Community Health Worker II - Pediatric Primary Care

Working along with MGH Pediatric Group Practice and Charlestown pediatricians, the CHW uses the Healthy Steps model to addresses non-urgent, non-medical questions on a variety of topics such as child development, parenting, and behavior to parents and other primary care givers at well-child visits with the goal of facilitating children's healthy growth and development.

The Early Childhood Program Specialist resides in Pediatrics to deliver evidence-based strategies for families with children ages 0 -3. The Early Childhood Program Specialist help parents build healthy attachments with their children by growing skills to deal with common parenting challenges and provide positive and responsive caregiving. The Early Childhood Program Specialist explore family risk factors like maternal depression, food insecurity, housing instability or homelessness, utility needs, transportation needs, interpersonal safety, substance misuse (alcohol and other drugs), and tobacco and if necessary, makes referrals to both in-house and community resources. A background in child development, social work, early childhood education or early intervention is an important requirement for this position.

• Early Childhood Program Specialist provides consultations to families to address specific concerns about a child's development and/or behavior or a parental concern.
• Conducts office visits, either jointly with the physician/pediatric nurse practitioner or alone.
• Works closely with the pediatric providers around care coordination, goal setting, counseling, coaching and education about key aspect of a child's behaviors, development, and parenting practices.

• Closely tracks progress made in ongoing checkups.
• Early Childhood Program Specialist refers patients, parents, and families to both in-house and community resources based on identified needs.
• Early Childhood Program Specialist partners with community resource providers and families to help parents coordinate and navigate complex systems, offering close follow-up and support when barriers occur.
• Early Childhood Program Specialist uses care coordination to empower families by enhancing their health literacy and systems navigation capabilities, so they become their child and family's own best advocates.
• Early Childhood Program Specialist provides parents with guidance, education, information, and resources that help them support their children through the different stages of development.
• Early Childhood Program Specialist offers parents and families concrete strategies, activities and tools designed to support their child's early learning.

• Provide anticipatory guidance to parents and other primary care givers around common concerns such as early learning, fussiness, sleep, feeding, discipline, toilet training, etc.

• Works closely with other MGH pediatric programs and pediatric staff as a resource for developmental and parenting concerns.
• Works closely with other Healthy Steps providers to schedule patient visits within primary care.

* Fluency in a second language is preferred

* Excellent oral and written communication skills.

* Demonstrated expertise in child development issues.

* Demonstrated commitment to working with underserved populations in a community setting.

* Must be empathic, supportive, and patient.

* Strong motivational interviewing skills.

* Ability to work with people of many cultures.

* Ability to take initiative and willingness to learn.

* Ability to work well both in teams and independently.

* Minimum 3 years of experience with parenting, child development or with human service work.

Ability to collect and enter data for program management, evaluation and reporting purposes