VP, Programs (Behavioral Health)

OverviewSince 1972, Covenant House has served and advocated for youth and young families experiencing homelessness, human trafficking, and exploitation. Our overarching goal is to end homelessness among youth and young families by helping them achieve housing stability, heal from trauma, tap into their innate resilience, and hone their interests and skills to forge new pathways to independence. This work is carried out across Covenant House sites in 34 cities in the US, Canada, Mexico, Guatemala, and Honduras.

About the RoleAs the Vice President, Program (Behavioral Health), your work will directly support our mission to end youth homelessness by ensuring we offer a full range of evidence-based and informed interventions to support young people with behavioral health challenges. You will lead the strategic development, implementation, and oversight of behavioral health programs and services for young people across the Covenant House federation, working to expand access to behavioral health services and supports for youth, enhance quality of care, improve outcomes, and disrupt the trajectory from youth homelessness to chronic adult homelessness.

This is a newly created role that will report to the Senior Vice President, Program. The Vice President, Program (Behavioral Health) will ensure their work aligns with Covenant House’s Journey Home roadmap as well as our organizational values of inclusivity, joy, courage, accountability and ambition. You will collaborate closely with Covenant House site leaders and behavioral health teams and develop partnerships to expand access to behavioral health services for youth, reduce barriers to care, and enhance opportunities for support and healing for youth. You will also develop and support sites in the implementation of systems to identify youth with behavioral health challenges early in their stay at CH and offer a wide range of clinical interventions and linkages to community providers to support their ongoing symptom management and treatment. All work will be undertaken with a spirit of collaboration and commitment to partnership with Covenant House site leaders and designed from a strengths-based, culturally sensitive, trauma-informed lens that prioritizes youth voice and choice.

Essential Duties and ResponsibilitiesBehavioral Health Service Access

• Support sites that don’t currently offer on-site behavioral health services to add this service offering either through a staff role or community partnerships

• Support the expansion of psychiatry and substance use counseling services across the federation to ensure

• Explore development of partnerships with online therapy providers, community-based providers, and providers that specialize in specific sub-populations of youth CH serves

• Program/Service Development and Technical Support

• Take on leadership role for CHI’s Youth Support and Response Plan project and support sites to implement the risk assessment and safety planning protocol and related resources developed for this project

• Identify and support sites to implement evidence-based group treatment curricula

• Develop and launch a pilot to train CH site clinicians in brief solution focused therapy modalities

• Develop resources and best practice guidance to educate and support staff in their care provision to specific sub-populations of youth

• Identify validated behavioral health screening tools to integrate into our intake and risk assessment protocols

• Develop and lead a learning community comprised of behavioral health leads from across the CH federation

• Engage CH youth to get their input on the BH programs, services and supports available at CH and how they can better meet their needs

Training

• Train sites on how to use CHI’s risk assessment and safety planning protocol and related resources

• Train sites in the use of screening protocols for mental health, depression, suicide risk, and substance use

• Develop training for front line staff on su...