Reports to: Community Casework Manager
Classification: Full-Time | Non-Exempt
Salary & Benefits: $66,000 to $72,000. The Center offers a competitive benefits package that includes medical, dental, vision, 401k with employer contribution, voluntary life, short-term, and long-term disability insurance, paid parental, family care, and gender affirming healthcare leave. We also offer a generous paid time off policy.
Schedule: Generally Monday through Friday. Work days and hours may shift depending on scheduling needs; typical schedule will be 10:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m.; flexibility required. This position is classified as a hybrid role with a minimum of 3 days onsite per week, including Tuesdays through Thursdays.
Summary: The Survivor Support Counselor provides trauma-informed, survivor-centered case management and short-term supportive counseling to LGBTQ+ individuals experiencing intimate partner violence, domestic violence, stalking, and related forms of harm. This role is part of The Center’s Community Casework team and works closely with the Intake Coordinator, Information & Referral team, and other Center Support programs to ensure survivors receive timely, coordinated, and culturally responsive services.
The Counselor supports survivors from initial engagement through stabilization and aftercare, assisting with safety planning, housing stability, benefits access, legal referrals, economic stability, and connection to community-based supports. This role applies a non-judgmental, client-led approach that centers survivor autonomy, confidentiality, dignity, and emotional stabilization within a non-residential service model.
Essential Duties and Responsibilities:
- Provide ongoing support, advocacy, referral, and case management services to domestic and intimate partner violence survivors.
- Conduct brief mental health screenings and functional assessments to support safety planning, crisis response, and short-term stabilization within a non-residential service model.
- Connect survivors to internal and external resources, including housing assistance, legal advocacy, public benefits, healthcare, mental health services, and economic support.
- Provide time-limited, trauma-informed supportive counseling to address immediate emotional distress related to domestic violence, intimate partner violence, stalking, and related trauma, within a non-clinical, community-based setting.
- Support survivors in identifying coping strategies, grounding techniques, and short-term goals that promote safety and emotional stabilization.
- Coordinate referrals to ongoing mental health and psychiatric services when longer-term or specialized care is indicated, supporting warm transitions, survivor consent, and continuity of care.
- Provide advocacy on behalf of survivors with city and state agencies, community-based organizations, and service providers when appropriate, while maintaining survivor consent and confidentiality.
- Participate in daily case huddles and weekly case conferences, engaging in collaborative, survivor-centered planning and coordination across the Community Casework team.
- Collaborate closely with the Intake Coordinator and Community Casework Manager to support timely follow-up on hotline calls, online submissions, referrals, and walk-ins.
- Work collaboratively with internal teams and external providers to ensure survivors’ mental health needs are addressed alongside housing, legal, medical, and economic support.
- Provide support to the Intake Coordinator by assisting with hotline coverage, including real-time triage and trauma-informed, client-centered responses as needed.
- Track and report service data for federal, state, and local funding requirements.
- Document case notes, service activities, referrals, and outcomes in Salesforce in accordance with grant, confidentiality, and data quality requirements.
- Participate in team meetings, training, and supervision, and support quality improvement by identifying resource gaps and emerging community needs.
- Other duties as assigned.
Position Requirements:
- Master’s degree in Social Work (MSW) required; LMSW licensure required.
- Two (2) to four (4) years of experience providing trauma-informed counseling, crisis intervention, or case management services to survivors of domestic violence, intimate partner violence, or related trauma.
- Spanish language proficiency strongly preferred; additional language skills a plus.
- Demonstrated ability to conduct brief mental health assessments and provide short-term supportive counseling in community-based or non-residential settings.
- Strong understanding of survivor-centered, trauma-informed, and anti-oppressive practice frameworks, particularly within LGBTQ+ communities.
- Ability to work effectively in a fast-paced, trauma-exposed environment while maintaining professional boundaries and clear scope of practice.
- Strong documentation skills and comfort using data systems to record case notes, service activities, and outcomes in accordance with confidentiality and funding requirements.
- Knowledge, understanding and experience working with LGBTQ+, TGNC, POC, and Immigrant populations, including knowledge of the spectrum of gender identity, transgender issues, immigration, and POC issues.
- Understanding of, and commitment to, undoing structural and institutional racism and bias and the spectrum of gender identity and bias. Consideration of the impacts and outcomes in decision-making processes and on underserved and historically oppressed communities.
- A strong commitment to social justice and the mission of The Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Community Center.
The Center’s Commitment to Equity & Inclusivity:
The Center was born of community activism in response to the AIDS epidemic, ensuring a place for LGBTQ people to access information, care, and support that they were not receiving elsewhere. We opened in 1983 to help people who had doors constantly closed in their faces, ostracized by family, friends, and shunned by the general society. Since that time, we have continually provided a wide array of services and programs to serve our community, with an intentional focus on providing support to those who are most vulnerable. We have always taken great care to be a space that responds to community needs; engaging in diversity, equity and inclusion work is another outgrowth of those ongoing efforts. We recognize that in order to help LGBTQ individuals and our diverse community achieve parity in health, justice, opportunity and success outcomes, our organization must hold a strong foundation and competency in, as well as invest organizational focus on, equity and inclusion frameworks, practices and policies. This is also true in our hiring and retention of staff.
The Center is an Equal Opportunity Employer.
