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The Youth Support Specialist (YSS) works directly to supervise court-placed youth, age 12-20, who reside at OCFS secure, limited-secure, and/or non-secure residential facilities. YSSs are part of a team that ensures that a facility is physically secure (e.g., responsible for youth movement, key and door control, and conflict resolution) and emotionally safe for both youth and other staff. YSSs help create a professional, healthy, and therapeutic environment. A YSS must:


• Establish a relationship of professionalism, confidence, safety, and trust with youth and other staff from different racial, ethnic, cultural, religious, physical ability, Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity Expression (SOGIE) and/or socio-economic backgrounds. Supervise and monitor youth, which, depending on a youth’s clinical needs, may include 1-to-1 supervision.
• Actively participate as a member of a youth’s support team. A support team is a treatment-focused group of professional and para-professional staff who work together to address the emotional and behavioral needs and goal of youth.
• Be confident in engaging with people who may be under physical and/or emotional stress.
• Employ graduated harm reduction strategies while supervising youth. This includes correcting, and in some cases, verbally or physically intervening when a youth displays unsafe behaviors toward themselves or other youth and staff. Harm reduction requires that a YSS learn to recognize personal or situational flags that could lead to conflict or harm, provide positive mentorship to youth, and help youth work on their own interpersonal skills and use of self-regulation strategies.
• Take opportunities to improve the well-being of the facility community by being collaborative and informed.
• Supervise and/or assist youth during recreation and education activities, as well as take on various, as-needed assignments
• Establish and maintain positive, professional, and appropriate relationships with youths’ families and loved ones.
• Assist youth in achieving education, work readiness, and community transition goals.