Clinical Team Lead

Clinician-Team Lead

The Clinician-Team Lead is a licensed, field-based clinician who provides direct crisis intervention and leads a small team along the CTA Blue Line between Forest Park and Austin. Working within a multidisciplinary model alongside WOVEN Clinics' psychiatry support and Mile Square Health Center's SUD services, this role is the clinical anchor of Street Samaritans' CTA outreach operation. The individuals encountered on this corridor reflect the compounding crises of failed systems: people seeking shelter in the transit system, individuals in active substance use or psychiatric decompensation, people with serious mental illness (SMI) who have fallen out of care, and people whose most pressing need is food, an ID, or a warm place to sit. Effective practice here demands clinical depth, harm reduction fluency, and the ability to build trust with people who have every reason not to trust. This is an intense, demanding, and deeply meaningful role. This position is funded through the CTA Innovation Crisis Intervention Pilot, a one year pilot program. While Street Samaritans is committed to the pilot's success and will pursue continuation funding, employment beyond the initial one year period is not guaranteed and will depend on the availability of future funding.

Key Responsibilities

Clinical Practice:

• Conduct field based crisis assessments using validated tools appropriate to the clinical presentation. Tool selection is situational, guided by clinical judgment in the field, and may draw from the following:
• Brief Psychiatric Rating Scale (BPRS): general psychiatric severity, particularly useful for psychosis presentations.
• PHQ-9: depression severity.
• GAD-7: anxiety severity.
• Columbia Suicide Severity Rating Scale (C-SSRS): suicide risk stratification.
• AUDIT: alcohol use screening.
• DAST-10: drug use screening.
• Behavioral Activity Rating Scale (BARS): single item observational agitation scale requiring no engagement from the individual being assessed; takes under a minute and maps directly to intervention decisions.
• Not every tool will be practical in every encounter; the team will develop a working sense of what is realistic once in the field. Training on these tools is provided by WOVEN Clinics and Mile Square Health Center as part of program onboarding.
• Provide direct crisis intervention — de-escalation, brief stabilization, risk stratification, and warm handoffs to higher levels of care.
• Serve as the primary escalation point to WOVEN Clinics' telepsychiatry team for high-acuity encounters.
• Apply harm reduction and motivational interviewing approaches with individuals not yet ready for formal services.
• Facilitate warm referrals to Mile Square Health Center (SUD treatment, methadone, pharmacy) and community partners.
• Maintain timely, accurate encounter documentation in program case management and tracking systems.

Team Leadership:

• Provide weekly individual supervision to two Crisis Intervention Specialists, including reflective practice and secondary trauma support.
• Model trauma-informed, dignity-centered engagement in real-time field situations.
• Lead daily huddles and post-encounter debriefs to maintain team cohesion and clinical quality.

Program Coordination:

• Receive and respond to rider-submitted reports via the IHDD dispatch system; direct team to appropriate train cars.
• Contribute to consent-based individual encounter profiles to support longitudinal follow-up.
• Participate in cross-partner coordination with WOVEN, MSHC, IHDD, and CTA as directed by the Program Manager.

Required Qualifications

• Master's degree in Social Work, Counseling, Psychology, or related clinical field.
• Active LCSW licensure in Illinois, or equivalent (LCPC, LMFT) at comparable scope of practice.
• Minimum 2 years post-licensure clinical experience, including at least 1 year in community-based or field/outreach settings.
• Demonstrated experience with crisis intervention, SMI, SUD, and/or co-occurring disorders.
• Experience supervising clinical or paraprofessional staff.
• Ability to work effectively in unstructured, physically demanding field environments.

Preferred Qualifications

• Knowledge of Chicago's Continuum of Care, Coordinated Entry System, and local housing/shelter resources.
• Formal motivational interviewing (MI) training.
• Experience in transit, emergency, mobile crisis, or other non-traditional clinical settings.
• Bilingual English/Spanish strongly preferred.
• Lived experience with homelessness, substance use, mental health challenges, or the criminal legal system.

Required Training

The following are required prior to or within 90 days of hire. Training costs and travel are covered by Street Samaritans.

• CPI Nonviolent Crisis Intervention® with Intermediate Physical Skills — may require travel.
• Mental Health First Aid.
• Narcan/naloxone administration certification.
• HIPAA.
• CTA 3 day in-person training.
• Other onboarding (as applicable).