Anchor Community Initiative (ACI) Coordinator, Skagit County

Over 13,000 unaccompanied young people are surviving homelessness on their own in Washington state, at disproportionately higher rates for Black, Indigenous, and other youth of color as well as young people identifying as LGBTQ+. Lack of housing stability, supportive connections, and necessary services significantly impacts a young person’s transition to adulthood, leaving their economic, social, civil, and political rights unrealized. But what can be done? Is it possible to not just prevent but ultimately end youth and young adult homelessness in Washington?

A Way Home Washington answers that question with an unequivocal “yes.”

Who We Are

A Way Home Washington (“AWHWA”) (awayhomewa.org) is a statewide movement to prevent and end youth and young adult homelessness, prioritizing the existing disproportionality of homelessness rates among young people of color and LGBTQ+ youth. We partner with communities, agencies, young people, and leaders across Washington state to realign local and state youth-serving systems to meet the needs of young people in ways that matter most to them and result in safe and stable housing. By engaging on a local level and creating a statewide network, we connect communities and provide opportunities to discuss common barriers and solutions for ending youth and young adult homelessness.

Throughout our history, we have focused on integrating evidence-based practices and applying Continuous Quality Improvement to test, learn from, and develop innovative solutions. Ending youth homelessness won’t be achieved by maintaining the status quo; we think outside the box resulting in cutting-edge initiatives. We know that young people believe “nothing about us without us” and as a result, we have a duty to ensure that youth and young adults hold key roles in shaping and influencing the effective systems change that leads to ending homelessness.

A Way Home Washington is a fiscally sponsored organization of TSNE (tsne.org).

About the Anchor Community Initiative

The Anchor Community Initiative (ACI) is A Way Home Washington’s flagship program. In each Anchor Community, a diverse coalition brings together all parts of a community with partners committing to work across systems and silos, sticking with their collective approach until they have functionally ended homelessness for unaccompanied youth and young adults. These efforts ensure just and equitable outcomes for disproportionately impacted youth of color and LGBTQ+ young people and center the experience and expertise of young people. Anchor Communities work toward a measurable, time-bound endstate called functional zero or “Yes to Yes,” which means functionally ending homelessness. When a young person says “Yes, I need help,” a community is able to say “Yes” back - Yes to Yes! Our current Anchor Communities are Pierce County, Spokane County, Yakima County, Walla Walla County, Clark County, Whatcom County, Skagit County, Thurston County, and Jefferson and Clallam Counties.

Reporting to the ACI Coaching & Improvement Manager, the Skagit County Anchor Community Initiative Coordinator will be responsible for coordinating and supporting the Skagit County ACI Core Improvement and Community Teams to reach quality, real-time data for youth and young adults experiencing homelessness and use this data to reduce and end youth and young adult homelessness using the ACI model. The ACI model relies heavily on real-time data and establishing/managing a By Name List (BNL). The Coordinator will work with the local ACI Lead and Youth and Community Engagement Coordinator to organize direct service providers, community leaders, and young people to identify key issues in Skagit County’s youth homelessness system and implement system changes to resolve them. These system changes are informed by the quality real-time data and BNL which requires the Coordinator to be able to work within their local youth homelessness tracking system. Centering young people with lived experience and anti-racist/LGBTQ+ justice principles are central to this model.

Key responsibilities will include facilitating regular Core Improvement team and Community team meetings, coordinating subcommittees, managing the community’s By Name List, reporting system level data and improvement project summaries, leading the team to develop clear goals and strategies for reducing YYA homelessness locally, and other project-specific tasks. The successful candidate for this position will be highly organized and detail-oriented. They must possess strong “people skills” and have the ability to work with diverse groups, organizations and stakeholders. A basic understanding of issues related to youth homelessness and homelessness systems within the local community landscape is highly desirable. This includes providers, services, etc.

AWHWA is committed to equitable outcomes for young people experiencing homelessness, thus all data and strategies will be analyzed and implemented through a racial and LGBTQ justice lens.

Candidate must be based in Skagit County, WA.

Essential Functions

ACI Strategy

• Participate in strategic planning and implementation for the ACI, with a commitment to iteration and improvement;
• Work with the ACI Coaching and Improvement Managers to refine the coaching model and implementation plans, as needed;
• Provide thought partnership on initiative strategy to the ACI Team;
• Help the Anchor Community achieve its goals and objectives;

Skagit County ACI Coordination:

• Act as the key point-of-contact to AWHWA’s Coaching and Improvement Manager and other AWHWA personnel;
• Supported by the AWHWA’s Coaching and Improvement Manager, use identified methods and tools to implement the community’s plan to build a “yes to yes” system that can quickly identify and house young people experiencing homelessness;
• Coordinate with the AWHWA Lead Coach to convene community meetings including sending invitations and tracking RSVP’s, securing meeting room reservations, preparing materials, etc;
• Provide meeting facilitation support with key staff and stakeholders, working with the Core Improvement and Community Teams to develop agendas and outcomes for each meeting, documenting meeting minutes, and tracking next steps;
• Recruit Core Improvement Team members and ensure that ACI community leadership roles are filled;
• Track communities’ progress with personalized tools created, in partnership, with AWHWA team;
• Keep records up-to-date and in compliance with WAC, Title XIX and agency requirements;
• Attend staff meetings, and designated staff training and consultation sessions;
• Ensure that ethical and professional standards of practice are maintained;

Data & Evaluation:

Work with your community and AWHWA staff to:

• Establish and maintain a community-wide quality By Name List that includes all unaccompanied young people experiencing homelessness in real-time;
• Collaborate with stakeholders across schools, homeless service providers, and city/county government agencies to ensure accurate data collection;
• Develop and instill a data-driven culture where real-time data is used to develop, test, implement, and spread changes to reduce the number of YYA experiencing homelessness;
• Submit monthly data and By Name List Scorecard results for ACI dashboards and coordinate responses to other surveys and requests;

Collaboration:

• Regular check-ins with the Lead Coach and AWHWA team;
• Regular check-ins with Anchor Community Team Lead and attend all Core/Community Team meetings;
• Participate in statewide collaboration on ending youth/young adult homelessness;
• Perform other duties as assigned.

We will consider exceptional candidates who demonstrate a strong combination of the specific qualifications and skills described below.

Who You Are

We recognize that no one person will have every quality and attribute that defines success for this position. Examples of professional and personal abilities or experiences a successful incumbent has, or can demonstrate the ability to obtain, include:

• Belief that preventing and ending YYA homelessness in Washington state is possible.
• Familiarity with local, state, and national issues related to youth and young adult homelessness, and/or knowledge of youth-serving systems and homelessness in general.
• Experience working with data and/or understanding of community By-Name Lists;
• Clear ability to assess the relative importance, urgency, and risks related to situations as they arise;
• Track record of skilled problem solving to make recommendations or decisions for action as appropriate;
• Demonstrated ability to organize, set priorities, monitor progress toward goals, and track details;
• Deep analysis of intersectional systems of oppression and ability to support others on their journey towards more liberated practice;
• Ability to manage multiple tasks and competing priorities in a fast-paced, dynamic team environment;
• Demonstrated willingness to shift between various responsibilities with diverse stakeholders;
• Exceptional verbal and written communication skills;
• Experienced facilitator/community convener;
• Expert Microsoft Office suite proficiency, including Word, Excel, Outlook, and PowerPoint.

 Preferred Qualifications

• Knowledge of Quality Improvement and how data and measurement can be used to drive improvements toward ending homelessness and measure impact;
• Efficient and self-motivated;
• Ability to communicate in a clear, concise and direct manner with various stakeholder groups;
• Demonstrated professionalism, good humor, patience, and the ability to handle stress;
• Experience with project management software, such as Trello or Asana;
• Experience applying collective impact, improvement science, user-centered design, or other large-scale problem-solving approaches.

Physical Demands/Work Environment

The physical demands described here are representative of those for this position. Reasonable accommodations will be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform the functions. Work is performed in an office environment and in close proximity to other workers.

While performing the duties of this position, the employee is required to:

• Handle, or feel objects, tools or controls;
• Reach; traverse; sit (usually for longer periods of time); occasionally ascend/descend; and position self (to) move;
• Occasionally lift and/or move up to 25 pounds;
• The noise level in the work environment is usually moderate;
• Job is not subject to significant occupational or environmental hazards;
• Likelihood of personal injury would be relatively slight;
• Environmental and work hazards are not present to a measurable degree.

Compensation and Benefits

Location: Work will be primarily performed hybrid/remote, must be based in Skagit County, WA.

Compensation: The starting salary range for this position is $61,800 - $74,675/yr. and is commensurate with experience. The full salary range if $61,800-$87,550/yr.

Benefits: This position is eligible for a full benefits package including:

• Generous Paid-Time-Off (PTO): twelve paid holidays, three weeks of vacation, one week of personal holiday, and ability to accrue up to 487.5 hours of health leave time for benefited staff.
• 80% Employer-paid, offering some $0 deductible Health Insurance through Harvard Pilgrim along with several low-deductible plans;
• Low-cost Guardian Dental and Vision.
• Flexible Spending Accounts (FSA) for Health and Dependent Care.
• Employer-paid Life, Long- and Short-Term Disability Insurance.
• Employer-paid Pension and Employee-paid 403b plan through TIAA.
• ...and more!

TSNE/AWHWA strives to achieve excellence through a diverse, equitable, and inclusive work environment that embraces all of our individual and collective differences. Black, Indigenous, People of Color, Middle Eastern and North African, Bilingual and/or Bicultural candidates, and LGBTQ2SIA+ candidates are strongly encouraged to apply. We value and honor the unique talents, learning styles, and lived experiences of each individual that enrich and strengthen our workplace culture, and we are proud to be an equal opportunity and affirmative action employer.

All employment conditions are based on an individual’s performance and job qualifications. TSNE/AWHWA prohibits discrimination and harassment of any kind based on race, creed, color, religion, native language, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity/expression, national origin, physical or mental disability, age, genetic information, veteran status, marital status, parental status, pregnancy, race-based hairstyles, or any other protected characteristic stated by federal and state law. Regardless of any class’ protection under the law or lack thereof, TSNE/AWHWA celebrates diversity and values the strengths that come with having a diverse team of employees. It is represented in our workplace culture, and it is who we are.

TSNE/AWHWA's EEO statement extends to volunteers, interns, contractors, vendors, and clients.