for individuals and families affected by mental health, addictions, and related concerns. The incumbent performs clinical assessment of service needs; triages for acuity; liaises with the interprofessional team; provides supportive and therapeutic counseling; and collects data / outcomes for research and evaluation. As a member of the team, the incumbent contributes to the development and review of this partnership between WoodGreen Community Services and Michael Garron Hospital, including the provision of appropriate data and model development.

This position performs tasks of a confidential nature. This includes information regarding clients, volunteers, staff, programs, community members and community partners.

**C. **SPECIFIC ACCOUNTABILITIES**

Direct Client Support:

- Serve as a point of access to connect youth with complex mental health and./or substance use issues to supports in the community.
- Perform clinical assessments to determine service needs and to formulate recommendations or treatment plans.
- Account for each client’s values, preferences, and circumstances to support the development of client-centered goals.
- Provide service/care co-ordination, system navigation, short-term and long-term planning and follow-up support.
- Provide case management services to clients over an extended period of time, through the development and implementation of a care plan to address their priority and emerging needs.
- Provide advocacy support and advocate with clients and/or their family or caregivers.
- Identify appropriate and credible resources responsive to client needs and facilitate appropriate referrals, considering culture, language, reading level, accessibility, and health literacy.
- Encourage active communication between clients and/or caregivers and health care providers to optimize client outcomes.
- Provide preliminary assessment of risk in crisis situations, consult and devise an intervention and action plan, and provide crisis intervention.
- Establish contact with members of the interprofessional team and community agencies to obtain, provide or exchange information relating to client’s psycho-social functioning and health care so as to provide seamless referrals.
- Navigate hospital and community resources (if available) that will assist the interprofessional team with managing clients’ medical, functional, cognitive, and psychosocial conditions.
- Create, maintain, and update appropriate client records, in a timely, efficient manner.

Interprofessional Team Member:

- Collaborate with the care team to improve client care as they transition through the health care system / community services.
- Participate in case conferences and clinical meetings to ensure the coordination of services and a continuum of care.
- Enhance workflow and communication pathways between W