Family Support Facilitator Position Now Open
Job Title: Family Support Facilitator
Contract Period: March 1, 2012 – February 28, 2013
The contract period is for one (1) year with four (4) additional one (1) year options to renew. The Annual renewal dates of the contract shall be based on the availability of funds and the Candidates successful contract performance the preceding year.
Funding Range: $25,000 - $32,000 depending on experience
Family Support Facilitator Description PDF file
General Summary:
Through this grant, GCDD will fund a facilitator for family support to help with the planning and tracking of the families served through the Family Support through Community Access Federal Grant. As part of the grant, GCDD is required to serve at least 50 families intensely and 100 families informally each year. There are currently seven communities that are participating in this effort. It is important for us to work with families in each of these areas and to tell their stories and show the outcomes that happened for them as a result of the community building collaboration. Families served intensely will have a personal futures plan and will work to build circles of support composed of community members around their families. Families served informally will either receive resource and referral information or training to address their concerns. The Community Builders in each area will help identify families to participate. (See attached for overview of Real Communities)
Responsibility Number 1
Assisting Real Communities Community Builders in finding, connecting and tracking families receiving informal and intensive family supports
The Family Support Facilitator will assist 50 families to receive intensive family supports, utilizing such tools as person centered planning, the creation of a circle of support, developing self-determination skills, assisting the family in accessing state-funded family support services or becoming eligible for other state and federally-funded services as appropriate, in addition to helping them make connections with their community in their areas of need and preference.
The Family Support Facilitator will assist an additional 100 families to receive informal family supports through such tools as providing information, connections to other families, community resources, referrals, as appropriate.
The Family Support Facilitator will review Person Centered Plans and assist with facilitation of plans as requested;
Responsibility Number 2
Performs administrative and general program monitoring functions as assigned by Program Director
The Family Support Facilitator will be responsible for providing programmatic oversight according to guidelines for Council projects that are assigned by Project Director; will establishes time frames needed to complete projects according to federal and Council deadlines; will track the families encountered and assisted for the purposes of the grant, and assist with the preparation of the quarterly report to the Administration on ADD; and will work with Principle Investigator and External Evaluator to document outcomes including providing data and information as requested
Responsibility Number 3
Documents stories of families who have received support through this initiative
The Family Support Facilitator will be responsible for working with External Videographer and GCDD staff to document stories of families in the Real Communities areas that detail the supports received and outcomes; will prepare stories for Council publications, websites and other social media; and will develop relationships with organizations, groups and individuals outside the disability community and assist families with disability to connect with these groups.
Responsibility Number 4
Serves as link for families and communities
The Family Support Facilitator will respond to inquiries about the family support from the families and others seeking services and support either resolving or referring complaints to the appropriate department or agency; will serve as a link between local communities and family support providers; will serve as a link to the Department of Behavioral Health and
Developmental Disabilities; and will respond to inquiries from the general public, agency clients, and public officials.
Responsibility Number 5
Presents findings and participates in Real Communities Activities
The Family Support Facilitator will be responsible for presenting findings of work to a variety of audiences including GCDD, the Administration on Developmental Disabilities and others; will participate in Real Communities activities such as Initiating Committee and Community Builder trainings are identified by Project Director; and will facilitate and participate in family support training as requested.
Minimum Qualifications:
The Candidate should provide a vitae which provides evidence of at least five years experience in family support services, social work, education, or fields related to providing information, support and referrals to families with a member with disability. Knowledge of existing services and agencies that support people with disabilities is required. Excellent verbal and written skills a must.
The Candidate will provide a list of references for whom similar services have been provided during the past three years.
The Candidate will also disclose any services terminated by the organizations and the reason(s) for termination.
Please email your resume/vitae to
Preferred Qualifications
It is preferred that the candidate have had direct training in the principles and practices of family support including person centered practice, futures planning and self-determination and self-advocacy development and practices of cultural competency.
Overview of Real Communities
The purpose of the Real Communities Initiative is to connect people with developmental disabilities and their organizations to other citizens and their associations to act collectively on community issues while being guided by Asset Based Community Development (ABCD) principles and GCDD values to achieve four major results:
Create real positive changes that improve life in the community for all, based on a thoughtful and well informed answer to the question, What does our community need from us?
Build strong bridges to community associations, leaders, and alliances that reach outside the boundaries of disability so that a wider network benefits from the energy and gifts of people with developmental disabilities and their families, so that people with disabilities will have more people to count on.
Create a sustainable model of community-based family support that is based on collaboration and Asset Based Community Development which appropriately addresses the needs of un-served or underserved families with developmental disabilities inclusive with their non-disabled community partners.
Learn about how to make real changes in a way that moves from “me” to “we” and creates a great awakening to the assets that every community has.
Sets of Practices to Build Real Communities
We are Person Centered: We are dedicated in finding ways to provide individualized supports, directed by the person and allies, that assist the person in having valued roles in community life and build more inclusive community settings.
We are Community Centered: We are dedicated to build associations and alliances that allow citizens to make productive connections around what they care about, mobilize existing community assets, and make those assets productive by taking part in meaningful action.
We take part in Purposeful Learning: We are dedicated to generating social innovation through a reflective learning process.
Asset Based Community Development (ABCD)
(The following information is provided by Mike Green of the ABCD Institute
Asset Based Community Development is about local people working together for the well being of their home place. ABCD is primarily relationship building for action for a collective purpose, a path to organize groups and people in a community to act together for the common good. The focus is upon building power (the ability to act effectively) through relationships.
ABCD is an approach to discover local community assets. This mapping is mostly what people do in the name of ABCD.
Second and more importantly ABCD is “practices and principles” for mobilizing a local community to move into action with residents at the center… not outsiders. The community is the principal actor not the client. ABCD is a path to “organize an organization” or community partnership of local people and their stakeholder groups to find, connect, and make productive a growing circle of local assets working for the common good.
Discover what people care about enough to act on in your local community. What will people commit to act on? Discover ‘motivation to act’ through learning conversations out in the community. What is the motivation to act? What is the collective purpose that a wide circle of people will act on together? Who is committed to act?
Find and engage specific connector leaders (people who are leaders in a community sense meaning people with trust, influence, and a circle of relationships to call upon) to form a connector leaders group. This is the core group for collective action that can use their connections and relationships to engage a wide circle of the local community working together. ABCD is community organizing; principles and practices to bring people into committed relationship for collective action towards what people really care about–enough to act.
Community development that works best is not about manufacturing anything, but about bringing out the basic goodness that is there in each local community. Every community is a place filled with gifts to be given and care to be discovered. The song of community is,” We need you. We need you. Join us.” There is no one we don’t need.
How the Council supports Real Communities projects:
It is the goal of each Real Communities project to have a local Community Builder whose role is to build the group, support implementation of the work, and create sustainability and accountability. Successful community builders work toward the goals of empowerment – helping people mobilize, obtain resources, and develop strategies that promote their interests or causes.
We support the training and development of each local Community Builder via coaching and mentoring by Council staff and Real Communities consultants. We also provide community builders with regular training and learning opportunities to sharpen skills and add new tools to their organizational toolboxes.
We provide ABCD training opportunities for members of each local Real Communities project.
We work with local projects to create an evaluation plan that works for their unique project and local environment. Each community defines what success means to them and create steps to reach those goals.
We provide opportunities for Community Builders and local groups to take part in “learning journeys.” These journeys give groups an opportunity to travel to places where innovative community work is happening, so they can learn on the ground and do participatory research on what might work for them. We feel this process helps to avoid “recreating the wheel.”
Real Communities includes an ongoing Learning Circle of local community initiatives and committed community members in Georgia who want to learn together about building more inclusive welcoming communities where people with disabilities have good lives as contributing community members. The Learning Circle seeks to intentionally cultivate innovation and creativity in practical terms by letting go of old ideas, reflecting on our new experiences, and experimenting with new action approaches. The Learning Circle is a container to hold the organizing and learning components of Real Communities. It will be an ever evolving process as we learn together and from each other. We seek to be a trusting circle of support where each of us can share our insights and our success, as well as our confusion and challenges. We are ‘creating the road as we walk it’ towards more welcoming communities where people with developmental disabilities are valued members.
Current Real Communities projects:
Fitzgerald
Located in south central Georgia, Fitzgerald and the surrounding Ben Hill County area is a small rural community. In 2008, Ben Hill County had a poverty rate of 23.2%. Locally, residents have been organizing around the issue of transportation for nearly two years, and in the past year have been working with the GCDD as part of Real Communities. The core organizing group in Fitzgerald consists of everyday citizens with and without developmental disabilities; family members of people with developmental disabilities; representatives from People First of Fitzgerald; the Jessamine Place (local service provider); East Central Technical College; the city of Fitzgerald; and Ben Hill County, among others.
In Fitzgerald and Ben Hill County, there are very few options for transportation outside of privately owned vehicles. This greatly limits opportunities for recreation and social activities, medical access, educational and employment opportunities, as well as everyday errands a resident may have. In the past year, one individual using a wheelchair was killed by a motorist while trying to travel on a street with no sidewalks. The issue of transportation impacts all who live in the area, regardless of disability. The core group is particularly interested in community-based responses to transportation. Models currently being explored include formalized ride share and carpool programs, transportation co-ops, church van co-ops, and time banks.
In July 2010, Ben Hill County and the City of Fitzgerald successfully passed a Special-Purpose Local-Option Sales Tax (SPLOST) which includes $250,000 specifically earmarked to provide seed funding for community-based transportation models being explored as part of the Real Communities Initiative.
Korean Coalition
This group was initially formed in response to a needs assessment done by the Center for Pan Asian Community Services via an innovative grant from the GCDD. The Korean Coalition is in the beginning stages of forming an organization of Korean families who have family members with disabilities. In our purposeful learning process, we have seen that often starting as a family group can be a powerful and empowering first step in building a group to act in the larger community. Most of the families participating live in the Duluth area. Once parents have the opportunity to connect with others facing similar barriers, access basic services, and build some strength as a smaller group, they are better able to reach out to the larger community. The Korean Coalition participated in a learning journey to Madison, Wisconsin where members experienced adults with disabilities leading active, productive lives. It expanded the possibilities that were even imaginable. They are planning a second learning journey to Kalamazoo, where they will visit and learn about an inclusive YMCA that provides a creative after school program. Families in the Korean Coalition had little to no experience with successful inclusion but have been exposed to learning opportunities both in GA and outside GA that are helping them believe that inclusion is possible and preferable.
Gwinnett Time Bank Project
This project was formerly housed within The Community Action Pioneers of Gwinnett (or CAP) which was formed in 2008. CAP is made up of Gwinnett County residents who are graduates of the Partners in Policymaking program and are all parents of children with developmental disabilities. Their beginning activities were focused on systems change and advocacy work, as well as a small project reaching out to a local religious congregation around accessibility. They had planned to develop a time bank where people can exchange supports and services with each other on an hour for hour basis, but recently, the group decided to focus on their original advocacy and parent support activities, and the Time Bank initiative has split off and will form a new core group to support its implementation.
City of Milton
The City of Milton is located in North Fulton County in the metro Atlanta area. Milton is a new city, formed at the end of 2006. Since its inception, the City of Milton has been extremely dedicated and intentional in ensuring accessibility and providing opportunities to involve residents with disabilities. When the city was founded, the Milton Disability Awareness Committee (MDAC) was created as an official committee of the City Council. MDAC has worked with City personnel to ensure they are familiar with the American with Disabilities Act, have a basic level of awareness of issues impacting people with disabilities and have also worked to reach out and educate the larger community.
The GCDD is currently working with MDAC and the City of Milton as part of Real Communities to ensure Milton is truly welcoming to all who live there and to provide opportunities for citizen engagement and involvement in community. We are currently working to develop a mini-grant program that would be administered by the City of Milton. The purpose of these mini-grants is to provide neighborhood groups and residents with resources to create community-driven projects that enhance and strengthen local community life, build avenues towards civic engagement and create avenues for the full participation of all residents, specifically those typically left out of community life. All projects are initiated, planned and implemented by local residents. Mini-grants support neighborhood improvements, promote neighborhood associations and fund projects that bring community members together and create avenues for inclusion. Engaged and connected residents are the greatest asset in any given community. By allowing residents to actively engage in improving their communities and making them more welcoming for everyone, we see great things emerge and a new relationship develop between residents and local government.
Centenary United Methodist Church
Located in College Hill Corridor in down Macon, GA Centenary Church was founded in 1884. Until the 1980s, the neighborhood and congregation of the church was mostly affluent and Caucasian. By the 1990s, the neighborhood was mostly African American and extremely impoverished. The congregation’s number dwindled. It became clear that both the church and neighborhood would not survive unless major changes were made. In 2005, the church began to work actively to reach out to and engage the surrounding neighborhood. The congregation is now extremely diverse and dedicated to addressing the concerns of the community in long-term and sustainable ways. The diversity of the congregation is something Centenary not only embraces, but is proud of.
Centenary has a Minster of Community Building on staff, has started a community garden, has a transitional housing program for men, a microloan program, support and house a summer camp for youth whose parents are incarcerated, in addition to other programs that actively support the community and address root causes as opposed to providing temporary band-aid type relief. Recently Centenary has been involved in a large effort to open a food co-operative in the College Hill Corridor of Macon.
The GCDD is exploring collaboration opportunities with Centenary as part of Real Communities. Centenary is very interested in exploring ways to welcome people with disabilities and their families into the congregation and offer opportunities for them to contribute.
Clarkston
Located in Dekalb County, Clarkston is one of the most diverse communities in the country. It is a hub for refugee resettlement and is known for the number of different countries and languages represented. As a way to build community, an effort is underway to begin to use urban gardening as a means for bringing people together. It promotes the use of people’s skills and talents as they move from other lands where farming was a way of life. It also provides fresh, natural food sources that are healthy and affordable. GCDD will be working closely with Refugee Family Services who will provide the community builder and work to do asset mapping and projects that will enhance participation of all members of their diverse community.
Savannah
Located on the coast of Georgia, Savannah is one of the oldest communities in the state. The center piece for the Real Communities efforts in Savannah is the coffee shop, the Sentient Bean. The efforts there will also be focusing on growing food, supporting farmers’ markets, and involving neighbors who live around Forsyth Park. This diverse neighborhood needs opportunities to bring people together in an effort to understand and appreciate each others’ gifts.
The Real Communities Initiative is a cutting edge approach both in Georgia and in the United States. GCDD is very interested in making sure that there is documentation that will tell the story of how this initiative unfolds and how this approach can support families and build community capacity.
