The Arab American Association of NY (AAANY) is a leading community organization serving the Arab, immigrant, refugee and Muslim community citywide. AAANY serves marginalized communities and ensures people are safe and protected. AAANY offers a myriad of social services and access to opportunities that save and improve the lives of thousands annually. With a committed and passionate team of experienced professionals, AAANY implements innovative and impactful ideas utilizing a culturally, religiously, and linguistically sensitive approach to meet the needs of community members. Moreover, AAANY helps them attain a self-sufficient, secure, and dignified life—now, and for the future.

AAANY offers critical social services to Arab, immigrant, refugee, Muslim, and marginalized communities to attain empowered and dignified lives and advocates to ensure they are protected, safe, and valued.

About AAANY’s Mental Health/Family Support Services Sector

As the only organization providing direct mental health services to the Arab community, AAANY is the leading organization for Family Support Services. AAANY supports families and communities at large by supporting caregivers and adults in managing their profound stress levels and adopting positive coping mechanisms. Currently, AAANY is implementing the Connections to Care program with NYU Langone providing free confidential and culturally sensitive mental health services.

There is a great need for mental health care in our community. While our community is resilient, given that we serve a lot of new immigrants, asylum seekers and refugees, trauma or profound stress, becomes evident in all the work that we do. Even individuals and families that have been in the US for many years, struggle with secondary trauma as well as constant fear and anxiety about families back home.

There are many places providing mental health care in NYC. However, AAANY is the only entity providing support in Arabic that is free of charge. AAANY streamlines mental health support and care across all its services and programs. We make a concerted effort to comprehensively train and equip our staff with the tools to better understand mental health and how it affects our clients. Since the beginning of our program, we have trained 52 staff members in Mental Health First Aid, screening tools and motivational interviewing. Since March 2017, over 2000 community members have met with one of these staff members who’ve been trained in addressing mental health needs.

Program Management:

• Continue to manage Y3 of our Connections to Care (C2C) grant to provide needed mental health services to the community;
• Conduct outreach efforts to raise awareness of about mental health services and opportunities to community members;
• Work towards implementing C2C program modalities throughout AAANY;
• Work closely with AAANY’s mental health partner (NYU Langone) as per grant requirements;
• Submit monthly and quarterly grant reports;
• Enter data accurately into data entry system and manage data for reporting;
• Implement/manage city grant which provides domestic violence services to the community;
• Train/supervise staff as necessary on topics such as: domestic violence/intimate partner violence, healthy relationships and trauma;
• Supervise staff and Interns within the sector;
• Attend all C2C convenings/trainings/webinars, as well as other relevant trainings as recommended;
• Track program expenses and budgeting;
• Ensure program and sector indicators are met and all programmatic activities are implemented in a timely and efficient manner;
• Support with staff development and capacity building trainings;
• Serve as AAANY’s protection focal person and support in other community building initiatives focusing on community-based mechanisms and approaches;
• Train community members, part of our Community Based Protection Network, on various topics such as conflict mediation and deescalation; child protection and general protection;
• Develop mapping of services, particularly related to mental health and general social services;
• Network with other organizations and networks for both awareness raising and training;
• Collaborate with other organizations on the implementation of trainings for the CBPN and AAANY, as needed;
• Facilitate staff meetings and trainings, as requested;
• Support in proposal writing and reporting, as requested;

Clinical:

• Conduct mental health screenings and psychosocial assessments;
• Provide individual outpatient therapy to adult clients utilizing different therapeutic methodology;
• Keep detailed client charts and programmatic records as per grant requirements;
• Provide supportive counseling and referrals to walk-in clients for domestic violence victims and families dealing with the Administration of Children’s Services
• Provide ongoing individual coaching and supervision to staff as it pertains to applying grant modalities
• Serve as point person for crisis-intervention, de-escalation and child/youth protection
• Facilitate psychoeducation groups/workshops for the community
• Facilitate ongoing staff wellness and self-care group
• Oversee the maintenance of our case-management system
• Support in the establishment and development of our case management system
• Review and evaluation all grievance forms or cases that come in and develop action plans to support clients that do not require high levels of intervention;
• Provide support to AAANY staff on referral pathways;
• Support in the establishment/enhancement of Community Based Protection Networks and help facilitate and conduct meetings with key community figures and leaders;
• Track all notes of concerns and helps maintain the database to identify trends and points of intervention;
• Connect students/parents/guardians/staff with specialized services;
• Represent AAANY at working group meetings;
• Other duties as assigned.

KNOWLEDGE AND EXPERIENCE:

·       MA/S or equivalent in social work and/or psychology or LMHC;

·     Minimum of 3 years of experience performing required tasks

·       Understanding of community based protection networks preferred;

·       Experience in parent/caregiver engagement;

·       Extensive experience in providing trainings on child protection related issues in a dynamic and active learning style approach;

·       Strong understanding of referral pathways;

·       Child protection-related program experience required;

·       Strong understanding of refugee issues or working with immigrant, displaced, or marginalized groups;

·       Strong management skills, with good understanding of relevant cross-cultural issues;

·       Demonstrated skills in data collection and database management, organized, and able to handle many responsibilities simultaneously;

·       Mature, responsible, and diplomatic in their interactions with others;

·       Good writing skills, including reports, best practices, cases studies, etc;

·       Ability to work independently with limited supervision, as well as part of a team;

·       Very strong written and oral communication skills in both English and Arabic, including report development, writing and editing;

·       Strong proficiency in Microsoft Office applications including Excel and Word

·       Positive, respectful attitude and collaborative approach to problem solving;

·       Demonstrated attention to detail; ability to follow procedures, meet deadlines and work independently as well as cooperatively with team members;

SUCCESS FACTORS:

• Deep commitment to humanitarian principles and values
• Willingness to learn new skills and methodologies
• Ability to work under pressure, independently and with limited supervision
• Demonstrated organizational skills
• Demonstrated creative problem-solving skills
• Security, political and cultural aware
• Ability to multi-task while meeting several pressing deadlines
• Pays attention to detail and is meticulous, thorough, and results-oriented