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About St, John’s
Founded in 1826 as a home for orphaned children, St. John’s has evolved into a nonprofit social services agency providing residential care to New York City youth involved in the child welfare and juvenile justice systems. We offer holistic, trauma-informed support to young people up to age 21.
Our main campus in Rockaway Park, Queens, houses a Residential Treatment Center, Close to Home Non-Secure Placement programs, administrative offices, clinical services, and an on-site NYC Department of Education school. We also operate a Non-Secure Detention residence in Richmond Hill and Limited Secure Placement programs in Brooklyn and Staten Island.
St. John’s is dedicated to helping youth heal, grow, and build the skills they need to achieve their goals and return to family or a stable, supportive environment as engaged members of their communities.
Summary Job Description:
Provides a broad and creative array of organized, recreational activity on and off-grounds for the youth (typically) during afternoon and evening time slots (i.e., non-school hours). Activities include sports (basketball/softball/flag football/volleyball and the like), tournaments, special events, parlor games, clubs and field trips. Measure of success is how many youths productively engage in the activities provided.
Principal Responsibilities:
- Demonstrates fidelity to the agency’s service values and organizational imperatives.
- Plans, schedules and markets recreational activities by the week.
- Maintains a calendar/written schedule and actively participates in agency-wide special events.
- Assures good supervision of youth participants. Ensuring eyes on ears on philosophy during all
activities.
- Responsible for ensuring the physical and emotional safety of all youth participants during
recreation.
- Coordinates and assists with birthday recognition and celebrations for youth.
- Must know or be trained in First Aid.
- Orders and secures activity related equipment and supplies.
- Maintains assigned activity spaces (clean, orderly, presentable).
- Transports youth in agency vehicles for off-grounds activities.
- Works to develop/maintain strong, caring, therapeutic relationships with the individual youth during recreational engagement.
- Demonstrates mature authority and practices agency-approved methods to manage youth behavior.
- Counsels youth as appropriate; Shows interest in their physical being, lives, feelings and circumstances.
- Coordinates with Youth Counselors, Permanency Specialists, clinicians, medical personnel, teachers, etc. as required.
- Attends treatment and other meetings related to resident’s as appropriate.
- Responsible for documentation, as required, including daily activity log, attendance reports and the like
- Attends trainings as recommended/ mandated.
- All other duties as assigned by supervisor
Minimum Requirements:
High School diploma or equivalent; Minimum of one-year direct experience working with, and providing activities for, troubled youth in a congregate setting or AA Degree, preferred with experience working with groups in child welfare. Valid NY State drivers’ license required. The ideal candidate must enjoy working with youth. Must be high energy, physically capable of implementing and engaging in physical activities; emotionally mature and able to function effectively under stressful conditions. Must be able to attract and engage youth in a wide variety of recreational activities. Creativity a must. Must display a high level of personal authority. Must be dependable and responsible. Must be able to accept direction from supervisors and work collaboratively with others.
Disclaimer:
The statements herein are intended to describe the general nature and level of work being performed by the incumbent in this position. They are not intended to be construed as an exhaustive list of all responsibilities, duties and skills required of a person in this position.
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