Medical Foster Care Supervisor

Position Summary:

Under the supervision of the Medical Foster Care (MFC) Nursing Administrator, the Nursing Supervisor is responsible for the supervision of nursing caseloads of medically fragile or special needs children residing in foster homes, as part of assuring a quality medical home at Children's Aid. Additionally, the MFC Nursing Supervisor will utilize principles of supervision, reflective practice, and staff development, to provide primary support and appropriate oversight to the nurse case managers, and to build and model a trauma-informed, strengths-based, client-centered culture. Other responsibilities include providing health education and skills improvement for the foster parents and biological parents, and serving as an advocate for the needs of the children in the program.

Essential Duties:

• Understand and promote the organization's Mission, Vision, and Core Values to ensure alignment with organizational policies and procedures.

Administration

• Provides weekly supervision to 6-8 nurse case managers
• Provides adequate orientation, professional development opportunities and study time to remediate gaps in necessary knowledge and skill.
• Assigns client caseloads and monitors nurse case manager's ability to build and manage caseload.
• Supervises daily management and coordination of appointments, supplies, and medication for foster children on caseload of nurses whom she supervises, and acts as a resource to other staff members involved in patient care
• Supervises referrals for hearing and vision screening and other problems.
• Assures medical reports are in the medical record within a reasonable time frame (2 weeks after appointment).
• Ensures timely communication with team (social worker, foster parent, biological parent, psychiatrist, and pediatrician) about missed or rescheduled appointments and any special assistance required, i.e. translator, transportation, and/or cultural.
• Ongoing telephone communication with foster parents to ensure continuity of care.
• Provides useful developmental feedback, and, with Nursing Administrator, confronts and develops a plan with staff to address performance and resolve issues.
• Builds confidence and skill of nurse case managers.
• Provides supervision and evaluation of nurse case managers and administrative support staff (including time and leave, performance evaluations, disciplinary action, etc.).
• Effectively assists nurse case managers in analyzing complex problems and case situations.
• Ensures that all staff attend all required MFC education sessions.
• Approves all time off requests for nurses whom she/he supervises
• Maintains time and leave for those staff she/he supervises
• Provides monthly review and analysis of nurse home visits
• Generates monthly report of caseloads and activities for review by medical director
• Approves the appropriate equipment and supply requests for foster children
• Acts as nursing supervisor in absence of nursing supervisor

• Reviews school forms, reports, rate forms and summaries developed by nurses whom she supervises.

Program Intake

• Provides back up to Nursing Administrator for Program Intake, which includes
  
  
  
  • Screens and assesses appropriateness of placement requests from OPA
  • Identifies and matches resources for home placement, along with home finder and intake team
  • Introduces foster parents to foster children prior to placement
  • Arranges for initial foster parent health education and skills building.
  • Creates, implements and maintains a care plan for each identified problem at intake.
  
  
  
  

Nursing Assessment and Patient Care:

• Maintains a case load of 5-6 developmentally disabled children in CA MFC program, performs mandated monthly home visits, jointly with case planner, and provides complete, purposeful, accurate and detailed assessments of the home environment, including follow-up from previous home visits.
  
  
  
  • Provides initial health education and skills building for foster and biological parents on the child's medical condition, proper administration of medication, safety precautions including response to side effects, universal precautions, age anticipatory guidance, and any other training based on the care plan.
  • Shows competency in nursing practices: proper nursing skills, proper use of medical equipment and terminology, employs current nursing protocols and procedures.
  • Utilizes nursing process to develop nursing assessments of foster children from comprehensive birth, developmental, health, immunization and social histories.
  • Maintains electronic medical records in an updated (real-time), organized, and legible condition, including medication, feeding and therapy changes.
  • Assists the NP/MD with well child care, follow-up and sick visits of foster children in the program.
  • Administers immunizations as directed by NP/MD.
  • Triages daily phone calls and serves as an emergency on call resource periodically.
  
  
  
  

• Accepts 24-hour on-call coverage at least 4 weeks annually.

Professional Development

• Continues to update professional knowledge both formally and informally by actively pursuing continuing education units through an accredited organization.

Interdisciplinary Skills

• Attends Program-Based Health Center meetings, weekly nurse case conferences, and monthly foster care staff meetings, Family Team Conferences, and other CAS site meetings.
• Works collaboratively with social workers, administrative staff, doctors and community health care providers.
• Implements philosophy and objectives of the program.

• Perform other duties as assigned

Minimum Qualifications:

• NYS Licensed Registered Nurse Required
• 10-12 years of experience in pediatric nursing required with at least 4-5 years working with special needs children preferred.

Key Competencies:

• Excellent verbal and writing skills.
• Comfort in working in a variety of Windows-based digital platforms including Microsoft Word, Microsoft Teams and Microsoft Excel.
• Comfort in working with and coaching others in working with Electronic Health Record (Children's Aid uses E-Clinical Works)
• Goal oriented with strong time management skills
• Flexibility and ability to work under pressure.
• Bilingual (Spanish) ability a plus.

It is the policy of Children's Aid to provide equal employment opportunity to all employees and applicants for employment and is dedicated to maintaining a work environment that is free from harassment and discrimination. Children's Aid will not tolerate discrimination, harassment, or retaliation on any basis, including race, creed, color, national origin, ethnicity, alienage or citizenship status, gender/sex (including pregnancy), disability, religion, source of income, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, age, familial status, caregiver status, military status, marital or partnership status, status as a victim of domestic violence, sexual violence or stalking, predisposing genetic characteristics, arrest or conviction record, credit history, unemployment status or any other characteristic protected by federal, state or local law. Children's Aid is committed to complying with applicable state and local laws governing non-discrimination in employment. This policy applies to all terms and conditions of employment, including, but not limited to, hiring, placement, promotion, termination, layoff, recall, transfer, leaves of absence, compensation, and training.