Wendy’s Wonderful Kids Recruiter

The Dave Thomas Foundation for Adoption, through its signature Wendy’s Wonderful Kids program, has developed and tested a Child-Focused Recruitment Model to find adoptive families for children and youth most likely to age out of the foster care system. The goal of the program is to find an appropriate, permanent and loving adoptive family for each child waiting in the foster care system.

Hope For Youth is working under a grant from the DTFA is hiring a full-time recruiter to implement the Wendy’s Wonderful Kids Child-Focused Recruitment Model to obtain permanency for waiting children in Suffolk County.

The Wendy’s Wonderful Kids recruiter will be an employee of HFY, who is funded through the DTFA grant to operate the WWK Program in conjunction with Suffolk County. To complete the required work the recruiter will spend their time at both the Suffolk County DSS building in Ronkonkoma and at the HFY main office in Amityville, as well as in the community meeting with children in foster care.

Send your resume and tell us about yourself, your experience and how it fits into our mission to hrbenefits@hfyny.org. Be sure to include the title of the position in the subject line.

For more information and for employment verification contact our HR Information Hotline at 631-782-6571.

The WENDY’S WONDERFUL KIDS RECRUITER is responsible for to implement, know and use the Child-Focused Recruitment Model, including outreach, education, and recruitment efforts and will:

Demonstrate working knowledge of the local child welfare system including adoptions
Manage an active caseload of 12-15 children conducting in-person visits and transports and a total case load of 20-25 total children with (at minimum) monthly contact with each child’s caseworker and post-adoption support, when needed
Develop a comprehensive recruitment plan or enhance the existing recruitment plan for each child
Diligently search for potential adoptive families among targeted populations and recruitment areas
Vigorously work with and follow-up with identified contacts; assure necessary authorizations are secured throughout from DTFA, custodians, etc.
Work directly with county custodial agency to identify, recruit and become part of each child’s advocacy team, attend in quarterly calls, site visits, meetings and hearings, as needed
Establish personal relationships with referred children and assist in readiness activities
Maintain collaborative relationships with social workers, case managers, therapists, HFY staff and other members of case management teams, etc.; remove barriers, as needed
Host child-focused recruitment events and activities in service area
Provide increased awareness and training for key state stakeholders, including frontline child welfare staff and the legal community, and reduce and eliminate barriers
Abide by the Hope For Youth’s policies and procedures regarding time and place of work, supervision, reporting, confidentiality and all other aspects of employment
Attend educational opportunities provided by HFY and DTFA, including, but not limited to: classroom training, online modules, database training, webinars, and must be available to attend the WWK Summit held in Ohio, May 18^th
Timely and accurately enter data and produce reports, as needed
Other duties as assigned

Qualifications

Master’s Degree in Social Work or related field
A Bachelor’s Degree in Social Work or a related human service field and adoption experience may be substituted for a Master’s Degree
2-4 years of child welfare experience, preferably in foster care adoption
Access to a personal vehicle with insurance coverage and have a valid driver’s license and ability to travel, occasionally overnight
Demonstrated ability to establish and build collaborative partnerships with child’s team and community partners and
Competence in planning, organizing, scheduling, case documentation, plus strong oral and written communication abilities
Must possess strong human relations skills to communicate and work effectively within a culturally diverse work environment and community
Facility with various databases and technology