Youth Career Counselor *this is a temporary position*

****This is a temporary position expected to last three months*****

About Good Shepherd Housing and Family Services, Inc.

For over 50 years, Good Shepherd Housing (GSH) has been a cornerstone in Fairfax County, VA, turning the key to brighter futures for families and individuals at risk of being unhoused or priced out of their own communities. With a $3.5 million annual budget and more than 100 affordable housing units, GSH helps over 1,000 residents each year secure stability and self-sufficiency. Beyond housing, GSH provides wraparound services – financial counseling, children’s resources, emergency relief, and career coaching – that strengthen the whole person and the whole community.

Role Overview

Career Power is our program focused on 16 to 24 year-olds from our communities. We provide a tailored, one-on-one approach to coaching and guiding students toward education and trade opportunities they might not otherwise pursue.

Our Career Counselors serve as coaches and accountability partners, walking alongside the students to avail them of opportunities and create goals-based paths to the future. We work with students—and their families—to understand options and reasons to take the step to the next level of education. We break down barriers to achievement by providing rental assistance, parking passes, laptops, and assistance filling out college and scholarship applications and the FAFSA. Most importantly, we earn trust and build relationships to prompt progress.

Key Responsibilities:

Change lives for the better

• Provide a path to students who may not pursue opportunities available
• Relate to students and empowering meaningful life decisions
• Build confidence and craft dreams for the next generation

Couple data-driven results with trusting relationships

• Use data to increase inspiration, drive youth education and career possibilities, and demonstrate cause-and-effect realities for current life choices
• Empower first-generation students to pursue education and the “audacity” to have career type job
• Inspire students to pursue non-traditional paths

Build meaningful relationships

• Build relationships with students and families
• Establish positive partnerships with internal and external stakeholders, as well as educational and job connections to support youth’s success

Serve as an accountability partner

• Reinforce critical actions and comprehensive support and follow up
• Provide course correction when life throws curveballs
• Set a standard and expectation for success and a path to achieve those goals

Influence Expanding Program Design and Influence

• Think through and advise on program design
• Influence the growth of a successful but young program model

What We’re Looking For:

• • Understand youth and young adult experience, especially those in at-risk families, and a belief in the ability of all youth to build better lives
  • Be comfortable forging connections with youth, families, and critical stakeholders to forge partnerships integral to progress, in both virtual and in-person settings
  • Knowledge of, or willingness to learn, training and employment resources in South Alexandria/Fairfax County.
  • General knowledge of, and ability to teach youth, financial literacy, budgeting and expense tracking.
  • Ability to teach general skills necessary for obtaining and maintaining a job.
  • Understanding of career and educational paths, especially related to technical skills that appear to be in future demand.
  • Bachelor’s in counseling, social work, psychology, communications or related fields

The following characteristics are a plus:

• • Lived-experience with immigrant, at-risk, or low-income communities
  • Experience within public schools