Community Safety and Overdose Response Specialist

Description

Title: Community Safety and Overdose Response Specialist

Location: Seattle - Belltown

Schedule: 8:00am-5pm

Salary Range:  $78,500 – $92,500 

The posted salary range reflects the full compensation band for this position. Starting pay for new hires is typically established near the base of the range. Employees may also be eligible for an additional $1,000 for qualifying bilingual or multilingual language proficiency and/or $1,000 for qualifying advanced educational credentials. 

Working at Evergreen Treatment Services makes a big difference in our community!

• ETS has been working to transform the lives of individuals and their communities through innovative and effective addiction and social services in Western Washington for over 50 years. Learn more about our mission and values.
• Change begins within. We strive to foster and sustain a diverse and inclusive community within our organization. Find out how we are working to achieve racial equity, health equity, and community justice.
• Our Clinic Services and REACH teams bring critical professional expertise and heartfelt compassion to the work they do every day to serve our most vulnerable community members. Check out the compelling stories told by our patients, clients, and staff members that provide more information and a clear picture regarding our organization’s essential work. 

REACH Mission and Values 

The REACH Program of Evergreen Treatment Services works with individuals experiencing homelessness and behavioral health conditions to help them achieve stability and improved quality of life. The REACH mission is to foster community health and safety through outreach, relationship, healing interventions and systems advocacy for people who use drugs. REACH provides outreach-based-care coordination, multidisciplinary clinical services, and supports to access and maintain housing. All services are based in principles of harm reduction that offer respect and dignity to individuals moving through stages of change in their lives. 

REACH incorporates a racial equity lens that includes naming the impact and actively dismantling systems of oppression rooted in White Supremacy, while addressing the root causes perpetuating historical trauma and immense suffering in individuals’ lives. We are committed to building a robust behavioral health response that diverts people away from jail by rebuilding community and providing services to ensure those presently marginalized aren’t just surviving, but able to thrive.

REACH offers an array of services ranging from survival support provided where folks are living outside to linkages to essential resources such as housing, assistance to resolve legal issues, health care, entitlements and easily accessible treatment for substance use disorders and mental health conditions. 

The REACH team is passionate about creating a hospitable and welcoming environment for all people while providing quality services on an individually tailored basis to our clientele. REACH values diversity of lived experience, is committed to racial equity and social justice, and appreciates hard work, creativity, and a good sense of humor. People who have been impacted by the criminal legal system are encouraged to apply. 

This dynamic position plays an important role in helping ETS accomplish our mission!

Job Summary:

• Overdose response and fatality prevention by building relationships with PWUD in and around our drop-in spaces and integrating harm reduction best practices into milieu work.   
• Support drop-in/milieu space. fosters relationships and community building with clients. 
• Services centered in harm reduction, utilizing motivational interviewing and trauma informed care approaches. set limits in a respectful manner to ensure the milieu remains safe and welcoming for all awareness of interpersonal interactions and the ability to manage client flow in and around the REACH office space.   
• De-escalation skills and the ability to prevent conflicts by proactively intervening when people exhibit challenging behaviors associated with intoxication or other behavioral health conditions is required. 
• This position requires excellent interpersonal skills, attention to detail and regular multi-tasking, ability to develop systems to maintain safety and the flow of clients in the milieu.   

What you contribute to this role – Responsibilities:

• Community Safety, Client Engagement & Milieu Management:
• Build trusting relationships with clients who are living outside and using drugs in the immediate vicinity of the REACH office, emphasizing harm reduction practices.
• Leverage trusting relationships to proactively intervene, as needed, in situations to prevent escalation and encourage client engagement in supportive services.
• Foster a sense of community safety within and immediately outside of the REACH Milieu through respectful interactions and communicating clear behavioral expectations and boundaries. 
• Help manage the flow of clients in and out of the REACH Milieu; welcoming people in at entry, triaging needs and ensuring safety by managing the right ratio of clients to staff
• Maintain up to date knowledge of community resources, especially linkage to overdose prevention and MOUD treatment options, and provide information and referral services to clients and staff as needed in the milieu. 
• Orient new clients to the milieu, including client rights and responsibilities. 
• Help orient new staff to the milieu and support all REACH staff in utilizing trauma-informed harm reduction best practices.
• Collaborate with Care Managers to set up self-care and crisis intervention plans for all REACH clients 
• Maintain order in the office by staffing the front desk and checking clients into AGENCY 
• Answer phones and general inquires. 
• Coffee-making and associated supply replenishment 
• Help coordinate and facilitate, in conjunction with other REACH staff, support groups, client and staff trainings, outings, special events, and other group activities. This requires community engagement and the development and maintenance of positive, collaborative relationships with REACH staff and partner agencies to effectively coordinate and deliver services.  

• Neighborhood Response:
• Conduct brief needs assessments to understand clients' substance use patterns and mental health status to reduce risks associated with drug use and enhance the overall safety of the milieu and surrounding area.
• Coordinate with emergency medical services (EMS), law enforcement and other relevant stakeholders and providers when necessary, ensuring seamless response to emergencies and appropriate after care following emergency situations. 
• Conduct regular trash pick-up and other activities to maintain a tidy and respectful environment. 

• Overdose & Crisis Response:
• Educate clients on safer drug use practices, overdose prevention, and accessing harm reduction resources (e.g., MOUD access & linkage, overdose after-care options).
• Act as milieu-sited liaison to the REACH Drug User Health Team, including providing support and coordination of site-based drug checking services, harm reduction supply inventory management, kit making and distribution.
• Bathroom Checks as needed to ensure client safety and restroom cleanliness.
• Act as the milieu point person for responding to overdoses and behavioral health crises that occur in and around the REACH office. This includes coordinating with external partners and stakeholders when necessary to reduce escalations, prevent fatalities, coordinate care, and respond to the needs of clients and community neighbors alike.
• Identify gaps and barriers in available community resources and advocate for systemic changes. 

• Documentation and Administrative Tasks:
• Document all relevant client and community interactions in AGENCY according to program requirements; prepare reports as required by funding sources or organizational needs.
• Regularly utilize clinical supervision, case consultation and peer support for exploring clinical intervention strategies, counter-transference, resource development, self-care and burnout prevention.  
• Attend REACH Program staff meetings and other required meetings. 

Note: New and/or different duties and responsibilities may be assigned to this job at any time.

What you bring to this role – Qualifications:

• Education and Experience:
• High school diploma or equivalent required. Undergraduate degree preferred. Academic training in the social service field and in the area of substance use disorder and mental health services desired. Relevant experience may substitute for degree.  
• Minimum of three years of direct client service experience in mission-driven programs serving the unhoused community. Experience providing healing-centered services from a harm-reduction perspective for people experiencing complex behavioral health challenges essential. Demonstrated conflict resolution and de-escalation skills required.  
• Knowledge of local resources, community services, harm reduction and overdose prevention principles.
• Strong interpersonal and written/verbal communications skills with the ability to build rapport with diverse populations in challenging environments.

• Knowledge and Skills:
• An understanding of racial equity and social justice and a commitment to helping create an equitable environment for all ETS clients and patients as well as fellow staff.
• Ability to establish and maintain effective working relationships with clients, patients, and staff from a wide variety of ethnic, socioeconomic, and cultural backgrounds.
• Training/expertise in the following areas: Compassionate Overdose Response, Naloxone Administration, Motivational Interviewing, Harm Reduction, MOUD Options Counseling, De-escalation
• Excellent organizational skills and ability to prioritize workload, work independently, and complete tasks timely and efficiently.
• Dependable, able to work under pressure, receptive to change, willingness to learn, cooperative approach to problem solving.
• Flexible team player, with excellent attention to detail.
• Ability to maintain confidentiality and use discretion when handling highly sensitive information.
• Ability to set boundaries, resolve conflict and de-escalate issues.
• Computer literate, with basic knowledge of Microsoft Office Suite, as well as a high level of initiative in keeping current with technological change.

Additional Essential Information:

Physical Conditions and Requirements:

• The employee may be exposed to illicit drug residues and fumes or other bio-hazardous materials when carrying out job functions. There is also potential for exposure to bloodborne pathogens. ETS will provide employees with appropriate training to limit the risk of exposure to bloodborne pathogens. Policies and procedures are in place addressing each item specifically.
• The employee is regularly required to sit; use hands to finger, handle or feel objects, tools, or controls; reach with hands and arms and talk or hear; frequently required to stand, walk, and kneel; occasionally to climb balance, or stoop; rarely to crouch or crawl.
• The employee must occasionally lift and/or move up to 30 pounds. Specific vision abilities required by this job include close, color, and peripheral vision and the ability to adjust focus. The noise level in the work environment is moderate.
• Local travel on behalf of the agency is a job requirement.

Equipment Used:

• Computer, photocopier, fax machine, phone, and tablets.
• Possible use of a program vehicle, for which a valid Driver’s License and acceptable driving would be required.

Inclusivity and Reasonable Accommodation:

• Evergreen Treatment Services is an Equal Opportunity Employer. All applicants will be considered for employment without attention to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, veteran, or disability status. Note that a Washington State Patrol criminal background check will be conducted periodically as a condition of ongoing employment, and candidates with prior criminal convictions will be invited to provide additional context as needed.
• ETS will reasonably accommodate qualified individuals with a disability so that they can perform the essential functions of a job unless doing so causes a direct threat to these individuals or others in the workplace and the threat cannot be eliminated by reasonable accommodation, or if the accommodation creates an undue hardship for ETS. We also seek to provide reasonable accommodation for the interview process.