Master's Level Mental Health Clinician/Consultant | Early Childhood

Applicants are strongly encouraged to provide a cover letter outlining their interest in working with young children and their families. Use the opportunity to highlight specific experiences and skills that may not shine through the resume, making you a strong candidate.

This position is 2 roles in one. We seek candidates interested in spending about half their time as an insurance-reimbursable clinician and half their time as a consultant in early education and care settings. If you meet the requirements of each position and want to try them together, please apply today!!

When you join The Center for Early Childhood @ Home for Little Wanderers, you join a team of professionals dedicated to partnering with families and professionals to promote optimal emotional health for young children and the adults who care for them.

Through a variety of early childhood mental health (ECMH) direct care services and consultation partnerships, The Center works with children (0-7), parents/caregivers, and professionals to build and support strong social-emotional foundations for happy, healthy childhoods. The Center provides age-appropriate, culturally responsive interventions for children and families in a variety of settings including our child-friendly clinic, homes, early education sites, shelters, and community spaces.

The ECMH Consultant/Clinician role is dynamic and responsive. The ideal candidate is adaptable, perceptive, proactive and flexible, ready to learn and grow, and predisposed to "thinking outside the box" in clinical care along with "quick thinking" and "on the fly" redirection as a consultant. The work environment is collaborative and supportive, reflectively-supervised, committed to balancing employee wellness and excellence, and driven by productivity requirements.

The ECMH Consultant/Clinician will split their time each week between duties of a clinician and those of a consultant, including direct clinical care for children and parents/caregivers, consulting and collaborating with professionals, paperwork and outreach, and attending to their own professional development and wellness. The ideal candidate can (with support from leadership) identify and maintain the proper balance of tasks and adjust accordingly.

The ECMH Consultant/Clinician serves as a specialist, applying the concepts of infant and early childhood mental health with confidence and humility. The ideal candidate seeks to expand their IECMH capacity, can learn through experience, and embraces peer-supported professional growth.

The ECMH Consultant/Clinician is a member of a fun and supportive team of clinicians and mental health consultants led by fun and supportive program leaders. The ideal candidate brings their whole self to work, nurtures relationships with coworkers, and enthusiastically joins-in team-based activities.

How You Will Be Making a Difference

As an ECMH Consultant/Clinician at The Center for Early Childhood, you will fill a critical gap in community-based behavioral health services in Massachusetts, providing specialized services and supports. You will carry a caseload sufficient to meet productivity requirements and adhere to health insurance standards as well as contractual relationships and funder expectations. You will work with infants, toddlers, preschoolers, early elementary school children, and adults (parents and professionals). You will provide a prevention-based intervention addressing the developmental, social-emotional, and behavioral needs of children while implementing evidence-informed approaches to build program capacity and child success by reducing educator stress/turnover and collaborating to identify, prevent, and reduce the impact of behavioral and emotional distress of young children.

More specifically, the ECMH Consultant/Clinician will:

Direct care to children and adults:

• Provide promotion, prevention, and intervention early childhood mental health services, including individual, didactic, family, and group therapy along with collateral consultations and care coordination, that are holistic, family-centered, trauma responsive, and evidence informed.
• Engage families, assess the child's needs, and provide age appropriate diagnosis incorporating relationships, family values, cultural norms, and developmental/educational needs using standardized tools and best practices.
• Support caregivers with meeting their own goals and mental health needs through facilitated referrals and family therapy.
• As needed, attend to families in crisis by facilitating access to crisis and emergency services for children and adults.
• Build and maintain a caseload sufficient to meet weekly productivity requirements.

Consultation and collaboration:

• Facilitate referrals for services, supports, and resources from internal and external community-based providers.
• Support families experiencing systemic barriers (including racism, poverty, immigration status, and multi-system involvement) to child and family mental health and wellness.
• Attend meetings, make phone calls, complete forms, research, follow-up, develop partnerships, and advocate with internal and external providers to promote coordinated, high quality, and equitable service experiences (individual client and macro work).
• Work in early education and care settings to observe, coach, and support educators, children, and families.
• Establish relationships with adults to provide knowledge and skills to promote positive relationships and nurturing environments for children
• Develop and facilitate groups, outreach efforts, and skill-building events for children, caregivers, families, and professionals.
• Assist early education and care programs to:




• Assess child social emotional development
• Identify unmet service and support needs for children, families, and professionals
• Respond to unmet needs with referrals for case management, clinical therapy, and/or family support services

Paperwork and outreach efforts:

• Produce documentation and program materials in a timely manner.
• Develop and document treatment plans utilizing modalities consistent with program goals and client needs including therapeutic play, expressive arts, trauma-informed care, and evidence-based practices.
• Ensure that documentation meets utilization review and quality assurance standards (timely submission, completeness, quality, etc.).
• Abide by all laws - both federal and state - relating to confidentiality of client information and follow appropriate confidentiality protocols regarding sharing of clinical information with program staff and other parties, maintaining all necessary releases of information in order to provide services.

Ongoing professional development and wellness:

• Actively participate in training and learning opportunities for personal and professional growth.
• Actively participate in supervision and meetings including individual, group, and team constellations.
• Consult with supervisor and peers about successes, challenges, threats and opportunities.
• Center family voice and choice in all phases of service delivery.
• Demonstrate commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion practices and The Home's becoming an anti-racist institution.
• Perform other duties as assigned.

Qualifications

• Master's degree in social work, mental health or related discipline
• Prior experience engaging children 0-7 (could include volunteer, intern, lived-experience, etc.)
• Excellent cultural curiosity, sensitivity, and responsivity
• Strong capacity for self-reflection
• Computer literate, including Microsoft Office, with the ability to learn new software applications
• Ability to travel (via personal transportation or public transit) to meet programmatic and client needs regularly and intermittently
• Highly preferred:




• Experience working in early education and care settings
• Familiarity with and comfort working in all Boston neighborhoods
• Ability to provide services in a second language; Identified need for Spanish and/or Haitian Creole fluency.
• Massachusetts licensure (LICSW, LCSW, LMHC, or LMFT)

Valuing Diversity

We are committed to excellence in diversity, equity, and inclusion, while simultaneously creating a culture that supports those values. We believe the differences we bring enhance our ability to provide exceptional service and care to diverse children, families, and communities. Moreover, diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging align with our values and our mission to help vulnerable children and their families build permanent, positive change.

What The Home Can Offer You

In addition to the chance to make a lasting impact on the lives of the youth we serve, The Home for Little Wanderers offers competitive salaries and a comprehensive benefits package including:

• Generous time off including up to 15 days per year for new full-time employees, plus 11 holidays, and 5 sick days
• Health and Dental Insurance that is effective immediately upon hire
• Extensive training to new staff
• Tuition reimbursement of up to $2,400 per fiscal year
• 403(b) Retirement Plan with employer match
• Employer paid Long-term and Short-term Disability Insurance, plus Basic Life and AD&D Insurance
• And more!