Family Educator | Way to Grow

Put your love of children and families into action with a rewarding career at Way to Grow! For over 30 years, Way to Grow, Inc. (WTG) has been one of the preeminent early learning programs in the Twin Cities. We focus on the most important stages of life — from prenatal to third grade and parenting. Our program, Great by Eight, centers around the vision that every child is born healthy, stays healthy, and has an equal opportunity to succeed in school and life. Through our in-home and center-based programming, we help parents create a learning environment in the home as they become their child’s first and most important teachers.

The Family Educator ensures that parents and children receive skill-building to ensure school readiness success and education to meet or exceed educational benchmarks. This is accomplished through home visits and engaging parents through a variety of activities:

The Family Educator typically conducts outreach activities, intake and assessment procedures, and utilizes home-visits to establish and maintain trusting relationships with families. The Family Educator is responsible for providing curriculum and literacy development for elementary children in kindergarten through 3rd grade, using Reading A-Z materials to enhance the child education and parent engagement skills. Responsibilities also include educating pregnant moms and families with children up to 3rd grade, teaching parenting techniques and pre-literacy skills to parents, and educating parents on the importance of parent participation in early education and developing family plans and goals. The Family Educator also refers families to the appropriate service providers in the community to address the school readiness needs of children from prenatal to age eight.

Essential Job Functions

• Use the PAT (Parents as Teachers) Foundational Curriculum and resources to plan and deliver home visiting services to qualifying families.
• Maintain a caseload of 30-35 families, conducting personal visits (50-60 minutes in length) with each enrolled family on a bi-weekly basis, and complete a range of screenings for each enrolled family.
• Adequately prepare for all personal visits, which include reading appropriate parent educator resources, printing relevant handouts, and gathering materials for parent-child activities.
• Help parents and children transition to other services as needed, such as preschool or kindergarten. This includes developing transition plans.
• Clearly document, on a timely basis, details of each visit, assessments, screenings, referrals to resources, etc., and enter into data system.
• Abide by laws governing mandated reporters.
• Assist in developing and maintaining a current community resource guide that includes all necessary information to link families to identified supports and services.
• Meet with supervisor as necessary to discuss procedures, protocol, and other administrative processes to ensure quality record keeping, data entry, and quality provision of services to families; meet with supervisor a minimum of twice monthly for reflective supervision sessions.
• Participate in all meetings, ongoing groups, special events, and other activities, including planning for events.
• Attend 10-day PAT virtual training and complete annual required competency-based professional development hours to remain certified as a PAT parent educator.
• Set annual service and recruitment goals and completes a plan designed to reach individual service goals.
• Work collaboratively in a team environment for the overall success and health of the organization.
• Support the philosophy and mission of WTG.
• Perform other duties as assigned.

Skills & Abilities

• Bilingual/bicultural (depending on community’s needs) – Somali, Spanish, Amharic, Oromo, Punjabi, or Karen would be extremely helpful.
• Flexibility with respect to time and days able to work (should be able to work some weekends and evenings when clients ‘schedules require it). Regular hours 8:30 to 5:00.
• Reliable transportation, valid driver’s license, safe driving record, and auto insurance required.
• Passion for job, upbeat, enthusiastic, team player.
• Comfortable visiting families in their homes and with delivering educational services in a non-judgmental/strengths-based manner and open to a variety of parenting styles.
• Well organized and able to keep up with complicated timelines for screenings and reporting.
• Proficient with both oral and written forms of the English language.
• Knowledge of child development and early childhood education.
• Knowledge of early literacy skill development.
• Familiarity with diverse cultures and the ability to be culturally sensitive.
• Ability to set healthy personal boundaries and limits.
• Ability to work independently, prioritize responsibilities, and manages time.
• Dependable, ability to work in groups and team settings.
• Knowledge of community and available resources.
• Good judgment and decision-making skills.
• Ability to use and teach planning, goal-setting, and problem-solving skills.
• Familiarity with health issues, how health care systems/service delivery systems work, and how to successfully navigate through them.
• Computer proficiency including but not limited to Microsoft Office products, data entry, e-mail, and calendar management.

Education

• BA in Early Childhood Education, Human Services, or Social Sciences preferred. OR
• AA in Early Childhood Education or related field with minimum two years of experience considered.

Experience

• Two years of early childhood education or social work experience serving diverse populations.
• Experience as a parent educator preferred.
• Experience performing home visits with parents and children preferred.

Physical Demands Required to Successfully Perform Job

• The physical demands and work environment described here are representative of those that are necessary for an employee to successfully perform the essential functions of this job. Reasonable accommodations may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform the essential functions.
• While performing the duties of this job, the employee is regularly required to: stand; walk; use hands to finger, handle, or feel; reach with hands and arms; climb or balance; stoop, kneel, crouch, or crawl; and talk or hear. The employee must frequently lift and/or move up to 25 pounds.
• Employee must be able to work in noisy and crowded environments.
• The employee is required to travel to multiple locations within the service area.

Way to Grow is an Equal Opportunity Employer and does not discriminate against any person on the basis of race, color, religion, national origin, age, sex, disability, genetic information, protected veteran status, marital status, sexual orientation, gender identity, creed, familial status, status with regard to public assistance, membership or activity in a local commission, or on the basis of any other status protected by state, federal, or local law.

Applicants with a disability that are in need of an accommodation to complete the application process, or otherwise need assistance or an accommodation in the recruiting process, should contact Human Resources at wtg@mplswaytogrow.org. To read more about employment discrimination protection under U.S. federal law, see: Know Your Rights: Workplace Discrimination is Illegal (eeoc.gov).

To apply, please send resume to vvue@mplswaytogrow.org.

Job Type: Full-time

Pay: $23.00 per hour

Benefits:

• 401(k)
• 401(k) matching
• Dental insurance
• Employee assistance program
• Health insurance
• Life insurance
• Paid time off
• Professional development assistance
• Referral program
• Retirement plan
• Vision insurance

Language:

• any other languages other than English (Preferred)

Work Location: In person