Prevention Specialist

Prevention Specialist

ICF is currently seeking a Prevention Specialist to serve as part of a team designed to strengthen a prevention-oriented, compliance-focused culture across the Office of Refugee Resettlement's care provider network by aligning policy, expectations, training, communication, monitoring and continuous quality improvement. This project is part of our Prevention of Sexual Abuse project that conducts compliance audits and technical assistance for the Office of Refugee Resettlement provider community.

This is for a six-month duration with the opportunity for extension beyond the initial term, subject to project needs, funding, and organizational requirements.

The project will provide a team of prevention experts to collect and analyze data that will inform system improvements to create a culture of safety focused on preventing child abuse and neglect. Staff will be embedded in ORR's response team to understand serious incidents, monitoring and audit findings, and other qualitative and quantitative data as part of a quality planning cycle. The team will be responsible for assessing protocols, practices, and workforce of approximately 150 care provider programs as it relates to a culture and climate of safety and making recommendations for strategies and tools to improve safety and prevent child abuse and neglect.

Roles and Responsibilities

• Serve as the principal technical workforce conducting provider- and system-level assessment, data analysis, policy-to-practice translation, tool development, implementation support, and continuous improvement activities.
• Conduct structured assessments of care provider protocols, practices, workforce practices, and organizational culture and climate related to child safety and prevention of abuse and neglect.
• Review and analyze serious incident report information, monitoring findings, audit results, compliance information, risk indicators, provider performance data, and other qualitative and quantitative sources.
• Identify patterns, trends, systemic vulnerabilities, contributing factors, and promising practices across individual providers, groups of providers, and the broader care provider network.
• Conduct qualitative analyses of provider practices, organizational conditions, supervision approaches, workforce behaviors, and operational processes that may affect prevention culture.
• Support development and application of assessment methodologies, indicators, scoring approaches, interview protocols, review instruments, and other methods for evaluating safety culture and prevention practices.
• Translate PSA, clinical, child-safety, and related requirements into specific, actionable, and observable provider expectations, practice guidance, and implementation frameworks.
• Develop recommendations for addressing identified systemic risks and strengthening prevention practices at provider and network levels.
• Design and refine standardized prevention tools, templates, checklists, job aids, reporting mechanisms, and implementation resources.
• Develop content and technical inputs for prevention-focused training and communications addressing trauma-informed care, compliance expectations, and prevention principles.
• Support delivery of training, facilitated discussions, technical assistance, and other system-level implementation activities.
• Work with providers and ORR stakeholders to identify implementation barriers and develop practical approaches for incorporating prevention expectations into daily workflows, supervision structures, and operational processes.
• Support collection, aggregation, validation, and interpretation of provider performance and prevention-related data.
• Track implementation progress and corrective actions and assess whether prevention interventions are producing intended changes in practice.
• Prepare provider-level and system-level analyses, reports, briefing materials, recommendations, and decision-support products.
• Participate in quality-planning activities to move findings through a recurring identify → analyze → prioritize → intervene → monitor → improve cycle.
• Collaborate with clinical and programmatic SMEs to incorporate specialized expertise into system-level analyses.
• Facilitate working sessions with ORR offices, stakeholders, and provider representatives to promote consistent interpretation and application of prevention-focused practices.
• Identify opportunities to standardize practices and reduce unnecessary variation across the provider network.
• Document promising practices and lessons learned that can be scaled or incorporated into network-wide tools, guidance, training, and improvement strategies.
• Escalate significant or emerging systemic safety concerns to the Manager and support development of recommended ORR responses.

Basic Qualifications

• Minimum of 5 years' experience working with child welfare populations, including congregate care settings, to improve quality and safety
• Master's degree in social work or related field (bachelor's plus 10 years of relevant experience may be substituted for a master's degree)
• Minimum of 3 years' experience working with immigrating children and families
• Must be able to obtain and maintain a Public Trust Clearance.

Preferred Skills

• Knowledge of migrant/refugee issues, particularly related to children.
• Experience working for a refugee program.
• Prior work experience in a consulting environment.

Professional Skills

• Ability to promote and contribute to an equitable and inclusive organizational culture and environment.
• Solid team player with proven ability to manage competing priorities, perspectives and stakeholder needs.
• Excellent verbal, interpersonal and written communication skills.
• Demonstrated outstanding level of professionalism, including ability to exercise good judgment, discretion, tact and diplomacy.