Parent Peer Support - PT

Nexus Family Healing, an outpatient and community mental health clinic located in Mendota Heights, MN, has an immediate opening for a part-time Parent Partner for our Youth ACT team!

Youth ACT services are provided in the home, school, or community using a multidisciplinary team. Individualized services help stabilize youth, ages 14-21, to decrease hospitalizations and out-of-home placements. The Youth ACT team works intensively with youth with severe mental health or co-occurring mental health and substance use issues to help them remain in their community and reduce the need for residential or inpatient placements. The team also works with youth discharging from hospitals or residential treatment centers to ensure a smooth transition back to their home, family, and community. Services are delivered in an age-appropriate and culturally sensitive manner designed to meet the specific needs of each member.

At Nexus Family Healing, we embrace diversity, promote equity, and foster inclusion. As a national mental health organization, we serve a diverse group of youth and families, and we strive for our workforce to support and represent that diversity.

Schedule/Pay/Location:

• Part-time, 20 hours per week
• Hourly range $21-23
• Flexible scheduling, may include some evenings
• Community-based work in Mendota Heights, MN

Nexus’ Comprehensive Benefits Include:

• 401k match
• Tuition assistance and training opportunities
• Advancement pathways and internal promotion
• And much more!

Position Summary: The Parent Partner provides active, hands-on, trauma-informed, and family-guided peer support to parents of youth receiving services while collaborating with families, team members, and service providers. The Parent Partner’s role is to increase family involvement within the program, connecting families to formal and informal resources, and advocating for families to decrease unintentional, programmatic, and institutional bias toward caregivers.

Primary responsibilities:

Family, Caregiver and Treatment Facilitation

• Manages and coordinates positive family involvement in the treatment process using trauma-informed, strength-based, and client-driven engagement techniques.
• Creates community relationships to enhance resource and referral opportunities.
• Connects with all families entering the program to engage and build involvement.
• Participates in the initial family information-gathering and assessment process to help identify needs and assist in the development of treatment goals.

Client Advocacy

• Works with families, caregivers, and treatment team members and all informal and formal supports to assist and support individualized family plans and treatment goals during and post-treatment.
• Attends and participates in a variety of meetings to help support and advocate for the well-being, needs and resources for caregivers and youth.
• Provides and assists with ongoing advocacy for families during the treatment process and with other providers involved in the family’s life. Role models skills and provides coaching so families can learn to advocate for themselves.
• Delivers consultation and training to treatment team members to enhance the delivery of family-driven care and positive family engagement techniques.

Family and Client Liaison

• Provides parent skill-building education, consultation, and role modeling; leads/co-leads parent support groups.
• Acts as a resource for families and responds to family crises in a prompt, effective, and collaborative manner.
• May coordinate and conduct family-finding activities to help youth establish a strong support network and support permanency as needed.
• Submits timely documentation in the electronic health record regarding work with families.
• Facilitates the linking of youth and families with appropriate community services, and follow-ups.
• Meets with the family and youth (virtually or in-person) as determined and prescribed by the treatment plan and family’s engagement level.