Senior Social Worker III - Adoptions

Adoption Unit: 2+ years Adoption experience required. Candidate must have excellent communication and interpersonal skills, the ability to adapt to frequent changes, court experience, and leadership skills.

The Permanency Planning unit is a dual functioning unit, providing both foster care and adoption services. The primary purpose of the Permanency Planning unit is to arrange and support substitute care and obtain permanence for children who are abused, neglected or dependent when the agency has been given placement responsibility, either through custody or a Voluntary Placement Agreement (VPA) with the child s legal custodian/guardian.

Additionally, the unit recruits, trains, licenses, and supervises foster homes, and facilitates adoption for children who are legally cleared or whose permanency plan has changed to adoption.

Primary Purpose of the Position

The primary purpose of the social worker in this position is to execute the agency s mandate to arrange and support substitute care appropriate to a child s needs and work towards obtaining permanence by:

• Providing services to children who are in agency custody or placement responsibility as a result of their parents or caretakers being unable or unwilling to provide adequate protection or care.
• Providing services to biological families/caregivers that will help them improve the conditions that led to agency intervention, thus facilitating reunification.
• Providing support to foster families or other substitute caregivers to ensure a positive experience for all involved.
• Developing alternative options for permanence should reunification fail.
• Working towards a safe, permanent home within one year for children in agency custody/placement responsibility.
• Provide coaching and guidance to interns and less experienced workers.

For families that are unable to find permanency through reunification, the primary purpose of the social worker in this position also includes executing the agency s mandate to provide services to the adoption triad which includes the child, the birth family, and the adoptive family. The adoption social worker s role encompasses the provision of problem pregnancy services to the birth family, evaluation and assessment of the child s needs, including determination of eligibility for Adoption Assistance benefits and the evaluation and assessment of the prospective placement family s ability to meet the needs of a child.

Services are offered to find families for children in need of placement because their parents are unable to accept or to continue parental responsibilities to the child. Adoption serves as a viable resource for families who are choosing to build or increase their unit through the adoptive process. The adoption process requires a commitment from the agency to find the best home for every child who is cleared for adoption, to protect the rights of children, birth parents, and adoptive parents, and to enable adoptive parents to receive the assistance they need to help them to meet the needs of an adopted child prior to and after the Decree of Adoption is entered.

The social worker uses the Trauma Informed Partnering for Safety and Permanence:
Model Approach to Partnerships in Parenting (TIPS-MAPP) curriculum to train prospective placement families. This curriculum helps families to assess their strengths and needs and facilitates the evaluation and assessment of the placement family s ability to meet the needs of a child. This position s responsibilities may also include the completion of relative/stepparent/independent adoptive home assessment on families as well as completion and submission of the Report on Proposed Adoption as specified in NC General Statutes and ordered by the Clerk of Superior Court.

The general work schedule is Monday through Friday, 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. with an hour for lunch. The worker may sometimes have an early morning, late afternoon or evening appointment which may necessitate the eight-hour workday being managed differently. In such cases, supervisory approval is needed. The worker is occasionally on call for emergency child welfare issues between the hours of 5:00 p.m. and 8:00 a.m. on weeknights and also around the clock on weekends.

None.

All responsibilities and duties described are essential to the effective performance of a Senior Social Worker III in this position and are listed in ORDER OF IMPORTANCE.