Shelter Client Services Representative

Description

Position Summary

The Shelter Client Services Representative serves as a staff member at the will of Domestic Violence Intervention Services (DVIS). The Shelter Front Office Coordinator provides professional administrative support services for safe housing staff and clients. They will ensure that operations run smoothly, and individuals feel welcome and safe.

Essential Duties & Responsibilities

Priority 1: Equity and Inclusion

• Reflect and understand how identities could give advantages in the workplace—even if they are not asked for or earned—while others might experience disadvantages. Reflect on how our position and power may shift depending on the environment, the people, or the institutions at play. Build the awareness and compassion that is needed and expected to create an equitable and inclusive workplace.
• Create an inclusive environment and behave in a way that ensures that clients and employees feel embraced, no matter what their cultural orientations are, respected and valued, engaged and connected to the community, and safe from abuse and harassment.
• Maintain and promote a philosophy of customer service consistent with the goals of DVIS. Be sensitive to client service issues and flexible enough to respond to the needs of individual clients.
• Must be sensitive to cultural and socioeconomic characteristics of the service population, as well with coworkers.

Priority 2: Confidentiality

• Adherence to all federal and state regulations regarding client services, specifically avoiding inappropriate conduct and strictly maintaining client confidentiality.
• Maintain high professional and ethical conduct towards clients, staff, and the community.

Priority 3: Administrative

• Responsible for answering incoming calls and greeting incoming visitors and clients.
• Screen calls and route to appropriate parties. Make informed referrals to other community agencies for callers who need non-DVIS services.
• Responsible for assisting in answering and documenting crisis calls.
• Responsible for handling incoming and outgoing mail daily, ensuring it is properly distributed to current clients and employees, and returning to the sender when individuals no longer reside in the shelter program or are employees of DVIS. Arrange for receipt or shipment of packages. Arrange transport interoffice mail between the counseling offices and Shelter on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.
• Responsible for monitoring office supplies, ordering as needed for all shelter employees, and completing a purchase request preceding all office supply orders.
• Responsible for monitoring front office and mailroom equipment and arranging necessary repairs or maintenance.
• Assist clients in completing electronic releases of information and other forms as needed.
• Responsible for maintaining confidentiality in the front office space.
• Create a welcoming, positive front office space for staff and clients.
• Provide general administrative support services for the shelter clients.
• Responsible for documenting volunteer and intern hours to the volunteer coordinator monthly.
• Maintain appropriate boundaries with clients.
• Assist clients in obtaining basic needs when their advocates are not available.

Priority 4: DVIS Employees

• Attend All-Staff meetings and other agency or department meetings.
• Ability to work in a team setting.
• Other duties as assigned.

Other Duties/Responsibilities: Responsible for presenting professionally at all times. Responsible for communicating to all shelter staff policies, procedures, and processes. DVIS retains the right to add or change duties and/or responsibilities at any time.

Supervisory Responsibilities: None

Budgetary/Fiscal Responsibilities: Responsible for managing the use of transportation funds. Acts as a good steward of DVIS's resources.

Responsibility for Confidentiality: The nature of this work requires safeguarding against the release of confidential and proprietary information of DVIS and its clients.

Contact with Others: This position will interact with managers at all levels, staff members across the organization, and members of external organizations and the public.

Documentation: Maintains up-to-date and accurate files for each client according to agency guidelines and current professional standards.

Meetings and Training: Attend meetings and training as requested by the supervisor.

Requirements

Job Requirements/Experience

Education: Associate degree or relevant experience.

Experience: Administrative office background. 2 year of customer services with experience with multi-line phone systems preferred.

Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities: Ability to communicate with a wide range of staff and clients. Intermediate computer skills, including word processing, spreadsheets, and database programs. Bilingual in Spanish is helpful.

Knowledge of or experience working with social justice issues, specifically intimate partner and gender-based domestic and sexual violence, and racial, class, gender, and sexual orientation issues, and intervention/prevention services strongly preferred. Requires dedication to diversity, equity, and inclusion, excellent organizational skills, written and oral communication skills, attention to detail, and ability to prioritize work and tasks. Requires adaptability to produce and meet deadlines in a fast-paced, multi-task, and changing environment, with frequent pressure related to meeting deadlines and scheduling requirements. Must be able to work independently and as part of a team. Must have good negotiation skills and can handle sensitive information with diplomacy.

• Requires the ability to embrace, support, and integrate DVIS's philosophies to promote and demonstrate DVIS's commitment to diversity, inclusion, equity, and anti-racism.
• Experience applying an equitable analysis to all duties to achieve organizational goals and demonstrate DVIS's commitment to diversity, inclusion, equity, and anti-racism preferred.
• Diplomacy at confronting personal, individual, and internal discrimination requiring sharing and discussing personal identities relative to the work environment is strongly preferred.
• Requires sophisticated emotional intelligence and resiliency skills to lead and/or actively participate in advancing our work relative to racial, social, and economic justice.

Schedule Availability: Monday through Friday, 8:30 AM to 5:00 PM. Occasional extended workdays.

Licenses/Certifications: Valid driver's license; current CPR and First Aid certification preferred or willing to obtain within 60 days of start date.

Physical Requirements

The physical demands described here are representative of those that must be met to successfully perform the essential functions of this position. Reasonable accommodations may be made when requested to enable individuals with disabilities to perform the essential functions.

Ability to communicate and understand in English [and insert language] effectively, in person, and in writing. Ability to hear adequately in person and by phone, in personal and group settings, and function with periodic distractions such as people, telephone calls, and noise.

Ability to work with, and process information from, a variety of individuals and media (e.g., computers, projected images, printed materials), and occasional sitting and/or standing for long periods of time.

Mobility necessary to access various offices and a wide variety of settings. Mobility necessary to perform a variety of tasks that involve intermittent standing, walking/traversing, sitting, stooping, kneeling, bending, and twisting, occasionally climbing stairs or using an elevator, and possibly reaching chest high and overhead for materials.

Ability to reach for, move and/or lift up to 25 pounds and the use of hands to finger, handle, or feel objects, tools, or controls, including frequent repetitive movement such as extended periods of keyboarding.