Social Service Specialist Job Description

Why I Chose This Career

I’m a placement specialist for a refugee foster care program. I picked this role for a lot of reasons. I care a lot about refugee causes and wanting to help people in my community and learning about people from all over the world and I love working with youth and youth children. I originally started out and actually as an outreach coordinator in this program. So I was out in the field cold calling, tabling,  giving presentations, trying to recruit a new foster family. 

Average Workday

I work mostly from home with occasional either in the field or going into the office. But a lot of my work is at home. I do a lot of sort of interfacing messaging, kind of a liaison between government body and our foster families and our team. Sometimes I have to work evenings, even weekends to deliver certification classes and other sorts of sort things to our current parents or prospective parents. 

Pros of This Career

It's work that's really meaningful. It's work that you can, you know, if there's a cause you care about you feel like you're really contributing to something that they're passionate about and that your work has been coming which can be a big motivator. I think the people that are drawn to work like this are wonderful people. It's very collaborative. Everyone wants to come together to find the best solutions and support for the client that they're working with. 

Cons of This Career

It can be some really tough stuff that comes up that we talk about and that we are either witness to or learn about things that youth have been through and just hardships taking place in the world. That can be a really real thing that that can weigh that can be and of course there's techniques to cope with that and lean on your team for support. But it's a real thing to consider. And unfortunately, really non-profit world and kind of that more social sector, the money is not the reason to do it. 

Tips for Getting Into This Career

Volunteering is a great way to get involved and learn about the work, see it up close, learn about the team,  and really get a feel for it. So that's helped me a lot. Having experience whether it's in your personal life, your family maybe, or through work where you're in a very diverse setting with people from all different cultural backgrounds. It's very important to have that, to do this work well. You will be interfacing whether it's with other staff members, with the youth and clients, with people from all over the world, language barriers, all of that. There's a lot of ways that you can get that experience. Working in schools, you'll meet a lot of kids with all kinds of backgrounds from there as well. There's a lot of lots to have work with the population, but that's also a very helpful experience if trying to get into this field.