Job Description

Location: Pittsburgh, PA (remote or in our East Liberty office)

Start Date: April 2022  

18 hrs/week: Mostly afternoons/evenings/Saturdays (schedule can be largely chosen) with 2x/month 1hr morning meetings

Pay: $19/hr, eligible for retirement benefits and paid days off

Connecting Champions is a nonprofit that asks young adults & kids with cancer across the country, “What do you want to be when you grow up?” and connects them with a local mentor for the cancer journey. Based in Pittsburgh, we now serve participants in 23 cities across the United States through our in-person and virtual programming.

Job Description:

The Pittsburgh Program Specialist is dedicated to facilitating mentoring friendships for young adults and kids with cancer (up to age 26) throughout central and western Pennsylvania. The role consists of two pieces: (1) building mentor-mentee relationships and (2) designing and facilitating quarterly group school/career preparedness workshops. This coworker will help provide the resources and guidance for young adults/kids with cancer to be prepared for life beyond the disease. The Program Specialist will be one of the faces of the organization.

Mentor-mentee relationships

The core elements of the role are scheduling mentor-mentee visits virtually and in-person; coordinating with staff at Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh; incorporating strategies to advance identity building, school and career preparedness, positive coping, and joy; measuring outcomes; and building close-knit relationships with families, young adults/kids, and mentors. When a participant is referred from Children’s Hospital, they meet the Program Specialist over videochat to identify their aspirations, personality, and unique needs. After our Mentor Finder finds a local mentor, the Specialist preps the mentor and coordinates the first visit. As the mentor-mentee relationship develops, visits take place virtually and in the workplace/community. To build positive mentorship experiences, the Program Specialist must coordinate difficult schedules, plan the agenda for each visit, find & send materials, and facilitate conversations/activities in real-time. 

The Program Specialist must be present at all visits, virtually or in-person, which range from once per week to once per month. In between, there are also check-in calls and tasks. In one friendship, one of our young adults wants to be a cosmetologist when she grows up; we sent her a mannequin head with professional cosmetics before each visit and she would learn a new beauty technique each week over videochat with her mentor (with one of our staff present). In another, one of our kids videochats with his mentor to learn about (and see) different animals each time.

Quarterly group school/career preparedness workshops

A new initiative in partnership with Survivor Connect at Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh, the quarterly workshops are an effort to assist survivors — who often struggle with lingering effects from the cancer journey — by providing the knowledge and resources they need to move forward in their career/school. Each quarter, the Specialist will find a mentor in a particular field, create an agenda (discussion topics and activities) for the 1-hour session, prep the mentor, facilitate the virtual group workshop, and follow up with attendees. 

The Program Specialist must be extremely organized, personable, and creative. The weekly schedule is flexible, as long as the majority of the hours takes place between weeknights 4-8pm and Saturdays 10-3pm, with two 1-hour morning meetings per month. They must work at least three separate days. Work can be done mostly remotely (or in our East Liberty office) with periodic in-person mentor visits. The Program Specialist reports to the Senior Program Manager and Executive Director.

Requirements:

Minimum Bachelor’s with a major in a human services field; 2+ years of work experience preferred

• Comfort with majority of working hours being spent videochatting with young adults/kids & their mentors, plus periodic in-the-community visits
• Talented problem-solving and internet search skills 
• Experience with young adults and kids
• Comfort with vulnerable populations
• Stable internet connection
• Consistent schedule
• Background in a human services profession
  (e.g. social worker, counselor, teacher, psychologist, CLS, etc.)
• Excellence keeping things organized + time management
• Comfort with Google Suite (gmail, docs, drive, etc.) 
• Background succeeding both independently & in teams
• Ability to pass background checks
• COVID-19 vaccine, all requested clearances/background checks, and I9 verification.

Connecting Champions values a team and culture of diversity. We do not discriminate on the basis of race, color, religion, ancestry, sex, national origin, age, disability, sexual orientation, gender identity and/or expression, genetics, or military status in any of its activities or operations.

How to Apply

Job Types: Part-Time.

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