Crisis Support Youth Outreach Worker

The Youth Empowerment Society (YES) is looking for an energetic and compassionate Youth Outreach Worker to support high-risk youth (ages 12-19) and their families. In this pivotal role, you'll provide immediate services and interventions, including crisis response, safety assessments, and risk reduction strategies. You’ll work directly with youth, building trust and offering support where it’s needed most, all while collaborating with community partners in an outreach-focused capacity.

**Duties and Responsibilities**:
To perform the job successfully the Youth Outreach Worker must be able to consistently perform each essential duty adequately. Other duties may be assigned.

**Youth/Family Engagement and Service Planning**:

- Work with youth and their families to carry out crisis intervention and support through urgent response, safety assessment and risk reduction to prompt a change in behaviour and/or situation.
- Interview youth and their families, prepare case histories, and assess problems and strengths. Provide intervention services collaboratively with other community programs.
- Develop and implement intervention programs to assist MCFD and youth/families in determining goals and achieving the objectives developed.
- Facilitate referrals to appropriate community services, including identified medical, mental health, addictions, legal and family services.
- Provide mediation services, support to foster parents, parental assessments, community development, pre-and post-natal support, support for high risk parents, support for family violence issues and sexual abuse, suicide prevention/intervention, support with grief and loss, and early childhood education.
- Follow up and evaluates the effectiveness of programs and the progress of youth and their families.
- Identify newer and younger youth in the Victoria Area with maximum diligence and screens them for awareness of possible risk factors.
- Provide youth who frequent the downtown area with an early awareness of services available and inform them on the lures present downtown.
- Locate and reunify missing youth with their Social Workers or families.
- Form mutually respectful partnerships with youth and their family support systems to address any issues and problems they face through parent-teen mediation and conflict resolution to support family stabilization and reunification.
- Provide behavioural management skills, crisis response, intervention and risk reduction services to best support youth and create a safe and stable environment.
- Provide crisis intervention and risk reduction for youth and their family support systems when required, especially around issues such as trauma, suicidal ideation, mental health and addictions.
- Facilitate relations through communication and better understanding among youth who frequent the downtown area, the police, the business community and the general public.
- Maintain a collaborative and cooperative working relationship with MCFD, other professionals, ministries and the community, including police officers and probation.
- Provide regular and consistent outreach services to youth and their families as required.
- Provide support, information, education and referrals to family support systems as appropriate.
- Identify youth who are at-risk of becoming sexually exploited and refer them to appropriate community services.
- Participate in integrated case management conferences, as required
- Set appropriate boundaries and maintain a helping role to meet the needs of the youth or other familiy members.
- Demonstrate a level of cultural sensitivity and understanding of the client population.
- Demonstrate a youth centred strength based approach.
- Accept the clients’ rights to self-determination and individuality and must not discriminate on the basis of race, ethnicity, language, religion, marital status, gender, sexual orientation, age, abilities, socio-economic status, political affiliations, or national ancestry.
- Maintain a positive conviction about the capacity of people to grow and change.
- Recognize persons with special needs and makes appropriate referrals.
- Demonstrate a client centred strength based approach.
- Act as an advocate for youth and families and promotes empowerment for them to advocate on their own behalf.

**Program Development and Administration**:

- Assist MCFD in providing outreach services and helping to reconnect youth to appropriate care giving systems in the continuum of care.
- Provide a conduit for businesses that have concerns regarding youth congregating, loitering or panhandling in front of their establishment.
- Facilitate effective cooperative relations among members of the police force and members of agencies providing social services downtown.
- Develop effective and cooperative relations with businesses, schools and other stakeholders.
- Assist youth and families through the judicial process.
- Help co-ordinate immediate, safe, and secure housing for missing youth.
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