In November 1998, California voters passed Proposition 10, the California Children and Families Act, to ensure that our youngest children receive the best possible start. The proposition increased the tax on tobacco products to fund local initiatives that promote early child development, targeting children-from prenatal to age five-and their families. The First 5 San Francisco Children and Families Commission (First 5) is the public entity responsible for receiving and disbursing San Francisco’s Proposition 10 funds. Funds are intended to promote, support and improve early childhood development, health and family support through coordinated resources and programs.

First 5 oversees three large core initiatives for the city and county: the Early Care and Education Quality Rating and Improvement System, intended to assess and promote the quality of the city’s early care and education investments; the San Francisco Family Resource Center Initiative, which funds 26 Family Resource Centers to provide safe, welcoming spaces throughout the city where families can connect and learn together with their children and other families, as well as receive concrete supports when needed; and the San Francisco Help Me Grow Initiative, intended to promote universal developmental screening for early identification and intervention of special health care needs.

First 5 is a mission-driven organization with a dedicated staff of sixteen and is governed by a nine-member Commission, which includes experts in the fields of health, children’s services and early care and education, some of whom represent city agencies and the Board of Supervisors. Together, we seek to create lasting change for all children in our city through a culture of equity, passion, excellence, and strong partnership. Additional information can be found on our website: www.first5sf.org

The Children and Families Commission (CFC) is joining with other city departments focused on child and family well-being, to leverage new early childhood funding for even greater impact for San Francisco's children and families. CFC looks forward to building upon our success as we begin new partnerships and an ambitious new City plan to: ensure all young children, and those who care for them, will be healthy, valued, and thriving members of strong communities and equitable systems of care; able to reach their full potential and prepared for lifelong success. There is no better time than now to join the CFC family with collective hope and a renewed commitment to the city's children.

The 9774 Senior Community Development Specialist holds significant coordinating and monitoring responsibility over a variety of high-impact grant funded projects in one or more of the following areas: training and technical assistance, early childhood education, workforce development, and strategic communications. The position requires project management skills and frequent work with community-based non-profits that collectively reach thousands of young children and their caregivers each year, including: developing project scopes of work and budgets; monitoring use of funds and overall contract performance; troubleshooting daily operating issues; and supporting continuous quality improvement efforts. The position also requires creativity and forward-thinking to develop strategy, action plans, communication materials, and/or evaluation techniques that support the department’s mission and goals of child and family well-being and equitable, high-quality early childhood systems of care. 

Duties and Responsibilities

• Develop and coordinate the preparation of scopes of work and operating budgets of nonprofit corporations and city agencies receiving community development funds; prepare, review, and execute contracts for the disbursement of funds; prepares and processes all necessary documents and fiscal payments to funded agencies.
• Provide project management, oversight, monitoring, and performance evaluation on grants, contracts, and initiatives.
• Develop and manage funding processes, proposal review process, and proposal selection processes.
• Participate in program planning, resource allocation, and organizational development to identify, sustain and scale high impact early childhood initiatives for children and families.
• Conduct project, financial and budgetary analyses to ensure that funded grants, projects and initiatives stay within scope and cost and remain in alignment with departmental budgets.
• Mentor, support and facilitate consultation to grantees; as needed provide technical support to agencies interested in applying for community development funds.
• Collaborate with leadership and colleagues to develop strategy, action plans, communication materials, and/or evaluation techniques that support the department’s mission and goals of child-well being, policy and systems change, and equitable systems of care for children prenatal to five. 
• Coordinate meetings of stakeholders and partners for the purposes of providing direction on all matters related to project management, program development and performance.
• Conduct compliance activities, evaluation, and reporting for external grants received from local, state, and federal funding sources.
• Actively champion and advocate for inclusivity and racial equity in all work;
• Actively work against and challenge racism in all of its forms;
• Identify partners and innovative strategies to implement key initiatives and provide strategic direction for coordination opportunities between the department and other early childhood-related activities within the city, region, and state.
• Collaborate and oversee the work of external consultants as needed.
• Provide regular reports to senior level and executive management as needed.
• Oversee and manage subordinate personnel as needed.

Knowledge, Skills and Abilities

Ideal candidate will have knowledge of: child development; early childhood education; child health; issues facing families and young children age prenatal to five years old; technical assistance resources and approaches to support educators, providers, and programs; and the social service/non-profits sector, particularly those serving children, youth and families. The candidate should have an interest in children’s policy, a commitment to public interest issues, racial equity and social justice, and should have professional or lived experience ensuring they can work effectively with San Francisco’s diverse communities, funding agencies, other city departments, non-profit and/or neighborhood organizations and the populations they serve. Bi-lingual capacity is a plus.

Ideal Candidate will have ability to:

• Identify, gather and evaluate information from a variety of sources, formulate logical conclusions and develop effective courses of action and/or recommendations;
• Use computer applications, including e-mail, word processing, spreadsheets, databases and the internet to prepare correspondences, reports and other documentation, extract and process information and create and maintain records;
• Prepare clear accurate and well-organized reports, memos, and correspondence;
• Speak clearly and concisely in order to effectively express ideas and communicate work-related information to a variety of individuals and groups;
• Listen, ask appropriate questions and effectively elicit information;
•  Establish and maintain effective working relationships with staff, officials and the general public; prioritize and organize multiple assignments and projects;
• Exercise sound judgment and appropriately refer issues to managers;
• Ensure compliance with established policies and procedures;
• Facilitate attainment of established goals and objectives;

1. Possession of a baccalaureate degree from an accredited college or university AND three (3) years of administrative/professional experience in community development, housing development, workforce development, finance, education, social work, children/youth work, or criminal justice; OR

2. Possession of a baccalaureate degree from an accredited college or university with a major in one of the following fields: public or business administration, urban planning, government, social work, education, finance or criminal justice AND two (2) year of administrative/professional experience in community development, housing and/or housing development, workforce development, finance, education, social work, children/youth work, criminal justice; OR

3. Possession of a Master's degree from an accredited college or university in public policy, planning, social work, public administration, finance, education, criminal justice, or business administration; AND one (1) year of administrative/professional experience in community development, housing and /or housing development, workforce development, finance, education, social work, children/youth work, or criminal justice; OR

4. Possession of a Juris Doctor degree from an accredited college or university AND one (1) year of administrative/professional experience in community development, housing and/or housing development, workforce development, finance, education, social work, children/youth work, or criminal justice.

Substitution:

Verifiable administrative/professional experience involving community development, housing and/or housing development, workforce development, finance, education, social work, children/youth work, or criminal justice may substitute for the educational requirement in Minimum Qualification #1 on a year-for-year basis.

Two (2) Special Conditions:  24 months each

Professional experience performing monitoring, support, and assessment of programs and/or policy specifically for children pre-natal to five and their families

Children, Youth, and Families Work refers to experience with the development, implementation, monitoring, and support of programs and services that focus on strengthening families; early care and education; prevention and early intervention; health and wellbeing; youth workforce development and empowerment; out of school time; violence response and truancy prevention; and community building with a focus on children, youth, and their families.

Compensation: $98,930.00-$120,198.00

Filing Deadline: December 30, 2021 by 5:00 p.m.

All work experience, education, training and other information substantiating how you meet the minimum qualifications must be included on your application by the filing deadline. Information submitted after the filing deadline will not be considered in determining whether you meet the minimum qualifications. Applications completed improperly may be cause for ineligibility, disqualification or may lead to lower scores.

Questions: Please e-mail Lauren Taylor, Sr. Human Resources Consultant at [email protected] if you have questions about the application process. 

Selection Procedures:

Minimum Qualification Supplemental Questionnaire (Weight: Qualifying) - Candidates will be e-mailed a link to complete a Minimum Qualification Supplemental Questionnaire (MQSQ). This MQSQ is designed to obtain specific information regarding an applicant’s experience in relation to the Minimum Qualifications for this position as required for the minimum qualifications review. Applicants must also complete the official application. It is essential that applicants provide complete information in identifying their education, experience and training. The MQSQ will be used to evaluate if the applicant possesses the required minimum qualifications.

Candidates who send in a completed MQSQ by the provided deadline, and meet the minimum qualifications will be invited to participate in the Supplemental Questionnaire Evaluation.

Supplemental Questionnaire Evaluation (Weight: 100%) - Candidates who meet the Minimum Qualifications and will be emailed a Supplemental Questionnaire with 3 essay questions.  It is designed to measure the knowledge, skills and abilities required for this 9774 position. All candidates’ responses to the Supplemental Questionnaire are subject to verification. All relevant experience, education and/or training must be included in the responses in order to be reviewed in the rating process. Candidates must complete the Supplemental Questionnaire and it must be submitted by the provided deadline. Once submitted, applicant responses on the Supplemental Questionnaire cannot be changed.

A passing score on the Supplemental Questionnaire Evaluation must be achieved in order to be placed/ranked on the Score Report / Eligible List. Candidates will be placed on the Score Report / Eligible List in rank order according to their final score.

Certification - The certification rule for the eligible list resulting from this examination will be Rule of Ten (10) Scores. The hiring department may conduct additional selection processes prior to making final hiring decisions.

Eligible List - A confidential eligible list of applicant names that have passed the civil service examination process will be created, and used for certification purposes only. An examination score report will be established, so applicants can view the ranks, final scores and number of eligible candidates. Applicant information, including names of applicants on the eligible list, shall not be made public unless required by law. However, an eligible list shall be made available for public inspection, upon request, once the eligible list is exhausted or expired and referrals resolved. The eligible list/score report resulting from this civil service examination process is subject to change after adoption (e.g., as a result of appeals), as directed by the Human Resources Director or the Civil Service Commission.

The duration of the eligible list resulting from this examination process will be 12 months, and may be extended with the approval of the Human Resources Director.

Upon approval of the Human Resource Director (see Civil Service Rule 111A.26.5), the eligible list/score report resulting from this announcement may be used by other departments that also use this classification or a similar classification. To find other Departments which use this classification, please see here.

Additional Information Regarding Employment with the City and County of San Francisco:

• Information About The Hiring Process
• Conviction History
• Employee Benefits Overview  
• Equal Employment Opportunity 
• Disaster Service Worker
• ADA Accommodation
• Veterans Preference
• Right to Work
• Copies of Application Documents
• Diversity Statement

CONDITION OF EMPLOYMENT:  All City and County of San Francisco employees are required to be vaccinated against COVID-19 as a condition of employment.  For details on how it is applicable to your employment, please click here.

The City and County of San Francisco encourages women, minorities and persons with disabilities to apply. Applicants will be considered regardless of their sex, race, age, religion, color, national origin, ancestry, physical disability, mental disability, medical condition (associated with cancer, a history of cancer, or genetic characteristics), HIV/AIDS status, genetic information, marital status, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, gender expression, military and veteran status, or other protected category under the law.