Prevention Counselor

UNITAS Therapeutic Community is a community-based organization located in the Hunts Point neighborhood in the South Bronx. Unitas provides a multitude of services to the community, primarily school based prevention counseling and a mentorship program where adolescents and children engage in bond-building and form a “family” system, integral to the UNITAS model. UNITAS is an OASAS-funded agency dedicated to the provision of both direct counseling and supportive group services to youth.

UNITAS is seeking a Drug Prevention Counselor to work within one of the schools we provided services for. The Prevention counselor's work will be based primarily in their designated School site but their work scope is in no way limited to this setting. The Prevention Counselor will be assigned a specific School and be required to deliver services to their site. The Prevention Counselor will also be in charge of carrying a clinical case load. It is expected that each counselor will maintain a caseload of 8-12 clients. This is based on school need and program capacity.

Responsibilities include but are not limited to:

• The counselor will be in charge of managing their sites specific Evidence Based Programming (EBP) requirements. This includes, but is not limited to: Discovery Groups, Advisory Groups, Drug education groups, specified educational groups and/or EBP curriculum groups.
• Prevention Counselor will be expected to run an 8–10-week EBP classroom program. This will consist of directed curriculum and classroom-based instruction.
• Prevention Counselors will be required to participate in after school programming. UNITAS has a long-standing history of delivering the "Caretaker Network" program. This consists of Prevention counselors working with adolescents and young adults in a case management (as needed) and mentorship roles. Programming consists of 40-70 teens.
• Prevention counselor may also be required to participate in and/or lead our Tuesday teen program. Tuesday programming focused on drug prevention and education, social, emotional and interpersonal development and other varying topics. All Tuesday programming is EBP based and curriculum driven.
• Engage parents in Parent Training classes
• Participate in weekly individual and group supervision with supervisor
• Candidates who do not already have the CPS/CPP certification must initiate the process upon hire.

Skills required but are not limited to: 

• Candidate must enjoy working with youth and children.
• Ability to communicate effectively, both verbally and in writing, is a key to doing this work successfully.
• Experienced in all Microsoft programs.
• Must have an amiable personality and must be able to get along with a multicultural staff.