HealthySteps Specialist / BH Clinician (Personal Services)

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Time Type:

Full time

Department:

Mental Health

All Locations:

1601 Washington Street, East Boston

Position Summary:

The innovative HealthySteps approach is based on the most recent scientific understandings of how early childhood development works, and how it can best be supported to ensure individual, family, community, and societal well-being. NeighborHealth HealthySteps, a program of ZERO TO THREE, promotes nurturing caregiving, which supports families and improves healthy development and well-being of babies and toddlers, preparing them for school and life. NeighborHealth aims to achieve this goal by weaving together the expertise of a child development expert, the HealthySteps Specialist, and the pediatric primary care provider. Together, just at the time when the brain is developing most rapidly, these experts bring focus to the important skills needed for families to foster healthy child development and life-long well-being:

1. social emotional development;
2. language and literacy skills;
3. cognition skills; and
4. perceptual, motor and physical development.

The entire practice works together to implement the HealthySteps model, with leadership from a Practitioner Champion and the HealthySteps Specialist. The HealthySteps Specialist is an early child development expert who will join the pediatric primary care team at NeighborHealth to provide interventions, referrals, and follow-up for families with patients ages 0-3. The HealthySteps Specialist builds strong relationships with families and providers to increase the efficiency of the medical system and support team-based comprehensive care

Essential Duties and Responsibilities:

• Establishes rapport and develops therapeutic relationships with patients of diverse backgrounds and varying levels of motivation for change.
• With supervision, renders accurate diagnoses utilizing the DSM IV.
• Writes up and presents completed assessments for clinical disposition in a clear and organized manner. Performs advanced, high quality, thorough psychosocial evaluation that contains data in support of the diagnosis, findings, recommendations and plans.
• Promotes HealthySteps within the practice to families and providers
• Conducts team-based well-child visits before, during, or following the primary care provider visits focused on monitoring development, social-emotional functioning, and relational health, and providing anticipatory guidance Note: The HealthySteps Specialist is expected to participate in team-based well-child visits in-person, as an integrated member of the care team.
• Conducts consultations on a short-term basis for needs regarding development and/or behavioral concerns such as sleep, positive parenting, picky eating, etc
• May facilitate parent/caregiver groups
• Creates and maintains community resource directory/database. Provides referrals and tracks follow-up, as appropriate, to help families make successful connections to key resources within the community.
• Screens for domestic violence, substance abuse and risk behaviors with every patient, applying protocols for intervention with positive screenings.
• Performs and documents outreach activities for patients who do not follow through, especially for those with known risk factors.
• Reaches out to community providers within first 6 months in position to share about HealthySteps, their role, and receive information to support referrals, warm handoffs, and ensure appropriate referral criteria is met.
• Participates (when appropriate) in community-wide early childhood and/or mental health meetings.
• Is an active member of the Healthy Steps Implementation Team and attends regular team meeting.
• Demonstrates excellent clinical judgment in assessing changes in risk, enlisting the Administration and/or Medical Directors and initiating Special Clinical Reviews as indicated.
• Works with the front office administrative staff to ensure scheduling of the HS Specialist's time in coordination with provider visits (i.e., well-child visits)
• Engages in Continuous Quality Improvement (CQI) initiatives to ensure the HealthySteps model is delivered with fidelity
• Collaborates with HealthySteps implementation team to implement all eight Core Components including universal screenings, making positive parenting and early learning guidance information available, and adjusting workflows for optimal efficiency
• Works closely with pediatric primary providers around care coordination, goal setting, coaching, and education about key aspects of a child's development. Provides consultation and/or facilitates training to medical professionals and all practice staff re: early childhood development, early relational health/infant early childhood mental health, and trauma informed practice
• Maintains professional license, accumulating the required number of CEU's and submits the associated documentation to the Administrative Director.
• Presents clinical cases for review at weekly clinical meetings according to departmental standard.
• Maintains open communication with all members of the primary care team
• Additional clinical responsibilities specific to the clinical department within which the BH clinician is integrated.  These include: Primary Care Integrated Behavioral Health
• Tracks caseload to ensure capacity to deliver the HS services within the risk stratified service delivery model. This includes ensuring exit criteria is met and that families and children are elevated to higher levels of care or referred to community providers if needed.

Qualifications and Requirements:

• Graduate from an accredited Masters in Psychology (MA), Masters in Education (Counseling-M.Ed.), or MSW program.
• Current Massachusetts license (LMHC, LMFT, LCSW, LICSW, Licensed Psychologist) or license eligibility.
• Minimum of 2 years relevant post-graduate experience, preferably in a community health, mental health or hospital setting.
• Excellent working knowledge of behavioral medicine and evidence-based treatments for medical and mental health conditions.
• Ability to work through brief patient contacts as well as to make quick and accurate clinical assessments of mental and behavioral conditions.
• Comfortable with the pace of primary care and emergency care, within with an interdisciplinary team.

EXPERIENCE:

• Minimum of 2 years relevant post-graduate experience, preferably in a community health, mental health or hospital setting.

SKILLS/ABILITIES:

• Excellent working knowledge of behavioral medicine and evidence-based treatments for medical and mental health conditions
• Ability to work through brief patient contacts as well as to make quick and accurate clinical assessments of mental and behavioral conditions
• Comfortable with the pace of primary care and emergency care, within with an interdisciplinary team
• Working knowledge of psycho-pharmacology
• Ability to design and implement clinical pathways and protocols for treatment of selected chronic conditions
• Two clinically relevant, supervised internships.
• Two favorable recommendations attesting to clinical competency from field placement supervisors.
• Bilingual preferred (may be required for specific positions).  Bicultural preferred.
• Awareness of and demonstrated commitment to the delivery of culturally competent care.
• Ability to communicate effectively both in writing and verbally, including mastery of NeighborHealth's EMR, Epic.
• Interest in deepening the development of areas of clinical specialty and the assumption of non-direct care responsibilities.  Examples of non-direct care responsibilities include the supervision of bachelor and intern level staff, assisting in the development of clinical protocols and policies, organizing a resource manual and leading a special project such as chart review, centralizing new referrals, etc.
• “Grace under pressure” with the ability to multitask and triage/juggle multiple appointments and conflicting priorities.
• Comfort with an open-door policy, potentially frequent interruptions, and warm hand offs.
• Flexibility in communication: able to switch between being on the floor playing with young patients and communicating with medical professionals regarding mental health interventions in a professional, coherent, and efficient manner.
• Ability to tolerate isolation as the HS Specialist may be the only behavioral health professional on site.
• Ability to collect and enter data for program management, evaluation, and reporting purposes.