Behavioral Intervention Specialist (ACMH)

POSITION: Community-Based Behavioral Intervention Specialist – Alameda Mental Health Program

ACCOUNTABILITY: Alameda - Mental Health Program Director

JOB STATUS:    Regular Full Time, Exempt

REVISED:  June 2025

Role: 

Staff will work off-site in the community (school, neighborhood venues, and home) to provide eligible children with a family centered strength based intensive case management services. The Specialist will assist clients in their efforts to build upon existing family and community support and resource systems to ensure effective delivery of treatment plans. The Specialist will implement a high quality, comprehensive and individualized intervention program to assist children with appropriate behavior in their current setting. Exercising independent and discretionary decision making, the Specialist works with individual families on issues relating to the clients’ individualized treatment plans.

Duties and Responsibilities:

• Provide intensive, community and home-based family counseling and support services. This includes crisis intervention, case      management, mental health services, advocacy, transportation, and facilitating client access to appropriate community resource
• Use clinical insights, behavioral motivational techniques and commitment to excellence to promote clients’ growth in the, classroom, home and community at large.
• Develop a safe and successful positive behavior plan designed to reduce the number of disruptive behaviors in the classroom and the community
• Co-facilitate therapeutic groups for clients
• Provide solution-focused counseling and crisis intervention to clients as needed
• Develop and implement effective behavioral management techniques consistent with goals and treatment plans and agency philosophy
• Initiate, plan and implement client outings into the community in order to expose clients to broad range of experiences and promote positive interaction with community
• Collaborate with team clinician to provide ongoing family contact and quality support services linking child and family with well-researched, relevant and affordable community resources and services
• Participate actively in all team meetings, staff meetings, individual and group supervision meetings and school meetings as requested and collaborate pro-actively with treatment team to deliver quality mental health services to clients and families
• Develop relationships and ongoing communication with teachers and other school staff; provide concrete strategies for positive and feasible individual and class intervention strategies that are in line with client treatment and goals
• Participate in on going training on interventions techniques and life-skills curriculum and in agency and community based services departmental in-service training program
• Complete all Medi-Cal documentation in accordance with regulations
• Maintain all appropriate records including incident reports, and behavioral tracking forms and other documents consistent with goals and objectives
• Demonstrate skill in the ability to develop trusting and supportive relationships with family members
• Work in coordination with team members to design and implement a treatment plan for each client, emphasizing client’s highest level of functioning
• Develop and maintain strong collaborative working relationships with others in the professional community
• Motivate the client family in an empowering way to use the accessible, supportive resources in their community
• Remain open-minded and respectful to diverse cultural and individual values and practices
• Participate in weekly staff meetings and training, as well as weekly individual supervision
• Provide on-call and crisis support as assigned
• Understand and follow all ABW safety policies, procedures and rules. Perform all job duties safely. Attend all required safety training sessions. Identify and immediately report all workplace hazards, safety rule violations, near misses, and work-related injuries

Qualifications:

• BA or MA/MS degree in a behavioral science (child development, psychology, counseling and guidance, early childhood education, human services, nursing, social science, social welfare, social work, sociology) and 2-4 years fulltime experience in a mental health setting
• The ability to relate effectively and professionally with children, supervisor, co-workers and staff
• Considerable knowledge of child development, the dynamics of dysfunctional behavior in children, separation responses, methods and approaches to crisis intervention treatment, and child behavioral management
• Ability to work cooperatively, creatively, and effectively as a member of highly skilled crisis intervention and evaluation team
• Skill in developing meaningful and nurturing relationships with children
• Knowledge and understanding of self, own boundaries, own needs to be able to differentiate from children’s needs and parents’ needs. Ability to organize, schedule, and efficiently use time to complete all duties and responsibilities assigned
• Flexibility, openness, patience, tact, communication skills, directness, and warmth
• Ability to utilize supervision, and a desire to grow both professionally and personally through individual and group interaction and training
• Ability to work effectively with families from diverse cultures
• Must have flexible schedule with ability to work evenings and weekend days as needed
• Must have own vehicle, valid California driver’s license and insurance

Work Environment

While performing the duties of this job, the employee regularly works in an office setting. 

Physical Demands

• Sitting, walking, standing, twisting and bending for brief periods of time.
• Occasional reaching and/or grasping using hands and/or arms.
• May be required to lift up to 10 pounds.
• May be required to ascend/descend stairs.
• Regular use of hands requiring dexterity in using the telephone, computer keyboard, mouse or calculator.
• Visual ability to read documents and computer monitor.
• Exposure to low to moderate noise levels characteristic of working in an office or client environments.
• Ability to drive to various sites
• Hearing and speech to converse in person and over the telephone.

Position Type/Expected Hours of Work

This is a full-time position. Days and hours of work are Monday through Friday, 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.

Travel

Local travel to various worksites is required.

Work Authorization/Security Clearance

Employees must pass a background check and receive TB test clearances prior to employment.

A Better Way is committed to workforce diversity. Qualified applicants will receive full consideration without regard to age, race, color, ethnic background, religion, gender, sexual orientation, HIV-status, national origin or disability. Reasonable accommodations may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform the essential functions.