Sr. Program Officer - California Alliance for Youth and Community Justice, (CAYCJ)

Sierra Health Foundation is a private philanthropy with a mission to invest in and serve as a catalyst for ideas, partnerships, and programs that improve health and quality of life in Northern California. The foundation is committed to improving health outcomes and reducing health disparities in the region through convening, educating, and strategic grant-making. 

Sierra Health Foundation has a broad definition of health, believing there is much more to health than health care. It is influenced by factors that include socioeconomic conditions, environment, education, income, and individual behavior choices. The foundation also believes in the need for health and racial equity and racial justice. Reducing health disparities is a key factor in striving toward better health for all and reflects the foundation’s dedication to ensuring that people throughout its funding region have the opportunity to lead healthy lives.

Sierra Health Foundation established The Center at Sierra Health Foundation to advance its commitment to strengthening community capacity to engage in policy development, planning, and implementation efforts that seek to address the health needs of California’s underserved populations.  The Center works to promote health, racial equity, and racial justice in communities throughout California with local, state, and national partners.  With strategy, creativity, and ongoing collaboration, The Center strives to eradicate health inequities across the state.

 EQUAL OPPORTUNITY EMPLOYER STATEMENT

Sierra Health Foundation is an equal-opportunity employer; we value employees with diverse backgrounds, expressions, and experiences. The more diverse our team is, the stronger we’ll become. With the common goal of forging a new path to promote health, racial equity, and racial justice in our communities, we want and need a team that can bring their unique perspectives and stories to the table to best support our communities.

Sierra Health Foundation has core in office days of Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday.

ABOUT CAYCJ: Founded in 2012, the California Alliance for Youth and Community Justice (CAYCJ) is a network of over 39 multi-racial, multi-generational, and multi-disciplinary organizations representing over 20 counties that have come together in a unified voice and movement to:

1. Develop alternatives to youth incarceration and system involvement through making central the use of community-based, healing-focused youth development responses to youth accused of harm.
2. Reduce and then end the use of incarceration for young people.
3. End the practice of sending youth to the adult system.
4. Create a transformative narrative about us and our communities and about how to achieve true community safety.

CAYCJ’s mission is to create opportunities for youth to heal and thrive in their communities by ending state violence, criminalization, and incarceration; as well as supporting youth, communities, and families to create their own solutions and alternatives to the criminal legal system.

Currently, CAYCJ is prioritizing the county-by-county and state-level implementation of SB 823 (which phases the closure of California's Department of Juvenile Justice) and transforming California’s youth justice system from an approach that is punitive to one that is developmentally appropriate, community-based, trauma-informed and healing centered.

POSITION SUMMARY:  The Senior Program Officer will convene, coordinate, and hold the collective process for strategic planning and implementation for the California Alliance for Youth and Community Justice (CAYCJ). This will include (but is not limited to) managing subcontracts and managing relationships with potential subcontractors, subgrantees, and allies. This position will manage and maintain relationships with all program stakeholders. This position will also maintain contact with and help build the capacity of the community partners regarding outreach and advocacy.

ESSENTIAL DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES

Primary Leadership in General

• Develop and facilitate collective processes to advance CAYCJ’s mission of ending state violence, criminalization, and incarceration, AND of building alternatives for youth to have opportunities to heal and thrive in their communities.
• Responsible for project managing and facilitating collective strategic planning and implementation, particularly in relation to the county-by-county and state-level implementation of SB 823, AND to abolish-transform California’s racist youth punishment system to a developmentally appropriate, community-based, trauma-informed, and healing-centered system.
• Responsible for co-convening, co-coordinating, co-leading and holding the collective process for CAYCJ which includes cultivating and maintaining transformative relationships with members of the alliance, and facilitating various alliance work groups and meetings.
• Act as the primary staff responsible for supporting and providing transformative leadership development support for other CAYCJ staff.
• Responsible for all coordination and project management across all areas of CAYCJ work (CAYCJ Power Tree).

Primary Leadership in More Detail

• Convene, coordinate, and hold the collective process for monthly Leadership Council meetings and members.
• Develop strategic agendas to facilitate and project manage the weekly Coordination and Strategic Planning Team meetings.
• Develop strategic agendas to facilitate and project manage the Chief Probation Officers of California (CPOC) Strategy Work Group.
• Convene and facilitate the Transformative Justice (TJ) Seed Group.
• Facilitate, coordinate and project management CAYCJ Core Meetings, which include but may not be limited to:
  • Internal Leadership Team Meetings, with the support of the Senior Program Associate.
  • Weekly team meetings.
  • Weekly 1-1’s with staff.
• Coordinate and project manage alliance healing events, for example, but not limited to, Grief Rituals.
• Coordinate and project manage all special projects and events as necessary.
• Lead monthly meetings with the Sierra Heal Foundation.
• Lead monthly meetings with Tanya’s Virtual Solutions.

Administrative and Internal Director Responsibilities

• Manages budget planning and tracking.
• Responsible for fundraising, grant writing, and grant reporting.
• Supervises re-granting, grant extensions/modifications, and closing grants with the support of the Senior Program Associate.
• Supports and provide transformative leadership development support and opportunities for staff, as well as staff supervision. This includes meeting with staff individually once a week, facilitating staff meetings once a week, tracking and managing sustainable and healthy staff capacity, conducting staff assessments, and connecting staff with transformative leadership supports and opportunities, among several other things.
• Responsible for maintaining and stewarding a healing and transformative work culture through rooted and humble transformative leadership.
• Manages contracts and subcontracts.
• Responsible for bookkeeping through Concur with the support of Tanya’s Virtual Solutions. Examples include, but is not limited to, staff reimbursements, participant expenses, and credit card expense reports.
• Promotes a culture of compliance regarding Sierra Health Foundation policies and procedures with the support for Sierra Health Foundation, contractors, and staff.
• Reviews and approves timesheets.
• Supports the Central Valley for Justice Transformation Committee and Coordinator.
• Maintains the alliance archive and tracking efforts across the CAYCJ Power Tree.
• Manages communication and agenda items for the monthly meetings with Sierra Health Foundation.

Representative as Director of CAYCJ

• Represents the goals, objectives, and interests of CAYCJ in meetings and in relationships with funders which include but are not limited to: Heising-Simons Foundation (HSF), The California Endowment (TCE), Sierra Health Foundation (SHF), Zellerbach Foundation, Akonadi Foundation, Liberty Hill Foundation, Crankstart Foundation and Rosenberg Foundation.
• Monthly meeting with the Executive Director of the Alliance for Boys and Men of Color (ABMOC).
• Partners with Organizing Roots, which may include but is not limited to: healing support funding,
  • Meetings re internal operations infrastructure and troubleshooting, agenda development for strategic retreats.
  • Leadership and strategic direction.
  • CAYCJ cohort of orgs for 1-year intensive accompaniment for capacity building of internal infrastructure for power building and systems transformation efforts.
• Partners with The Prometheus Conspiracy, which may include but is not limited to oppositional research and shared political analysis, county-by-County Power Mapping, training, and C4 strategy development.

• Attend Litigation Work Group meetings, litigation meetings, and other meetings as necessary.

Additional Alliance Unity, Vitality, and Capacity Building Work

• Provide intensive accompaniment and capacity-building support to a cohort of org members.
• Provide intensive Executive Director accompaniment and support to a cohort of org members.
• Provide transformative leadership and follow-up in receiving and addressing member grievances and concerns.
• Responsible for collectivizing alliance efforts for crisis response when necessary.
• Schedule and facilitate 1-1 meetings with members regularly.
• Monitors alliance ecosystem interconnection and vitality.
• Support membership onboarding process.

Transformative Leadership

• Responsible for modeling and maintaining a healing and transformative work culture.
• Actively support connect our members and leadership to transformative and healing support; this includes may include (but is not limited to) therapy opportunities, culturally rooted healing opportunities, leadership development coaching and opportunities, peer-to-peer support circles, self-care opportunities and, resources that can support accessing any transformative or healing modality
• Budget and utilize resources that can support in accessing any transformative or healing modalities.

SUPERVISORY RESPONSIBILITIES    

Supervises CAYCJ Deputy Director(s) - Program Officers, Directors - Senior Program Associates, and other staff - Program Associates.

QUALIFICATIONS

To perform this job successfully, an individual must be able to perform each essential duty satisfactorily. The requirements listed below represent the knowledge, skill, and/or ability required. Reasonable accommodations may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform the essential functions.

EDUCATION AND/OR EXPERIENCE

• 8-10+ years of grassroots power building organizing, coalition/alliance building, and/or movement network building experience.
• Formerly incarcerated and systems impacted leadership are highly encouraged to apply.
• Familiarity, experience, and expertise with frameworks of Transformative Justice, Abolition, Abolition Democracy, Transformative Power Building, Gender Justice and Youth Justice Transformation.
• Experience with centering power building, abolition and transformative-healing justice frameworks in organizing, coalition/alliance building, and/or movement network building.
• Experience with infusing culturally rooted and trauma informed self-care, Soul care, healing practices and/or transformative self-work supports into individual and collective leadership practice.
• Experience with transforming youth justice ecosystem and efforts.
• Experience with generative dialogue and with receiving feedback and being responsive to feedback if necessary regarding leadership role and function.
• A Master's degree in health policy, public health, social work, public administration or related field and/or equivalent experience is strongly desired, but not required. Weight will be given to on the ground experience and expertise.
• Experience with direct action organizing.
• Experience in coalition and/or alliance process development and strategic planning and implementation.
• Experience with multi-partner collaborative, research, & public speaking.
• Experience collaborating with state, regional and local officials and agencies.
• Bilingual preferred.
• Excellent writing, editing, analytical, and oral communication skills, including the ability to collect, review, synthesize, and present information and findings, translating complex ideas into clear, easy-to-understand concepts.
• Demonstrated experience independently developing and managing complex projects: setting goals, developing strategies, managing tasks, tracking workplans and measuring outcomes, adjusting as needed based on progress. Ability to translate concepts into actions, with the courage to take calculated risks.
• Learning orientation with the ability to adapt quickly to change; strong appetite for complexity, and tolerance for uncertainty.
• Ability to multitask and to meet deadlines, as well as demonstrated resourcefulness in setting priorities; strong organizational skills and exceptional attention to detail.
• Strong and demonstrated commitment to achieving racial and health equity.
• Ability and willingness to travel approximately 10% of the time.

CERTIFICATES, LICENSES, REGULATIONS

Must have a current valid driver’s license and be insurable under the foundation’s insurance policy. Must have a reliable vehicle to perform various in-field tasks.

LANGUAGE SKILLS                                       

• Excellent oral and written communication skills, including public speaking, presentation and group facilitation skills.
• Ability to read, analyze and interpret common scientific and technical journals, financial reports, and legal documents.
• Ability to respond to common inquiries from members of the government, philanthropic and business community.
• Ability to write speeches and articles for publication that conform to prescribed style and format.
• Ability to effectively present information to top management, public groups and/or Board of Directors.

COMPUTER SKILLS

• Must be proficient in Windows, Microsoft Office, Outlook, database software, Adobe Acrobat, and internet use.

OTHER SKILLS AND ABILITIES    

• Must have a demonstrated ability to initiate and promote public policy initiatives and expertise in working with policymakers, policy advocates, and the media.
• Must have a strong appreciation for the importance of partnership strategies to affect public policy.
• Ability to work collaboratively with diverse constituencies and build consensus among a broad range of stakeholders.
• Knowledge of program development, implementation and evaluation methods; health promotion and policy; general management concepts.
• Effective leadership, project management, budgeting and relationship building skills.
• Ability to define problems, collect data, establish facts, and draw valid conclusions.
• Must be team-oriented and highly skilled in working collaboratively with co-workers and organizational partners (i.e. effectively applying active listening, diplomacy, and consensus-building skills).
• Must be well organized and able to manage multiple projects involving a variety of internal and external collaborators.
• Ability to work with individuals from diverse communities and life experience.

BENEFITS AND COMPENSATION

Sierra Health Foundation and The Center provide a generous benefits package, which includes Medical, Dental, Vision, Life and AD&D, Short-Term and Long-Term Disability, as well as an Employee Assistance Program and a discount program called Working Advantage. Retirement benefits are provided through our 401(k), which includes employee matching. Details of these programs will be shared during the hiring process. This is a full-time, exempt position with a hiring range of $112,00 - $121,000 annually.