Quality Crisis Specialist (Project/Program Manager III)

King County's Department of Community and Human Services (DCHS) provides equitable opportunities for people to be healthy, happy, and connected to community. We believe in working as one team that solves problems—striving to be customer-focused and drive for the best results. We envision a welcoming community that is racially just. We believe the field of human services exists to undo and mitigate unfair structures. We seek to lead the way by working as respectful and responsible stewards for our community.

The Behavioral Health and Recovery Division (BHRD) of DCHS is looking for a Crisis Specialist, Project/Program Manager III within the Quality team to help in monitoring and evaluating a countywide crisis continuum including a network of five crisis care centers. This position will hold direct responsibility for managing quality activities focused on the crisis system within the Behavioral Health and Recovery Division (BHRD). This may include working with internal and external partners to develop frameworks and strategies, monitor trends and evaluate for quality improvement across the crisis continuum of services, including but not limited to, provider and network performance, integration of system partners within the crisis system, as well as the expansion into Crisis Care Centers. 

King County voters approved a nine-year property tax Crisis Care Centers Levy in April 2023 to fund the Crisis Care Centers Initiative from 2024 to 2032. The Initiative will create a countywide network of five Crisis Care Centers, restore, and expand mental health residential treatment beds in the region, and invest in the recruitment and retention of the community behavioral health workforce. Crisis Care Centers are a type of behavioral health facility that will have three core components: a 24/7 Behavioral Health Urgent Care Clinic, a 23-hour Crisis Observation Unit, and a Crisis Stabilization Unit. Crisis Care Centers will use a “no-wrong door approach” and will endeavor to accept, at least for initial screening and triage, any person who seeks behavioral health crisis care. Crisis Care Centers will also be expected to provide a Post-Crisis Follow-Up Program to promote post-crisis stabilization for people who receive services at Crisis Care Centers.

The incumbent in this position will align all work with the mission of the Department's Equity and Social Justice strategic plan (i.e., to reinforce and embed equity and social justice principles into policies, practices, attitudes and actions that produce equitable access, opportunities, treatment, impacts and outcomes for all.