The Associate Director of Survivor Engagement is primarily responsible for ensuring that the first contact with House of Ruth Maryland (HRM) is welcoming, supportive, informative, and focused on safety. This position directs the daily activities of the Contact Center’s 24 hour hotline and chatline; survivor outreach through the Lethality Assessment Project and survivor follow up services; and community outreach through walk-in sites and targeted bilingual outreach. The vast majority of contacts with HRM are brief, one-time, and in crisis. Each contact is given access to individualized quality attention and engaged for the duration of services necessary at a given time. As such, the Associate Director must have a firm understanding of trauma, the effects of trauma, engaging traumatized people, and must be comfortable working in a Voluntary Services program model. In keeping with the vision and theory of practice established by the Director of Programs and Clinical Services, the Associate Director establishes standards of practice and ensures that the goals, objectives, and work effort of the program and staff are consistent with the mission of the House of Ruth Maryland, advances the agency and program’s strategic goals and objectives, and are accurately captured in the agency’s database. The Associate Director must have an excellent working relationship with other HRM programs and the community, to ensure high quality, timely, effective and seamless provision of services. This is an essential staff position, whose primary location is Baltimore City, with a maximum of 25% of time spent travelling between various HRM sites.
Primary Responsibilities:
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Directs, manages, oversees and hires Contact Center and Outreach staff; oversees and coordinates work allocation, training, supervision, and performance evaluation of the staff and ensures that all work related to timely, accurate, and effective delivery of services is completed.
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Directly supervises the Lead Contact Center Counselor, Lead Outreach Specialist, and Lead Lethality Assessment Program Specialist.
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Develops and implements program goals and objectives, staffing plans and staff development strategies, program standards, program policy, and written program procedures.
- Manages daily operations of the Contact Center, the 24/7 crisis hotline and chatline services. Monitors call volume and technology, ensures consistent quality engagement of contacts, and accurate up to date information and assistance to Contact Center Staff.
- Organizes staffing and shift patterns and shares responsibility with other Contact Center team members for 24/7 coverage of three incoming phone lines and chatline, providing comprehensive service assistance to all contacts including crisis intervention, empathy and support to victims at risk of serious injury from intimate partner violence.
- Establishes and monitors best practice standards for answering and responding to phone, electronic, and chatline contacts. Provides training to HRM staff on hotline policy and procedure, and gives timely feedback to Contact Center staff and volunteers.
- Oversees direct victim outreach efforts through the Lethality Assessment Project and Follow Up project, ensuring that victim calls and contacts are handled safely, sensitively, and provide victims with information and additional services needed to make informed next step decisions.
- Provides intimate partner violence and Lethality Assessment training to members of the BPD in conjunction with the Police Lethality Program.
- Establishes and monitors best practice standards for making first contact and follow up calls to victims and survivors. Provides training to Outreach staff on policy and procedure, and gives timely feedback to Outreach staff and volunteers.
- Oversees community based bilingual survivor outreach and engagement with hard to reach bilingual communities in Baltimore City and Baltimore County, with an emphasis on Spanish speaking immigrants and Southeast Asian/ Muslim communities.
- Establishes and monitors best practice standards for outreach education and triage of victim disclosures at community events and walk in sites. Provides training to Outreach staff and HRM Program Assistants at services sites where potential victims may walk in.
- Organizes staffing and shift patterns and shares responsibility with other Contact Center team members for coverage at the Administration building and Baltimore County Food Pantry sites.
- Directs activities and manages resources at the Baltimore County food pantry site, including oversight of purchase and distribution of food and material goods, and support group/ outreach efforts. Maintains a relationship with community partners and volunteers working at that site.
- Coordinates intern and volunteer recruitment and utilization, identifies opportunities to use interns and volunteers, cultivates contacts for recruitment, trains, supervises, and provides support.
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Coordinates with agency staff and leadership to review referrals made and outcomes information collected. Collects, analyzes and shares data necessary for project and agency objectives, as well as for HRM and law enforcement service delivery improvement and positive survivor impact.
- Seeks out new funding opportunities and assists in securing grant funding, including grant writing and funder relations, ensuring compliance with terms of contracts and grants, grant project management and reporting.