WOW Counselor

Are you looking for an exciting opportunity to mentor youth in the Kansas City area? Do you believe in serving the community? Do you enjoy helping youth connect the dots of life? If so, then working as a WOW Counselor at Youth Guidance might be the job for you! We have filled most of our positions, but are still looking for more outstanding talent to complete our team.

Take a moment to watch a video highlighting the impact of our Working on Womanhood (WOW) programs.

At Youth Guidance, we believe that no matter what challenges young person faces, they are more likely to succeed when they have caring adults in their lives. Our highly-trained staff guides kids to overcome the life and academic challenges facing youth. We meet kids where they are — physically and emotionally — to help them focus on their education, make positive choices, and remain on the right path toward life success.

Founded in 1924 today Youth Guidance is a leading provider of outcomes-driven programs serving more than 11,000 youth while touching the lives of more than 14,000 youth, parents, teachers, and community members.

Our WOW Counselors are responsible for:

Providing school-based group support and direct service to girls in 7th-12th grade to ensure they develop responsible decision-making skills, self-awareness, emotion management, self-acceptance, healthy relationships, and social awareness. The WOW Counselor will use their clinical expertise and youth engagement skills to empower the girls to become successful in school and life

Essential Duties/Responsibilities:

• Facilitate 4-5 weekly group support sessions utilizing the WOW curriculum during the school day.
• Provide individualized support to WOW participants.
• Facilitate SEL assessments for each client.
• Provide family and crisis intervention as needed.
• Perform weekly required documentation and special administrative assignments.
• Participate in WOW staff development, required curriculum training, team meetings, and other topics relevant to working with youth.
• Provide all necessary functions to develop the WOW program using teacher trainings and school in-service presentations.
• Work jointly with WOW Supervisor to manage a program budget to plan and execute field trips and special events for students throughout the school year and summer.
• Collaborate and/or coordinate with the local school councils, parent engagement programs, and student support services department.
• Participate in assigned WOW committees.
• Perform public relations assignments as requested.
• Other duties assigned.

Our WOW Counselor has been equipped for this work with at least:

• A Master’s Degree in social work, counseling, or a related human service field from an approved accredited university is required.
• Two years of experience facilitating groups.
• Experience in Clinical and Youth Engagement
• Experience working with trauma-informed services and frameworks.
• Experience working in schools or youth-related systems, ie DCFS, juvenile detention, mental health facilities
• Bilingual/Spanish preferred, but not required

Our WOW Counselor Exemplifies:

• **Communication:**Uses effective written and oral communication with internal staff, teams, and community served; demonstrates empathy and listening
• **Client orientation:**Recognizes needs of diverse stakeholders and approaches relationships with a service orientation, to ultimately maximize the impact
• **Equity mindset:**Understands and is committed to goals of equity, consistently brings an equity mindset to the organization’s work and workplace
• **Growth mindset:**Views growth as important for personal and professional development; seeks out opportunities to expand skills, even if the change is required, demonstrates curiosity and eagerness to learn
• **Ownership and quality of work:**Effectively manages own work, and work of the team to ensure delivery of high-quality work
• **Supervisory skills:**Effectively manages and develops others
• **Mission drive:**Demonstrates commitment to the missing of the organization as a whole and alignment with organization values

What Youth Guidance Offers:

We offer a robust package for eligible candidates including:

• Hiring Range of $48,000.00 - $62,000.00
• A hiring bonus of $500 for part-time and $1,000.00 for full-time
• A retention bonus of $250 after 90 days of continuous service.
• A competitive benefit package. Even though healthcare costs have gone up, we have not passed along those increases to our staff.
• If you are pursuing your social services licensure, we can help you by providing licensure test study support. Licensing test reimbursement. Assistance in attaining licensure supervision hours.

Physical Demands

The physical demands described here are representative of those that must be met by an employee to successfully perform the essential functions of this job. Reasonable accommodations may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform the essential functions

Work Environment

The work environment characteristics described here are representative of those an employee encounters while performing the essential functions of this job. Reasonable accommodations may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform the essential functions.

• This job operates in a professional office environment, school setting and working with the public, COVID-19 vaccination is required
• Occasional local and national travel

DEI Statement

At Youth Guidance, we understand that diversity, equity, and inclusion (DE&I) are fundamental to realizing our vision of bright and successful futures for all young people. We celebrate the diversity of youth and recognize them as empowered leaders, problem-solvers, and experts of their own experiences. At the same time, we acknowledge that many systems and institutions meant to support youth are inequitable and unjust.

As such, we are committed to advancing DE&I through our words and our actions, both internally and externally, by:

• Strengthening cultural competence as well as policies, practices, and organizational structures that foster belonging and leverage the unique backgrounds and talents of staff;
• Offering youth-centered programs that are accessible and responsive to people from diverse racial and ethnic backgrounds, abilities, sexual identity, gender identity and expression, language, and cultural and religious beliefs and practices;
• Influencing systems that youth, their families, and communities are impacted by, such as schools, organizational networks, governmental bodies, researchers, and the funding community, to apply approaches that embrace DEI in addressing the needs and supporting the aspirations of young people.