The City of Virginia Beach Department of Human Services is recruiting for a Family Services Specialist I (FSSI) to work in our Child Protective Services divisions. The FSSI will, under the supervision of a Human Services Supervisor, investigate and assess alleged child maltreatment. The FSSI must be able to work as part of a multidisciplinary team facilitating a team approach with police, medical, social work, and mental health professionals.
Specific duties include, but are not limited to:
- Manage a high-volume workload of CPS referrals and demonstrate the ability to make independent decisions based on knowledge of policies and procedures.
- Document detailed, and accurate investigative narrative, dispositional assessments, safety assessments, and risk assessments.
- Engage children and families to maximize information gathering and to build trust to ensure that appropriate measures are taken to ensure child safety.
- Utilize trauma informed strategies to overcome challenges and build upon family strengths
- Spend time in the community visiting client’s homes, schools, court, and collateral visits that are pertinent to each family’s referral.
- Conduct safety and risk assessments on an ongoing basis with each assigned referral. Review assigned referrals with their immediate supervisor, or designee.
- Take appropriate actions to ensure that children are separated from unsafe situations by utilizing natural support in the family and community and at last resort recommending placement in foster care.
- Write court affidavits and petition the Juvenile & Domestic Relations Court for child protective orders and or emergency removal orders.
- Organize and participate in Family Partnership Meetings and varieties of team meetings designed to support and engage families.
- Receive and screen new allegations of child abuse/neglect. Make appropriate validity decisions and make plans for immediate response to new CPS referrals.
- Ensure that all referral interviews and interactions are documented within 24 hours.
- Work in collaboration with police, mental health professionals, emergency medical services partners with triaging families and conducting investigations.
- Standby on-call duties after normal business hours on a rotating basis.
The City offers a generous benefits package which includes health, dental and life insurance, retirement, and savings plans, maternity/paternity and parental leave, and Holidays and paid leave.
A $3,000 hiring bonus is being offered for this position. Hiring bonuses shall only be for new hires of original full-time employment or reemployment as defined in Human Resources Policy No. 5.0.
- $500 will be awarded in the first paycheck.
- $1000 will be awarded upon completion of the six (6) month interim performance evaluation with an overall rating of “Meets Expectations”.
- $1,500 will be awarded upon completion of the employee’s one (1) year probationary period and a performance evaluation with an overall rating of “Meets Expectations”.