Position Summary
As an 11th &/or 12th grade facilitator you will be responsible for recruiting and facilitating 75 girls at 3 schools, strategizing and collaborating with your team to reach recruitment, enrollment, and attendance goals. You will be responsible for implementing weekly workshops based on Step Up's 11th &/or 12th grade College + Career Exploration Curriculum Guide with a social emotional lens. Furthermore, you will participate in planning and/or executing a variety of teen and member events throughout the year, including three conferences a program year.
Who We Are:
Step Up believes that all girls (regardless of race, class, gender identity/journey, gender presentation/expression, ability, ethnicity, citizenship status, languages spoken, religion, etc.) deserves the opportunity to fulfill her potential. We are a national social emotional learning organization focused on mentorship and sharing social capital. We leverage the time, talent, and resources of professional women mentors who engage with Step Up teens in after school workshops, conferences, field trips, and special events that are designed to support teens in developing skills that empowering them to become confident, college-bound, career-focused, and ready to join the next generation of women leaders.
Step Up currently serves 1,900 girls nationwide with the goal of having served 8,000 girls nationally in six cities by 2020.
Our Approach:
Step Up envisions a world where everyone has a seat at the table. We take a positive youth approach to working with teen girls that is rooted in cultivating inclusion and belonging and providing opportunities for teens to engage in creative, interactive Step Up after school and out of school workshops that allow them to DO, SEE, HEAR, and FEEL and develop social emotional learning skills amongst peers and adults. Our programs aim to fill a gap and diversify leadership by providing safe and brave spaces where women mentors creatively inspire teen girls to graduate from high school as confident, emotionally intelligent girls committed to achieving their goals and thriving through post-secondary education and career exploration. Our mentors' and staff contributions toward this effort focuses on the empowerment of historically marginalized teen girls, ultimately leading to a more just and prosperous society.
Organization's Values
Take Pride in Involvement. Be Inspired by and for Each Other. Take the Long View. Celebrate Success. Innovate. Take Action. Trust Teamwork. Amplify our Message.
Who We Are Looking For:
Step Up is seeking an energetic, enthusiastic, and nurturing creative facilitator with a passion for developing the next generation of professional women! Do you believe that all girls deserve the opportunity to fulfill their potential? Do you understand the challenges teen girls experience when transitioning into high school? Are you interested in helping high school juniors and/or seniors learn college / career information and develop the social and emotional skills that will help with become college-bound and career-ready? Do you have experience and interest in facilitating interdisciplinary + interactive college and/or career access and exploration workshops to teens? Are you a team player with an interest in joining a network of local youth development teams; professional women mentors/donors; teen girls from selected partner schools, and corporate partners invested in social responsibility?
If you answered yes to all of the above, we would love to see if you're a fit!
Who you are:
• You are committed to Step Up's mission and are passionate about fully engaging and empowering all women and girls as agents of a just and prosperous society.
• You have a Bachelor's Degree in liberal arts, youth development, secondary education, social sciences, or social work.
What you'll do:
As an 11th &/or 12th grade facilitator you will be responsible for recruiting and facilitating 75 girls at 3 schools, strategizing and collaborating with your team to reach recruitment, enrollment, and attendance goals. You will be responsible for implementing weekly workshops based on Step Up's 11th &/or 12th grade College + Career Exploration Curriculum Guide with a social emotional lens. Furthermore, you will participate in planning and/or executing a variety of teen and member events throughout the year, including three conferences a program year.
As 11th grade facilitator you lead the "Pathways to Professions" workshop + field trip program and you will co-plan and chaperone teens on career exploration field trips and revisit learnings in after school workshops after field trips.
As a 12th grade facilitator, you will lead monthly, four-hour long 'Young Luminaries" College + Career Exploration and Internship Prep workshops attended by both teens and professional women mentors. The College + Career Exploration Curriculum tasks Teen Programs Facilitators to use guidelines and suggested activities as a launching pad for creative workshop development using social emotional learning as a lens to prepare teen girls for potential summer internships and the transition from high school to college.
As a facilitator, you agree to thoughtfully develop all teen experiences (workshops, conferences, field trips, special events) to be learning and development opportunities aligned with Step Up's Program Theory, by providing opportunities in your workshops for teens to meet objectives and DO, SEE, HEAR, and FEEL.
How you'll do it:
Effective School Relationships:
• Develop and maintain a positive presence and relationship with key school personnel, ensuring Step Up programming schedules are supported and that teens are connected with relevant supportive services and school personnel.
• Identify, create, and use in-person, print, and digital communication outlets and resources and tools that will bring awareness to Step Up's 11th & 12th grade program and engage teen participation.
• Communicate with school liaisons + personnel to ensure understanding of upcoming school events that impact programming and recruitment.
• Communicate with school liaisons + personnel to secure and remain updated about technology access, storage space, workshop space, and time for Step Up recruitment, programming, and special events.
Teen Recruitment and Engagement:
• Reach out to enrolled teens, individually, at least once a week and maintain regular contact with each participant's parent/guardian.
• Coordinate teen transportation to sessions or special events and/or transport program participants, as needed.
• Create a safe space for Step Up teens that allows them to build their confidence and create trusting and nurturing relationships with their peers.
• Co-plan and chaperone monthly field trips to career exploration Pathways to Professions field trips.
• Lead weekly recruitment meetings for three groups of school facilitators, and coordinate with schools to plan and execute recruitment events as needed in order to reach enrollment goals.
Learning + Development Execution:
• Cultivate safe + brave spaces for all girls (regardless of race, class, gender identity/journey, gender presentation/expression, ability, ethnicity, citizenship status, languages spoken, etc) rooted in Step Up values and a teen-created team contract
• Submit weekly lesson planners for upcoming interdisciplinary (social emotional learning + confidence/career/college topics) workshops
• Facilitate up to 3 creative, arts and media-based after- school workshops per week, on site at Step Up partner schools.
• Develop engaging, teen-centric, culturally relevant activities, projects, and games for each workshop, that are aligned to Step Up's curriculum guide and social and emotional learning framework.
• Attend weekly meetings and assist with planning/leading three conferences per year, and eight field trips per year.
• Train, orient, and prepare teens for event networking + field trip opportunities with women mentors.
• Achieve learning and growth objectives for Step Up teens through coaching, mentoring, and scaffolding.
Mentor Engagement:
• Develop weekly after school and weekend workshops that thoughtfully consider the integration of visiting / attending women mentors
• Attend conferences + special events and share program happenings and teen accomplishments with partners, mentors and prospective mentors.
• Support mentor orientation and placement/matching with teens for programs, conferences, and events.
• Participate in member event planning, to include teen attendance, teen participation, networking, and public speaking opportunities.
Administrative Duties including, but not limited to:
• Submitting Weekly Report reflecting on workshop executed
• Submitting weekly attendance and program notes via Salesforce
• Attending weekly local team meetings
• Attending weekly virtual national facilitator cohort meetings using Zoom
• Sending e-mails, making phone calls, and communicating via social media to remind girls of workshops + events
Reporting Relationship
This position reports to the Teen Programs Manager, New York
Overall Experience + Qualifications
Youth Development Experience
• You have a minimum of three years of experience facilitating structured, curriculum-guided activities for teens with a variety of backgrounds and varying levels of emotional profiles and dispositions, living or attending school in under-resourced communities.
• You have solid knowledge of adolescent developmental phases, have practiced positive and constructive approaches to youth development, and are familiar with best practices in social and emotional learning (SEL) programs.
• You value and have experience creating safe and brave spaces that promotes inclusion, belonging, and empathy.
• You have experience in developing and adapting objective-driven and curriculum-aligned lesson plans that creatively engage teens and are culturally relevant.
• You have experience working recruiting teens in a school space, after school space, youth development program, or similar environment.
• You are comfortable utilizing weekly review of key performance indicators and quarterly data to adjust program elements to improve outcomes.
• You have experience facilitating creative college and/or career focused workshops for teens
• You have a deep knowledge, and experience, of the current college application process/college access world and teen resources for first generation college-going students.
General Professional Experience
• You are excellent at time management with strong prioritization and organization skills.
• You are a goal-driven, outcome-based and solution-oriented team player who can provide and receive constructive feedback, and who both promotes and practices a growth mindset.
• You have a working knowledge of Salesforce and are highly proficient in Microsoft Office applications.
Other
• You are capable of traveling within the city, on the subway and/ or other reliable forms of transportation.
• In addition to your workshop schedule, you are available to work 3 Saturdays a program year (Fall, Winter, Spring mentorship conferences) and occasional evening hours (special events), and are able to chaperone groups of teens on field trips, college visits, or other events.
Physical and Other Demands:
• Some extended periods at computer
• Moderate lifting and transporting of materials for programming and events
• Can independently travel to New York City neighborhoods and high schools
Minimum Education and Experience
Bachelor's degree in youth development studies, liberal arts, secondary education, social sciences, or social work.
A minimum of four years of experience facilitating structured, curriculum-guided activities for diverse populations of youth in under-resourced communities.
At least one year of experience leading a team of educators or youth development professionals providing instructional/programmatic leadership and/or coordinated program delivery to a single cohort of students.
Physical and Other Demands
- Some extended periods at computer
- Moderate lifting and transporting of materials for programming and events
- Can independently travel to New York City neighborhoods and high schools
How to Apply:
To apply, please email your cover letter, resume, and answers to questions below to the attention of Hollis Heath + Teen Programs Manager, at hollis@suwn.org.
Applicant Questions: Only applicants who provide answers to these questions will be considered for the position.
• What approaches and best practices would you use, in your workshops, to help Step Up teens become more confident in professional settings with adults?
• What are some ways that you can ensure college + career exploration content is culturally relevant facilitator mean to your teens?
• Can you describe the experiences that have provided you opportunities to engage with professionals outside of the education or non-profit sectors?
No phone calls please. Step Up will contact all candidates whom we wish to interview.
Salary
This is a full-time salaried position with medical, dental and vision insurance benefits. Salary commensurate with experience. All full-time employees qualify for paid time off including vacation, sick and all national holidays.
Step Up is not just an equal opportunity employer. We are dedicated to building local and national teams that represent the communities we serve and to consistently improving our ability to create inclusive and equitable spaces for our teens, our members and our staff.
