Overview

Since 1972, Covenant House has served and advocated for youth and young families experiencing homelessness, human trafficking, and exploitation. Our overarching goal is to end homelessness among youth and young families by helping them achieve housing stability, heal from trauma, tap into their innate resilience, and hone their interests and skills to forge new pathways to independence. This work is carried out across Covenant House sites in 34 cities in the US, Canada, Mexico, Guatemala, and Honduras.

About the Role

As the Director, Program (Employment and Education) you will lead the strategic development, implementation, and oversight of employment and educational programming that helps youth experiencing homelessness across the Americas access meaningful employment, career pathways, and academic advancement.

Reporting to the VP, Program, you will ensure your work aligns with Covenant House’s Journey Home roadmap as well as our organizational standards including equity, dignity, and youth voice. You will collaborate closely with Covenant House site leaders and foster strong partnerships across sectors to expand opportunities for young people, approaching all initiatives with a strength-based, culturally sensitive, trauma-informed lens.   

Essential Duties and Responsibilities

Employment and Job Readiness:

• Collaborate with CHI’s Program team to support the development and rollout of standards, guidelines and best practices around site-based employment and education programs

• Identify, build, and support site implementation of career pathway programs that reflect employment trends by site location and that support the goal of establishing occupational pathways for Covenant House youth that pay a livable wage, don’t require a college degree, have low potential for automation, and represent fields of growth

• Support site education and employment leads in identifying and connecting to local skilling partners

• Assist in cultivating relationships with employers, training providers, schools, post-secondary institutions, and workforce systems to expand opportunities for youth with limited education credentials and/or work experience

• Take a leading role in identifying and nurturing employment partners at the national and local level to help youth with job placements post credentialing

• Provide hands-on support with local implementation of employment and training programs

• Identify appropriate online resources and assessments related to job and life skills, micro-badging, and credentialing

• Support the ongoing work of CH’s Workforce Development Learning Community

• Develop and expand specialized training opportunities (e.g., pre-apprenticeships, industry-recognized credentials, internships, etc.) that align with youth interests and local labor market needs

• Lead existing national employer partners (Accenture, Delta, Cisco) and help identify and bring in new partners

Education

• Support the development and management of national and local strategies for Adult Basic Education and GED/HED attainment, as well as literacy, numeracy, and ESL

• Identify and build relationships with agencies to support educational opportunities for young people, including community colleges, career technical education programs, and other organizations that provide foundational education services and support

• Collaborate with sites to streamline education and career planning to connect youth to academic re-engagement programs, bridge programs, and post-secondary opportunities

Additional Responsibilities:

• Collaborate with CHI’s Research, Evaluation and Learning team to enhance data collection protocols, reporting, and evaluation methods around employment and education efforts

• Support the development of data reports on employment and education as required for grant deliverables

• Assist in creating appropriate collateral materials including video presentations to support youth engagement in employment and education programs

• Support the piloting of life skills courses and implementation of life skills curricula.

• Collaborate on development and fundraising efforts, including but not limited to grant proposals, reports, and publications

Required Knowledge, Skills and Abilities

• Experience in workforce development and education fields and in developing content and related resource packages

• Exceptional project management, organizational and interpersonal skills

• Highly developed communication skills, both verbal and written; ability to interact with a diverse range of people

• Strong technical skills; experience with MS365 and SharePoint  

• Ability to work both independently and collaboratively, with a curious and collaborative mindset

• Experience working in a multi-cultural environment and working with people from a variety of backgrounds with a customer service orientation

Required Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in social work, public health, nonprofit administration, or a related field.
• 5 years of program leadership experience in social service administration, preferably in youth homeless services. (For example: Job Corps, Youth Build, Npower, YearUp, TRIO (Upward Bound, Talent Search, Student Support Services, etc.) 

Preferred Knowledge, Skills, Abilities and Qualifications

• Experience in the homeless services sector, non-profit and/or social services. 

• Familiarity with Smartsheet and Canva

• Spanish fluency (written and oral)   

Travel Requirements

• Ability to travel once per year to New York City in January for our annual in-person traditions 

• Potential for up to 30% travel as needed within the US and Canada. Outside of these trips and our annual traditions, this position is fully remote

Our Community

Our critical mission demands that we have all voices at the table. A team of diverse people, perspectives, and experiences is smarter, stronger, and more effective for our young people. At Covenant House, every team member is valued, respected, heard, and supported, and we welcome honest and courageous self-reflection on any aspects of our work that are based on biased or outdated viewpoints. We deliberately create opportunities for our staff to grow and thrive.

Covenant House International is an Equal Opportunity Employer and prohibits discrimination and harassment of any kind: CHI is committed to the principle of equal employment opportunity for all employees and to providing employees with a work environment free of discrimination and harassment. All employment decisions at CHI are based on business needs, job requirements, and individual qualifications, without regard to race, color, religion, belief, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, veteran status, family or parental status, disability status, or any other status protected by the laws or regulations in the locations where we operate. CHI will not tolerate discrimination or harassment based on any of these characteristics and encourages all qualified applicants to apply.

If you have a disability or medical condition and need a reasonable accommodation, such as an ASL interpreter or a different interview format, or if you have physical accessibility needs, let us know. Contact us at 1-800-388-3888, Monday through Friday, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., Eastern Time or email us at chipeopleandculture@covenanthouse.org.