Program Director

About Family Promise of Orange County

The mission of Family Promise of Orange County is to help families experiencing homelessness achieve housing stability. We HELP, we give HOPE, we bring families HOME! We provide a pathway of support to empower families to avoid homelessness or to exit homelessness as quickly as possible. We work to make homelessness rare, brief, and nonrecurring for families with children through the following programs:

Prevention Services - Using prevention and diversion strategies to help families at imminent risk of homelessness stabilize their own housing and avoid becoming homeless. Prevention services is the furthest upstream of FPOC programs. It is proactive and creative at its core.

Short-Term Housing - Providing free, safe, and secure overnight accommodations and access to basic needs for families experiencing homelessness alongside housing-focused case management and housing navigation services. Short-Term Housing will be located at House of Ruth which is currently being constructed and is set to open this summer. The FPOC Board is also in negotiations with potential sites to operate an additional short-term housing facility in Orange County.

Family Supportive Services - FPOC offers a variety of supportive services to help families who are either at imminent risk of homelessness or who are experiencing homelessness and are not enrolled in another FPOC program. Services include laundry, shower, access to basic needs, food, housing navigation, case management, and community workshops.

Stabilization - After a family moves into or maintains their housing – graduating from a FPOC program - we offer ongoing support services to address housing stability. Our team walks alongside families for up to two years to help them create and accomplish goals for employment, education, transportation, health, family strengthening, and community engagement.

Program Director Job Objective

The Program Director will provide overall management and supervision of FPOC’s programs during a period of rapid growth and change. The Program Director executes strategies, systems, policies, and procedures to ensure homelessness is rare, brief, and nonrecurring for families with children. S/he is responsible for supporting grants administration and the collection, management, and analysis of all data related to FPOC programs. They will strengthen the use of data-driven and evidence-informed services, while leading and mentoring all program staff. The Program Director also fosters collaborative relationships internally and externally, playing an important role in stewarding relationships and revising programs in response to local and national best practices in homeless services.

Responsibilities:

• Collaborates with program consultant and Executive Director to hire, train, and mentor program staff.
• Oversees all programs, including case management, housing navigation, family strengthening, and use of evidenced-based models in alignment with program policies and procedures.
• Works with program staff to deliver resources, referrals, and workshops as needed related to employment, financial literacy and budgeting, housing plans, and educational planning.
• Serves as an advocate for families with community service agencies.
• Fosters a workplace culture that inspires high-level performance, collaboration, accountability, professional, and respectful interaction. Embeds best practices for effective feedback and communication at all levels of staff engagement.
• Provides crisis intervention to families, program staff, and volunteers as needed, including providing on-call support. Some evening and weekend hours required.
• Serves as a back-up for program staff when needed.
• Develops and cultivates a data-driven culture prioritizing continuous improvement across different programs.
• Presents impact data and implications to agency leadership and fund development team, ensuring that stewardship of programs funded through philanthropic and government partners is supported and advanced by evidenced outcomes.
• In collaboration with the Executive Director, ensures existing program expenditures are aligned with contractual requirements.
• Annually, works with the Executive Director and leadership team to develop program budgets.
• Leads, coaches, and mentors a dynamic team of approximately five direct reports and provides regular supervision (including facilitating peer supervision) so that key staff can continuously improve their case management/housing navigation/family strengthening skills.
• Facilitates professional development by identifying opportunities for staff to engage with industry peers.
• Collaborates on statements and grant applications pertaining to mission and values, diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility (DEIA), and program impact.
• Promotes FPOC’s programs in the public sphere. Represents FPOC in relevant committees and task forces (including the Continuum of Care and Family Solutions Collaborative), as well as speaking engagements, conference panels, and other advocacy engagements.
• Assistance at fundraisers and special events as needed.
• Other duties as assigned.

Education, Experience and Skills

• The successful candidate is a seasoned and visionary leader with a minimum of 7 years of progressively responsible human service sector experience and at least 5 years of supervisory experience.
• Expected human service skills include case management, trauma-informed care, housing-first and a strength-based approach.
• A master’s degree is required, MSW or related degree preferred.
• Expertise in developing and monitoring metrics for programmatic outcomes for homeless services, mental health/substance use programming, housing services, or other related fields.
• Demonstrated experience in program innovation, supervision, funder relationships, and budgetary management.
• Enthusiastic and can display good judgment, take initiative, and help families achieve outcomes. Must have a can-do, figure-it-out attitude.
• Must be detail oriented, execute projects in a fast-paced, often pressured environment; able to prioritize, self-manage, work independently and always use good judgment.
• Must be proficient in computer programs and demonstrated record of tracking outcomes, recording case notes.
• Comfortable working with various constituents: clients, staff, board, government, corporate, and foundation partners, etc.