What Is Interview Like With Child Protective Services

Vaccination Requirement

Equally of August 2, 2021, all new hires must exist vaccinated against the COVID-nineteen virus, unless they have been granted a reasonable accommodation for faith or inability. If you are offered city employment, this requirement must be met by your date of hire, unless a reasonable accommodation for exemption is received and approved by the hiring agency.

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Becoming a Child Protective Specialist

Working every bit a Child Protective Specialist is a corking opportunity if you lot are a recent higher graduate or a seasoned professional. Extensive grooming, coaching and professional development is bachelor. A career path incudes advocacy to supervisory and managerial positions. Nosotros offer a robust do good package and support continuing educational activity through a number of scholarship opportunities.

What It Means to Be a Child Protective Specialist
Required Qualifications
Frequently Asked Questions Well-nigh Being a CPS
Salary
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What It Means to Be a Child Protective Specialist

Child Protective Specialists (CPS) respond direct to reports of child corruption and/or neglect. Using investigatory and social work skills, they engage and partner with families and community resource to ensure the prophylactic and well-being of children throughout New York City.

As a CPS you lot will:

Complete customs visits to investigate allegations of abuse and/or neglect.
Engage in a force based arroyo with families in order to assess their individual and commonage strengths and needs.
Interview family members and others who collaborate with the family to assess child safety and well-being.
Appraise the chance of hereafter corruption or neglect of children in the family.
Coordinate a squad of family members, staff and service providers to evaluate condom and identify interventions that can reduce risks to children.
Remove child(ren) into protective custody or foster care, when children are found to be in imminent danger.
Enter and maintain accurate and timely computerized records of all case data.
Help families navigate government agencies and access entitlement benefits.
File petitions and testify in family court and other legal proceedings equally necessary.

Required Qualifications

A baccalaureate degree from an accredited college, in specified subject field.
Twenty-four semester credits in whatever combination of the following fields: social work, psychology, folklore, human services, criminal justice, teaching (including early childhood), nursing or cultural anthropology.
At least 12 credits must be in one of these disciplines.
Candidates must demonstrate English language proficiency and basic typing skill.
All candidates must successfully consummate a comprehensive drug screening.

Candidates who speak and/or write in the following languages are encouraged to apply: Spanish, Russian, Albanian, Arabic, Bengali, Chinese, French, Haitian Creole, Korean, Polish, Urdu, and African languages. New York City residency is Non required.

Often Asked Questions About Existence a CPS

Click a question, or press the enter primal on a question, to reveal its respond.

What kind of training will I receive?

As a new Child Protective Specialist (CPS), you'll nourish the James Satterwhite Training Academy for six weeks to learn social work and investigative skills such as how to appoint families and conduct interviews. You will as well acquire to apply the ACS computer system and the forms used to rail active cases. Later on you've graduated from the Academy, you will exist assigned to a grooming unit of measurement to piece of work with a reduced number of cases under close supervision of a training unit of measurement supervisor for an boosted 3 months. At the completion of the three months in a training unit of measurement, you will be assigned to a transition unit for an additional five months where you will receive a modified caseload consignment. Afterwards five months in the transitional unit of measurement, you will be assigned to a CPS unit and receive cases on a regular pending rotation and go along to piece of work closely with a supervisor to back up and guide your piece of work.

What is a typical twenty-four hours like?

Given the nature of the piece of work nosotros do, our days are rarely "typical." Once assigned to a regular unit, your unit of measurement supervisor will piece of work with yous to make up one's mind which days you will work making community visits and which days you will work in the part. On the community visit days, yous volition work primarily in the community making visits to the homes of the families you need to visit. You lot may also be required to visit schools and other customs agencies that the children and families are involved with. You lot'll be assigned cases on a rotation basis with other CPS staff in your borough office.

You volition manage an boilerplate caseload of about 8 to 12 families at any given fourth dimension. During your dwelling visits, you will see with families in gild to assess the families' strengths, the safety, risk and well-being needs of children and the assistance that families may require. On some days, yous may need to attend hearings at the local family court. There may be days when you need to piece of work into the late evening in lodge to assure the safe of children on your caseload.

Office days will be used to consummate case documentation, make phone calls, and nourish trainings and meetings with your supervisor and other members in your unit. You will besides utilise your time in the office to connect families with the services they need and following up with other office based consultants who are there to support your work. You lot are required to go along detailed electronic records of all example activities that you have completed for case on your caseload.

What safe precautions are in place to protect CPS from COVID-19?

Constructive August 2, 2021, all new Metropolis hires must provide proof of having received at least i dose of the COVID-xix vaccine prior to beginning their employment.
Employees must complete and laissez passer a screening cess each day prior to arrival to their work site (including non-ACS sites such as a courthouse or HRA site) or in-community visits.
All staff, regardless of vaccination status, must clothing a face roofing when interacting with the public, such as during a home visit, and whenever in a communal space in the role.
At every abode visit, CPS ask the family screening questions to assess if information technology is safe to enter the abode. As well, on customs visit days, CPS may start and end their day from home to minimize exposure.
When an ACS employee has a confirmed case of COVID-nineteen, human resources will work with that employee and/or supervisor to determine if at that place are any employees who may have been in close contact with that individual during their infectious menstruation while in the workplace.

Tin can I do some of my paperwork at abode or on a laptop?

Yes, since 2018, all CPS receive access to ACS issued tablets to provide CPS with greater access to critical documents and casework activities while in the community or away from assigned workstations. The tablets accept software that helps CPS manage caseloads and come across investigative requirements.

What about emergencies?

Yous may be chosen for an emergency with a family already in your care, or to assess a new report of abuse or neglect. In those situations, the priority is always to clinch the prophylactic and well-being of the children and help to stabilize the families we serve. If yous accept to remove a child from a home, you volition need to remain with that kid until he/she has been placed in temporary care. When this happens, you may need to work overtime into the evening or later.

Will I visit my families alone or with someone else?

CPS are encouraged to get out in pairs. One time yous've established a relationship with a family, both yous and the family may feel more than comfortable for y'all to visit the family by yourself. However, your personal safe is our highest priority. When responding to an abuse report, or when your own intuition tells you that a visit may exist difficult, you lot should take a co-worker with you - another CPS, a supervisor, or one of our investigative consultants (former law detectives). Rest assured that we never ship a CPS - solitary or with a colleague - into a state of affairs that nosotros believe could be dangerous. CPS also have access to the ACS Safety App located on ACS issued Smartphones that provide an emergency response from NYPD and EMS to the location where CPS believe their personal safety is compromised.

What types of support are in place when I have questions or simply demand to vent?

The CPS job can exist stressful, and so we build in peer back up, supervisory back up, and camaraderie into the daily schedule of every CPS. Supervisors concord regular team meetings where CPS workers talk about their cases. Our work is by definition social in nature; the opportunity to process what has happened to you on any given day or to become help deciding how to handle a specific issue is always available. As a CPS, y'all volition exist a valued member of a team that works together to assist children and families. DCP staff has continuous access to licensed and trained Employee Assistance Counselors who support staff well-being, through tools from stress-relief aides to group counseling sessions to referrals to mental wellness professionals. In that location is too a Peer Mentorship Program in which veteran CPS voluntarily provide peer support and mentoring to newer CPS. The veteran CPS are compensated for their time and commitment.

In addition, the DCP Chatline is a hotline that serves equally an ombudsman and allows DCP staff to confidentially voice concerns, share ideas and get general assistance as needed. The Chatline helps staff by:

listening to complaints, concerns, problems and issues;
helping staff to explore and evaluate options;
clarifying certain decisions, policies and practices;
creating access to information, if advisable, and helping to open channels of communication;
helping to ensure that established policies and practices are operation properly and equitably;
referring staff to helpful resources;
assisting in surfacing issues so they can be addressed in formal processes;
taking objective action to resolve matters that fall outside the established forums and procedures;
identifying new issues and opportunities for systemic change for DCP and bringing systemic issues to DCP leadership attention for resolution;
listening to staff's ideas for improvements and channeling those ideas to Executive Leadership.

How long will I maintain a human relationship with a family? Can I stay in touch later on the case has been closed?

Your interest with a family on your caseload should end when y'all either close the case or the situation stabilizes and the family members receive the support they need. Each instance on your caseload can be closed or transferred to Foster Care, Preventive Services or Court Supervision Services. Your interest should definitely cease if the case is closed. If the example is transferred and at that place is no farther case specific need for y'all to remain involved with the family unit, then your involvement should end. Your unit supervisor will be bachelor to guide you on when y'all should end you involvement with a family. If a airtight example is reopened, you lot may piece of work with the family again, simply otherwise your interest ends when the case is airtight.

What are the opportunities for farther advocacy?

Promotional opportunities and bacon increases are common, offset just six months after starting work every bit a CPS.

Salary

The starting salary for a Child Protective Specialist Level I is $50,757. After successful completion of six months of service, you are automatically promoted to Child Protective Specialist Level II, with a base bacon increase of $55,125. Upon successful completion of 18 months in this position, the base bacon increases to $58,782 with a salary range up to $83,343. In improver to the base salary increases, there are longevity differentials, and the potential for overtime earnings and a nighttime differential for sure assignments.

Utilize

Permanent ceremonious service appointment is required to become a Child Protective Specialist. Ceremonious service exams are given a few times a year by the NYC Department of Citywide Administrative Services (DCAS). When the filing menses is open, you can file here; the application fee is $68. For more than information, read this.

Use for the Child Protective Specialist exam using the Online Application System (OASys). Follow the onscreen application instructions for electronically submitting your application and payment and completing any required information. A unique and valid email address is required to utilise online. If you practise not have an account, y'all need to annals as a new user.