Economic Security Manager

The Economic Security Manager provides day-to-day direct support services to residents of Pescadero, La Honda, Loma Mar and San Gregorio. The Economic Security Manager will be a primary point of contact for individuals and families who are eligible to receive services, including emergency food and housing assistance, health insurance and CalFresh enrollments, translations, phone calls, assistance with obtaining transportation; assistance with tax and immigration services, and referrals to other resources. This person is responsible for establishing and maintaining contact with a large number of community members, and for case management of families enrolled in numerous Puente Economic Security and health programs. The Economic Security Manager makes appointments, conducts surveys, keeps records and assists with the assessment of community needs. This person is also responsible for interfacing with community members to enhance participation in Puente activities. The Economic Security Manager provides oversight for a team of three Community Resource Navigators. The Program Director will provide general supervision and support for this position.

KEY RESPONSIBILITIES

• Provide direct services to program participants in areas outlined in the general summary.
• Assist applicants to successfully enroll/re-enroll into government sponsored health insurance programs.
• Assist program participants to successfully enroll in Puente’s seasonal economic programs (Backpacks, Diapers, Gift Cards, La Sala Posada, Car Seats)
• Assist program participants to obtain emergency housing and to assist with rental assistance applications and other programs or services that support the wellbeing of families and individuals.
• Provide follow up on all pending applications to ensure enrollment process is complete.
• Provide recruitment, case management and mentoring services to program participants by: confirming eligibility for numerous Puente and County programs, assessing participant strengths and needs; identifying and supporting the participant’s employment, educational and financial goals; and providing a connection to community resources to build a foundation for participant success.
• Supervise the Economic Security Team composed of three Community Resource Navigators.
• Liaison with the San Mateo County Benefit Analyst at Puente twice a month.
• Complete documentation of contact with program participants, landlords and other social services agencies and programs thoroughly and accurately as soon as possible following contact.
• Maintain current knowledge of and working relationships with community resources and social service providers. Attend interagency meetings as required.
• Submit monthly narrative, statistical, and grant reports; other reports as required. 
• Translate and interpret, use the knowledge of language, cultural practices and beliefs to help structure a participant plan of care and self-management that is culturally and linguistically appropriate, assist other program staff to provide culturally sensitive care.
• Communicate effectively in a manner that promotes trust and cooperation. 
• Participate in monitoring performance outcome measurements, participant satisfaction, and other assessments to measure the quality of care.
• Develop and maintain a database of services available with eligibility requirements program participant information.   
• Participate in planning discussions and meetings.  Assist in developing tactical plans to support outreach and enrollment goals. 
• Participate in outreach and community events, as needed.
• Prepare and submit daily/weekly productivity reports.
• Facilitate meetings to provide education, support and access to community resources, and when appropriate, leverage a team approach to address participant barriers and increase support systems. 
• Work with community resources, collaboration partners and stakeholders to identify gaps in services and seek to eliminate the same.
• Work with Program Director to identify program outcomes and outputs and report monthly on evaluation progress.
• Compile data and communicate information to collaboration partners, stakeholders and community members to engage new partners and sustain relationships and funding.
• Other duties as assigned.

KNOWLEDGE/SKILLS REQUIRED

• Familiarity with problems of the community population, including but not limited to lack of basic needs (food, clothing, etc.), immigration issues and the effect of poverty on emotional health and well-being.
• Ability to research appropriate community resources available for students and/or family members.
• Understand family and cultural values for different ethnic groups.
• Effectively conduct culturally appropriate group and individual meetings and interviews.
• Work collaboratively with colleagues and community members.

QUALIFICATIONS

• Bachelor’s degree in social work, human services, counseling or related field or relevant combination of education and experience.
• Experience in case management, providing direct services to program participants.
• Demonstrated excellent proficiency in translating English to Spanish and Spanish to English.
• Ability to organize tasks and people in an efficient manner. Must possess excellent verbal and written communication skills in English and Spanish.
• Willing to work a variety of extended hours, as necessary for position including evenings and some weekends.
• Must possess proficient skills of Microsoft Office products, including:  Word, Excel, Outlook, and PowerPoint. 
• Experience with web-based systems, One-e-App and Covered California portal
• Must be bondable
• Current California Driver’s License and ability to drive to work related functions in and around Pescadero, La Honda, Loma Mar and San Gregorio/Southern San Mateo County area.

To Apply:

Puente offers a competitive salary and benefits package. Please e-mail cover letter, resume and three references to Rita Mancera, Executive Director at rmancera@mypuente.org.

About Puente (Pescadero, California)

Since 1998, Puente de la Costa Sur (Puente) has worked to build a healthy, sustainable and inclusive South Coast Community. Its mission is to provide vital services for men, women, children and families living in the rural San Mateo South Coast communities of Pescadero, La Honda, Loma Mar, and San Gregorio, primarily farmworker and their families. Puente provides a single point of entry for men, women, and children to safety net services, health and wellness services, leadership development, and opportunities for community engagement and action. For more information, visit us at www.mypuente.org.

Download PDF job description here.

Humberto Amezcua said yes to everything the doctors suggested at Puente’s Stanford University-run medical clinic. Yes to a physical, yes to a full blood test panel, yes to flu shot. He lost access to medical coverage in June, and, although he is a legal resident, he doesn’t “even know right now how to get back on it again,” he says. “So I wanted to take advantage of the fact that there are free physicals.” He got everything he asked for at the clinic in November, including an appointment to regain his health coverage.

Patients like Amezcua are the reason Puente and Stanford wanted to collaborate on a free clinic pilot project, to use Puente’s medical clinic offices to serve the most underserved people in the South Coast community. On two Sundays so far – in October and November, and one to come in December – the clinic has been filled with white-coated physicians and skilled medical professionals from the Stanford Center for Innovation in Global Health.

“The idea is to work with patients who are uninsured explains Molly Wolfes, Puente’s Community Health Coordinator. Puente’s ongoing Thursday night clinic, a partnership with the San Mateo County’s Coastside Clinic, serves patients who have county-provided medical coverage or another form of health insurance.

The Sunday clinic has seen over 20 patients and the Thursday evening clinic, which has been running since July 2015 has seen more than 120 patients, for a total of 345 visits. Only 5-7 appointments are available every Thursday evening. But Puente is aware there are still community members who do not have health insurance despite aggressive efforts by Puente’s Promotores de Salud (community health workers) and Community Resource Navigators. Wolfes doesn’t know how many – that’s one thing the Sunday clinic may help ascertain.

“We are at the point in the Thursday clinic where we have more people wanting appointments than slots available. There is a greater need for more medical services,” says Wolfes.

Dr. Michele Barry wants to help the Sunday clinic become a permanent weekend resource in Pescadero. Dr. Barry, a professor of medicine and founder and director of the Stanford Center for Innovation in Global Health, has been leading the charge on the new pilot program.

“I think it’s an outrage that we live in the richest country in the world and that we don’t have adequate health care, even with Obamacare,” she says.

On November 6th, she joined an all-volunteer crew of residents, graduate and undergraduate students to staff the clinic. As patients arrived on a first-come, first-served basis, they sat down with bilingual interpreters from Stanford who interviewed them about their medical histories and helped funnel them into Puente economic security programs as needed – including referrals for county health coverage, mental health services and food stamps – all services available at Puente. Doctor’s assistants took their vitals. A lab manager handled their phlebotomies. One of three available physicians, either Dr. Barry or one of her residents, examined them.

During the clinic, Dr. Barry examined several patients who were overweight. “That’s indicative of a poor diet. Also, there was more diabetes than I was expecting.” These sorts of chronic conditions require regular medical attention, which is exactly what patients don’t have.

The model for the Puente pilot clinic is based on the Stanford Cardinal Free Clinics, which exist to address health disparities in underserved parts of San Mateo and Santa Clara counties. They are open to all underserved patients, regardless of immigration status.

Dr. Barry’s students are often bilingual and committed to spending their careers serving communities like Pescadero. By the time they graduate, many of them have already learned or worked in other countries, such as Ecuador.

Sarah Wachtel is a perfect example. The second-year resident grew up in Salinas, going to school with the children of farm workers. She has worked in Chile. She’s bilingual, and her dream is to use her Spanish and her medical training to serve patients in need.

“I think I can add a lot by making myself available. Well-funded clinics can function without us. But this,” she said – pointing to the Puente clinic – “literally wouldn’t work without volunteers, and it’s nice feeling that we’re a vital resource.”

If the clinic pilot project succeeds, Stanford will also be a vital resource for medical referrals that extend beyond Puente’s sphere. From ophthalmology to oncology, Stanford has a network of specialists that could change patients’ lives.

Ideally, Puente’s passionate team of Community Health Workers (Promotores de Salud) and Community Resource Navigators would eventually funnel most patients into Puente’s Thursday clinic by helping them qualify for county-provided medical care.

That would be extremely welcome to Amezcua, who relies on a dwindling cache of pills to help control his diabetes. Without a doctor, his supply will soon run out.

“I’m grateful for the fact that there are services for people who don’t have anything,” he says.

Although Puente has received significant financial support from San Mateo County Measure A funding, Kaiser, and Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital Stanford, more funding is needed to support our health initiatives. Donate to Puente today.

Can a summer internship change a young person’s life? That may not have been what a group of Pescadero students were expecting when they went to work at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, a brand-new internship opportunity through Puente’s summer youth program (formally known as the Puente Leadership Development and Employment Program).

Rafael Navarrete and Paola Flores are both students at Pescadero High with an interest in engineering – Navarrete, 15, has always wanted to be an electrical engineer (“anything with a plug,” as he puts it) and Flores, 16, is thinking about becoming a civil engineer. They both grew up in large families of modest means, and when they enter college, they will be the first of their families to get there.

Neither of them had heard of the Computer History Museum (CHM) or spent much time in Mountain View prior to the summer. But when Puente offered them the opportunity, they jumped at it.

Three days a week, Navarrete, Flores and two other Puente youth made the 3-hour roundtrip commute to the museum on a bus paid for by Puente. They spent the entire day on their feet working as gallery interpreters, interacting with museum guests, answering questions, demonstrating computer artifacts and offering historical context.

But first, they had to spend two weeks researching their gallery topics – for Flores, it was calculators; for Navarrete, mini-computers.

“I gained knowledge about computers that could help me in the future – how they started, how they work,” says Navarrete.

“I didn’t think it was going to be as fun as it was. I thought I was just going to learn, and I did, but it was fun to learn, which was good,” adds Flores.

Both students had to overcome their own shyness and fear of public speaking in order to approach museum-goers and ask if they wanted to know more about the artifacts in CHM’s exhibition. They also got to see and touch some extraordinary artifacts, including the top-secret German encryption machine known as ENIGMA; and they had a chance to play a game of PONG on a 1972 Atari Pong Prototype. They even played against one of the game’s designers when he visited the museum one day.

The new museum partnership is an example of how the Puente summer program is evolving. This summer drew 34 students, aged 14 to 21, to Puente’s youth program, which is now in its tenth year. Puente gives local youth paid job experience with a number of local programs and nonprofits like the Half Moon Bay Library, YMCA Camp Jones Gulch and the La Honda-Pescadero Unified School District Panther Camp. Some students intern inside Puente’s offices.

Lizeth Hernandez, Puente’s Education Director, says some young people have told her that they would enjoy doing internships that are more closely matched to their personal and professional interests. So that’s her next goal. “Let’s widen the partnerships we have so that students can apply to specific internships, as opposed to the internship program as a whole,” says Hernandez. “It’s about exposing them to incredible opportunities in the world outside of Pescadero, outside of Half Moon Bay.”

Maya Makker, Educator, Community Programs at the Computer History Museum, personally interviewed all four Puente youth before admitting them to the museum’s summer internship program. “We’re looking for students who have a genuine curiosity for the content here – if they’re not excited, they’re not going to convey that to the visitor,” she says. She was impressed with their performance and looks forward to seeing more Puente students next summer.

They were also the only bilingual Latino students in the program, which was unexpectedly helpful. “We get a lot of visitors who speak Spanish, and I would turn to them frequently to guide visitors through the museum. Even if it wasn’t an artifact they had studied, they were able to step up,” says Makker.

The Computer History Museum opened in its present building in Mountain View in 2002. Its signature exhibition, Revolution: The First 2000 Years of Computing, opened in 2011. It has more than 20 galleries, and that is where the students worked.

Flores is a whiz at math and can work complex math problems in her head. She is already taking calculus at Cañada College this year, even though she is still a high school senior. Navarrete likes to take things apart and put them back together again – bikes, toys, machines, car parts.

Both students emerged with an even stronger interest in STEM, which stands for science, technology, engineering and math. “So now I’m thinking, maybe we can get them an internship in an engineering lab at a university or at a firm – to get our students that hands-on experience of what it’s like to connect a circuit board, or how to build robots,” says Puente’s Hernandez.

Several other Puente youth got hands-on experience this summer. One young man had an automotive internship working at a garage in San Mateo, fixing cars and learning how to run a business. Another student worked in a dentist’s office to explore a career interest in becoming a dental hygienist.

And there’s more to come. Hernandez is already investigating the possibility of a partnership with the Half Moon Bay Review for students who want to flex their writing skills. There is also some interest in photography, video graphics programming and fashion design. “Our students have such a broad range of interests, and I’m extremely hopeful I can catch most of them,” says Hernandez.

College is on the horizon for Navarrete and Flores – especially Flores, who is about to apply to several of them. Cornell University is her first choice. Her summer at the museum gave her a dose of clarity about her future. “I wanted to know if I wanted to work in technology in the future. I wasn’t sure if I did. I kind of wanted to do civil engineering. I still find it interesting, but civil engineering, I like that more,” she says.

Navarrete’s summer internship expanded his whole world. “After the summer was over I realized there were more possibilities of engineering that I liked. Now I’m considering becoming an aeronautical engineer.” He could see himself working for Boeing, Google or Tesla, building next-generation airplanes, self-driving cars or rocket ships. His dream internship is with Google X, Google’s so-called “moonshot factory.”

When he thinks about it, there’s nothing he can’t do. “I’ve got a lot of choices,” he says.

This program is sponsored by the Sobrato Family Foundation, Philanthropic Ventures Foundation, Wells Fargo, and many individual donors.

To support this program for the 2017 summer cohort, donate today.