Senior Program Manager (Closes 7/12/2026)

Job Description

Job Description

Salary: $90,000 Set Salary

The Office of Community Justice and Safety (OCJS) at the Allegheny County Department of Human Services (ACDHS) advances public health and community-centered approaches to safety through behavioral health crisis response, diversion, violence prevention, reentry, and systems coordination. OCJS works across healthcare, behavioral health, homeless services, jail, courts, public safety, and community partners to improve outcomes for individuals with complex needs and reduce unnecessary justice system involvement.

The Senior Program Manager (Crisis System Improvement and Street Stabilization) is a leadership role responsible for overseeing the Countys new Street Stabilization Team (SST) and supporting broader crisis system improvement efforts.

Approximately 5075% of the role will focus on operational leadership of the SST, a multidisciplinary street-based outreach pilot serving individuals with severe behavioral and other health needs and high crisis system utilization. The remaining time will support cross-system planning, implementation, stakeholder coordination, and system improvement work related to crisis response and community stabilization. These functions are envisioned as mutually reinforcing in that SST oversight will generate frontline insight into system gaps, while system improvement work can strengthen SST operations, sustainability, and impact.

The role will also support long-term SST sustainability planning, including collaboration with Allegheny Countys Behavioral Health Managed Care Organization, the ACDHS Office of Behavioral Health, and provider partners to develop sustainable funding and payment models. SST further serves as a test case for ACDHS consideration of whether select community-based direct services could be operated in-house.

The ideal candidate brings strong operational and clinical understanding of behavioral health and homelessness systems, experience leading complex cross-system initiatives, and the ability to translate frontline challenges into practical system improvements.

Street Stabilization Team Background

The Street Stabilization Team (SST) is a multidisciplinary outreach pilot serving a small cohort of individuals experiencing homelessness, serious mental illness, substance use disorders, and frequent behavioral health crisis system involvement. Participants often cycle through hospitals, crisis services, shelters, emergency response systems, and the criminal legal system without sustained engagement in care.

SST includes ACDHS social workers alongside a street psychiatrist from UPMC Western Psychiatric Hospital and a nurse from Allegheny Health Networks Center for Inclusion Health. The team uses harm reduction, trauma-informed, person-centered approaches to provide persistent outreach, engagement, care coordination, and clinical support in community settings.

Key Responsibilities

Street Stabilization Team Leadership and Oversight

• Provide operational oversight and supervision for SST, including direct supervision of social work staff and coordination with clinical partners.
• Oversee workflows, field operations, safety practices, documentation, referrals, and multidisciplinary case coordination.
• Support staff in delivering harm reduction, trauma-informed outreach, engagement, crisis intervention, and care coordination.
• Assist in addressing complex participant needs involving behavioral health, medical care, housing instability, hospitalization, and justice system involvement.
• Strengthen coordination across hospitals, behavioral health providers, homeless services, emergency responders, and other partners.
• Support pilot implementation, operational refinement, and sustainability planning, including development of billing and financing strategies.
• Collaborate with the Behavioral Health Managed Care Organization and ACDHS Office of Behavioral Health to develop sustainable payment models.
• Support assessment of ACDHS capacity to operate select community-based direct services internally.

Crisis System Improvement, Strategic Leadership, and Project Management

• Lead cross-system initiatives to improve behavioral health crisis prevention and response, diversion, and community stabilization, including identification and prioritization of system gaps and opportunities.
• Serve as OCJS lead for selected crisis response initiatives, including defining scope, setting agendas, driving workplans, and ensuring follow-through across stakeholders.
• Facilitate and manage cross-system implementation efforts involving healthcare systems, behavioral health providers, homeless services, emergency responders, and other partners.
• Translate system gaps into structured action plans, including clear priorities, roles, timelines, and deliverables across partners.
• Establish and maintain strong project management discipline across initiatives, including meeting design, agenda setting, documentation of decisions, assignment of action items, and follow-up to ensure completion.
• Monitor implementation progress and proactively hold internal and external partners accountable for agreed-upon actions, timelines, and commitments.
• Identify barriers to system integration across crisis and outreach services and drive resolution through structured problem-solving and stakeholder engagement.
• Ensure lessons learned from SST operations are systematically incorporated into crisis system design, policy, and implementation strategies.

Operational Learning and Implementation Support (SST + Crisis System)

• Use SST and broader crisis system operations as primary sources of implementation learning to improve practice, workflows, and system design.
• Identify recurring operational breakdowns (e.g., coordination gaps, handoffs, engagement barriers) and convert them into actionable improvements.
• Support development and refinement of implementation tools, workflows, and operational guides to improve consistency across partners.
• Track implementation progress and service patterns in partnership with ACDHS analysts, ensuring operational realities are clearly reflected in system improvement efforts.
• Produce clear, concise, action-oriented summaries for leadership and partners, emphasizing decisions made, outstanding issues, and required next steps.
• Support continuous improvement of cross-system coordination by ensuring feedback loops between frontline SST operations and system-level initiatives.

Stakeholder Engagement and Collaboration

• Build and maintain relationships across behavioral health, healthcare, homeless services, emergency response, law enforcement, and community partners.
• Serve as liaison between ACDHS and external partners supporting crisis response and SST.
• Facilitate cross-system meetings and implementation workgroups.
• Engage individuals with lived experience in system improvement efforts.
• Represent ACDHS/OCJS in countywide planning and external forums.

Required Qualifications

• Masters degree in social work, counseling, psychology, public health, nursing, healthcare administration, or related field preferred.
• Minimum 7 years of experience in behavioral health, crisis response, homelessness services, healthcare, or related systems.
• Experience supervising staff or leading complex cross-system initiatives.
• Strong understanding of behavioral health crisis systems, homelessness services, harm reduction, and trauma-informed care.
• Demonstrated ability to collaborate across healthcare, behavioral health, homeless services, and public systems.
• Strong operational problem-solving, communication, and organizational skills.
• Commitment to equity, inclusion, and stigma reduction.