NP Baltimore - Director of Behavioral Services

Summary

The Children's Guild is a nonprofit organization providing clinical and educational services to children and families in the Greater Baltimore and Washington region. We are among the most experienced child-serving organizations. Each year, the agency's continuum of care and hundreds of professional staff help thousands of youth and young adults and their families achieve excel and succeed. We operate public charter and contract schools; special education schools; schools for autism; preschool; treatment foster care; apprenticeships, and pre-career programs.

Role Description:

The primary roles of the Director of Behavioral Services are to:

1. Support the Children's Guild's behavior motivation model and provide supervision, modeling, and mentoring to staff executing the model.
2. Maintain regulatory compliance with all governing requirements and licensing agencies (COMAR, MSDE, OSSE).
3. Identify needs then develop and provide training experiences for school personnel including teachers, teaching assistants, therapeutic behavior aides, social workers, resource instructors, and related service providers.
4. Provide direct supervision to Behavior Coordinator and/or Behavior Specialists aides in compliance with regulations for identified students.
5. Work collaboratively with the schools IEP coordinator and student LEAs to assure standards of service delivery are aligned with requirements from each jurisdiction served.
6. Serve as a behavioral resource to parents, community providers, and the greater school community.

Accountability

• This position is accountable to the principal/director of schools.
• This position supervises the behavior coordinator and behavior specialist aides in coordination with the principal and/or Principal's designee.

Cultural Awareness Expectations

• The Children's Guild employees are expected to honor the diversity that makes up our community, being respectful and accepting of everyone's personal identity.
• Employees are empowered to share their own identities and encouraged to learn from each other to foster a safe, tolerant, and diverse community.
• All staff will contribute to a space where individuals can grow, learn, share, and embrace differences in a respectful environment.
• Staff will build an empathetic, supportive, and equitable environment for the students and families we serve.
• Staff will attract and sustain a diverse workforce by recruiting, hiring, developing, and retaining employees who work collaboratively to carry out the mission of The Children's Guild.

Skills and Responsibilities:

Key Result Area #1: Responding to Mindset in Behavior

• Demonstrates pro-active use of behavior management strategies that provide emotionally and physically safe spaces for students to regulate their behavior.
• Identifies alternate behaviors to be taught to the students that align with Individual Educational Plans and Behavioral Intervention Plans.
• Actively monitors and supervises interventions with physically aggressive or self-injurious students for safety.
• Analyzes the therapeutic impact of interventions for students in distress and facilitates case reviews/studies with therapeutic behavior aides regarding behavioral interventions.
• Develops replacement behaviors to meet the emotional and physical needs of children in distress.
• Assists staff with understanding the root cause of aberrant behaviors and effective interventions to reduce/eliminate these behaviors.
• Assures the methodology of practice aligns with the school's Positive Behavior Intervention Model.
• Utilizes continuous data collection and analysis to make decisions.

Key Result Area #2: Management of Behavioral Services in the School

• Assures that parents, families, and providers are contacted in a timely manner with information relevant to their students.
• Provides behavioral supervision to all therapeutic behavioral aides in a timely and effective way.
• Facilitates behavioral meetings and case study review meetings.
• Assists in reviewing classroom management programs as part of an interdisciplinary team.
• Offers parents the opportunity to work with the BCBA in developing a behavioral program for the home that aligns with the students' educational behavioral plan.
• Supervises data collection, data entry into School-Wide Information System, and completion of Student Intervention Reports.
• Assists with the development of FBA/BIPs and monitoring implementation.
• Participates in IEP meetings as requested.

Key Result Area #3: Regulatory Compliance

• Aligns daily practice with COMAR regulations and District of Columbia/OSSE regulations.
• Develops and monitors systems to ensure that resource instructors and therapeutic behavior aides are following regulations and are compliant with all required notifications and documentation.

Key Result Area #4: Training

• Provides staff assistance and support in understanding the students' FBA/BIP and the components of effective intervention plans.
• Participates in and graduates from the Children's Guild's Pre-Service Training Program.
• Participates and/or serves as an instructor in The Children's Guild College of Transformation Education and the school's weekly professional development activities.
• Assists in assessing programming for staff training needs.
• Participates in campus in-service training and agency in-service training.
• Provides in-class support for students with behavior management problems.

Key Result Area #5: Professional Development

• Maintains licensing and continuing education requirements.

Key Result Area #6: Positive Student Intervention

• Executes PBIS throughout the school program.
• Integrates the Transformation Education philosophy into the behavioral practices of the school.
• Fully implements staff and student culture card meetings.
• Assures that behavior motivation practices incorporate PBIS, FBA/BIP strategies, all of which include parent input.
• Monitors safety for potentially high-risk situations and aligns students' FBA/BIP with the IEP goals and objectives.

Key Result Area #9: Workplace Conditions

• Successfully completes the Pre-service Training Program.
• Successfully completes and demonstrates competency in training on the prescribed behavior management program.
• Assists team members in crisis intervention.
• Shared office space, e.g., team office.
• Attends evening meetings as requested.
• Completes all other duties as requested.

Qualifications

• The qualifications of this position include the commitment and drive to develop the potential of others and the interpersonal skills necessary to do so. The successful candidate will also possess a value system that is consistent with the organization's philosophy and goals, demonstrate leadership skill, be mentally alert, physically healthy and possess the stamina needed to work with children in a dynamic environment.
• This position requires significant knowledge and experience with behaviors associated with emotional disturbance and autism in children grades K-12.

Academic Preparation and/or Experience:

• Must be eligible to achieve the Certification by the Behavior Analyst Certification Board (BCBA or BCBA-D) and/or a master's degree or higher from a behavioral analysis educational program or similar program. Additional relevant experience may be considered in lieu of degree requirements.

Physical Demands:

• While performing the duties of this Job, the employee is frequently required to stand, walk, sit, reach with hands and arms, climb or balance, stoop, kneel, crouch, or crawl and talk or hear. The employee must frequently lift and/or move more than 50 pounds. Specific vision abilities required by this job include the ability to adjust focus.
• Must be able to perform PCM, CPR and all other certified techniques.
• Must be able to walk and stand for prolonged periods of time. Must be able to keep students at arm's length, including but not limited to holding students for a prolonged period and running after students in cases of elopement.

EEOC Statement

The Children's Guild provides equal employment opportunities to all employees and applicants for employment and prohibits discrimination and harassment of any type without regard to race, color, religion, age, sex, national origin, disability status, genetics, protected veteran status, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, or any other characteristics protected by federal, state, or local laws. This policy applies to all terms and conditions of employment, including recruiting, hiring, placement, promotion, termination, layoff, recall, transfer, leaves of absence, compensation, and training.