The Early Childhood Specialist will have a strong background in early childhood development, an understanding of the parent-child relationship, and an understanding of counseling and trauma impact on fetus & infants to age 5 and their families and experience with Department of Child Protection &Permanency families. They will work along with local partners, with families with developmental concerns, and/or child welfare professionals to ensure positive service linkages that improve outcomes for vulnerable families of infants and young children in Ocean and Monmouth County.

• Collaborate with early childhood specialist for Ocean/Monmouth and early childhood specialist intern.
• Systems Collaboration – Work closely with Early Childhood Systems of Care programs in order to help link families to the most appropriate (based on need and eligibility) and available services.
• County-level Central Intake
• Community Health Workers
• Federal Healthy Start MCH outreach grants (if applicable)
• Home Visiting--Healthy Families, Parents as Teachers, Nurse-Family Partnership
• Early Head Start /Head Start
• REIC Early Intervention Services
• Special Child Health Services
• Family Success Centers
• Health care providers (children & adults)
• Infant/Early Childhood Mental Health
• CP&P clinical providers—substance abuse, mental health, and domestic violence
• CCR&R links to infant/child care centers and family child care
• Transition to state funded preschool/special education
• Other indicated community service/social service providers
• AND, resources to include the voice and input of Parents/Families as partners–i.e. County Council for Young Children, Family Support Organization, and more
• Community mental health service system for parents and children
• WIC
• Developmental Promotion - Provide developmental guidance and promote developmental screening (Ages and Stages Questionnaire) for families as needed along with referrals to Early Intervention.
• Oversight and Technical Support - Strengthen and align the local-level infrastructure to ensure coordination and collaboration in delivering effective community-based services for the infants, children, parents, and families identified through intake. Work collaboratively across CP&P and county-level Central Intake, and with community systems partners (including parents/families)
• Reporting and Coordinating Data Collection, CQI and Evaluation – Submit monthly/quarterly progress reports addressing process and outcome indicators that will help determine strengths and areas needing improvement, participate in DCF quality improvement and evaluation activities.
• Assists with other Early Childhood activities, as appropriate.
• Attend local DCP&P case conferences in Ocean and Monmouth counties to help enhance case planning with referrals/intake local services for young child or parents.
• Travel required throughout Ocean and Monmouth counties. Must have reliable car along with valid driver’s license.

Additional Essential Coordinator Job Responsibilities:

• Assist in the development of the annual Annex A, monthly and quarterly report, midyear reports and end of the year reports as required by program contract.
• Provide individual guidance for full-time and part-time direct service staff.  Review and process workers’ monthly reports, statistics and paperwork.  Cover casework for sick and or vacationing staff as well as fill in temporarily during a vacancy if necessary.  
• Represent program at management meetings and state coordinator meeting
• Help develop yearly goals and objectives (Blue Book) and evaluation of prior year’s goals and objectives for all programs supervised.
• Support VP/ Division Director during grant submission process, audits, site visits, contract monitoring visits, etc.
• Goals for performance and deadlines in ways that comply with the agency’s goals, plans and vision.
• Organize workflow and ensuring that employees understand their duties or delegated tasks
• Receive complaints and resolve problems.
• Pass on information from upper management to employees and vice versa.
• Prepare and submit performance reports.
• Hire and train new employees within the program.
• Ensure adherence to legal and agency policies and procedures.

• Bachelor’s degree required, Master’s degree preferred in early childhood or social work.
• Experience and knowledge of counseling and case planning with parent(s) with of children ages - infancy to age 5
• Experience in early childhood child development, maternal-child health (MCH infant/early childhood mental health, social work, and/or related fields and settings. 
• Strong interpersonal skills with the ability to develop trusting relationships with families and partners
• Full understanding of the roles of early childhood partners and maternal child health partners.
• Ability to translate complex early childhood issues into parent-friendly language
• Trauma informed Infant Mental Health Endorsed (IMH-E) approval
• Experience with DCP&P family situations
• Current NJ IMH endorsement or pursing endorsement.  Agency will assist with support during this process.