Behavioral Health Lead Clinical Supervisor

Description

Behavioral Health Lead Clinical Supervisor

FLSA Status: Full-Time/Salaried/Exempt

Reports To: Chief Information Officer

Location: Hybrid

Position Summary

The Behavioral Health Lead Clinical Supervisor provides direct clinical services and clinical leadership for Growing Hope’s behavioral health work with children, youth, and families involved in child welfare, foster care, family preservation, transitional housing, and related social service systems. This position supports youth and families through individual, family, and group services, while also providing clinical consultation and guidance to behavioral health staff, contract therapists, RBHS workers, and interns.

This role is responsible for helping youth and families build stability, reduce risk, strengthen protective factors, and improve functioning across home, school, placement, and community settings. The Behavioral Health Lead Clinical Supervisor understands adolescent behavior through a trauma-informed, strengths-based, family systems, and behavioral health lens, including the ways trauma, placement disruption, substance use, family stress, emotional dysregulation, and environmental factors may contribute to behavioral and mental health needs.

In addition to providing direct services, this position supports the quality and consistency of daily behavioral health practice. The Behavioral Health Lead Clinical Supervisor provides enhanced clinical support for complex cases, consults with staff on behavioral interventions and service planning, supports transition and continuity-of-care planning, and provides in-the-moment coaching to help less experienced staff strengthen their clinical judgment, documentation, family engagement, and intervention skills.

This position plays an important role in ensuring that services are clinically appropriate, Medicaid-compliant, well-documented, and coordinated across internal programs and external partners. While the role includes support for program quality, documentation, and compliance, its primary focus is clinical service delivery, staff development, and the consistent use of trauma-informed, evidence-based, and family-centered practices that support positive outcomes for children, youth, and families.

Why This Role Matters

Children, youth, and families served by Growing Hope often face complex needs connected to trauma, family disruption, placement instability, behavioral challenges, system involvement, and gaps in coordinated care. They need behavioral health services that are clinically sound, compassionate, consistent, and connected to the people and systems already involved in their lives.

The Behavioral Health Lead Clinical Supervisor helps make that possible. This role provides direct clinical support to youth and families while also strengthening the practice of the staff and providers serving them. Through clinical consultation, coaching, service planning, documentation review, and collaboration across programs, this position helps ensure that children and families receive care that is thoughtful, timely, individualized, and grounded in dignity and hope.

This role is essential to building a behavioral health program that is both clinically strong and sustainable. By supporting staff, improving care coordination, strengthening Medicaid documentation, and modeling high-quality practice, the Behavioral Health Lead Clinical Supervisor helps Growing Hope expand access to behavioral health services while maintaining the quality and integrity families deserve.

Key Responsibilities

Direct Clinical Services & Case Support

• Provide direct clinical services to children, youth, and families, including individual therapy, family therapy, group services, crisis support, clinical consultation, and service planning as appropriate.
• Maintain a limited caseload as needed to support program needs, model clinical best practice, address service gaps, and remain closely connected to the realities of service delivery.
• Complete or support diagnostic assessments, treatment plans, individualized service plans, behavior modification plans, crisis stabilization and safety plans, transition plans, and discharge or continuity-of-care plans.
• Provide enhanced clinical support for complex cases involving trauma, placement instability, emotional dysregulation, aggression, substance use concerns, family conflict, school challenges, or other behavioral health needs.
• Assess youth and family strengths, risks, needs, protective factors, barriers to progress, and changes in functioning across home, school, placement, and community settings.
• Use trauma-informed, strengths-based, family-centered, systems-based, and behavioral approaches to support youth and family progress.
• Help youth and families understand behavior patterns, build coping and regulation skills, improve communication, strengthen relationships, and reduce risk.
• Support transition planning and continuity of care when youth move between placements, services, programs, providers, or levels of care.
• Document all direct services accurately and timely in the designated electronic record system and in accordance with Medicaid, agency, and payer standards.

Clinical Consultation & Behavioral Health Leadership

• Provide clinical consultation to behavioral health staff, contract therapists, RBHS workers, interns, and other staff supporting children and families.
• Consult with staff on behavioral interventions, treatment planning, family engagement, crisis response, safety planning, and coordination of care.
• Provide in-the-moment coaching to support the professional growth of less experienced clinical and behavioral health staff.
• Help staff understand youth behavior through a lens of trauma, development, family systems, attachment, behavioral health needs, substance use concerns, environmental stressors, and protective factors.
• Support staff in identifying appropriate interventions that lower risk, strengthen protective factors, and improve functioning.
• Assist with clinical decision-making in complex or high-risk situations, including when additional assessment, referral, escalation, or partner coordination is needed.
• Participate in case staffing, multidisciplinary meetings, care coordination meetings, and internal consultation meetings.
• Model calm, ethical, clinically sound decision-making in situations involving family stress, safety concerns, service barriers, or complex system dynamics.
• Promote consistent use of trauma-informed, evidence-based, culturally responsive, and family-centered practices across behavioral health services.

Service Planning, Documentation & Medicaid Compliance

• Support the development, review, and monitoring of clinical documentation, including assessments, treatment plans, behavior modification plans, progress notes, monthly summaries when applicable, safety plans, and transition plans.
• Ensure behavioral health services are clinically appropriate, medically necessary, clearly linked to identified needs, and documented in accordance with Medicaid, payer, state, and agency requirements.
• Review documentation for quality, timeliness, accuracy, service linkage, progress toward goals, and compliance with applicable standards.
• Help staff strengthen documentation so that records clearly reflect the child or family’s needs, interventions provided, response to services, progress, barriers, and next steps.
• Support authorization, reauthorization, and continued-stay processes by ensuring clinical documentation supports service need and medical necessity.
• Collaborate with billing, compliance, finance, program leadership, and the CIO to identify and address documentation or workflow issues that may affect Medicaid billing or service integrity.
• Assist with internal quality reviews, chart audits, documentation coaching, and corrective action when needed.
• Maintain knowledge of Medicaid expectations, South Carolina behavioral health requirements, MCO requirements, confidentiality standards, mandated reporting obligations, and agency policies.
• Support agency readiness for Medicaid, MCO, accreditation, contract, and internal compliance reviews.

Supervision & Staff Development

• Provide clinical supervision, consultation, and support to assigned behavioral health staff, contract clinical therapists, part-time RBHS workers, interns, or other team members.
• Support onboarding and training for new behavioral health staff and contractors.
• Orient staff to Growing Hope’s behavioral health model, child welfare context, Medicaid documentation expectations, family engagement practices, service coordination standards, and internal workflows.
• Provide coaching and feedback to improve clinical practice, documentation quality, family engagement, service planning, and intervention skills.
• Support staff in developing clinical formulations, treatment goals, behavior support strategies, crisis plans, and transition plans.
• Provide structured and informal opportunities for clinical learning, case consultation, and skill development.
• Assist with performance feedback, accountability, and professional development in coordination with leadership and HR as appropriate.
• Promote a professional, supportive, accountable team culture that balances clinical excellence, compliance, flexibility, and compassion.

Program Support & Cross-Functional Collaboration

• Work closely with the Chief Information Officer to strengthen behavioral health systems, documentation workflows, service tracking, dashboards, quality review tools, authorization processes, and compliance monitoring.
• Collaborate with internal programs, including foster care, family preservation, transitional housing, RBHS, family support, and other Growing Hope services to coordinate care for children and families.
• Support development and refinement of behavioral health policies, procedures, templates, training materials, clinical tools, and staff guidance.
• Help identify service gaps, workflow barriers, documentation issues, training needs, and opportunities to improve the quality and consistency of care.
• Support the growth of behavioral health services, including preparation for additional Medicaid MCO relationships, payer requirements, referral pathways, and service line development.
• Participate in planning related to staffing models, clinical capacity, service utilization, documentation quality, program outcomes, and compliance expectations.
• Represent Growing Hope professionally in meetings with referral sources, DSS, schools, Medicaid MCOs, community providers, courts, caregivers, and other partners.
• Promote effective communication between clinical providers, internal teams, families, and external partners while maintaining confidentiality and appropriate role boundaries.
• Coordinate with appropriate team members to ensure incidents, safety concerns, mandated reporting issues, and crisis situations are addressed, documented, and escalated according to agency policy.

Other

• Perform all other duties as assigned to support the mission, growth, quality, compliance, and success of Growing Hope’s behavioral health services.

Salary Description

$58,000 - $65,000 depending on experience, licensure, supervisory qualifications, and program needs.

Location and Work Environment

Growing Hope provides child welfare, social services, and behavioral health support to children, youth, and families across South Carolina. Services may be delivered in homes, schools, community settings, program offices, or through approved telehealth platforms when appropriate.

This position is hybrid, with a combination of remote work, in-person meetings, community-based services, staff supervision, and travel based on program needs. The role requires flexibility, strong communication, and the ability to support a growing behavioral health program in a dynamic child welfare and Medicaid-funded environment.

This is not a traditional 9-to-5 position. The Behavioral Health Lead Clinical Supervisor must be available to respond to staff, family, program, and clinical needs that may arise outside standard business hours. The position offers the opportunity to provide direct clinical support while helping shape a growing behavioral health program that serves children and families with compassion, quality, and accountability.

Equal Employment Opportunity Statement

Growing Hope is an Equal Opportunity Employer. We are committed to building a diverse team and strongly encourage applications from all backgrounds to apply. We do not discriminate based on race, religion, gender, age, national origin, disability, veteran status, or any other protected status.

Physical Demands and Work Environment

The physical demands described here are representative of those that must be met by an employee to successfully perform the essential functions of this position. Reasonable accommodation may be made to individuals with disabilities to perform these functions. Note: Neither this nor any other policy of the Agency creates a contractual commitment. This job description in no way states or implies that these are the only duties to be performed by the employee(s) of this position. All duties and responsibilities are essential functions and requirements and are subject to possible modification to reasonably accommodate individuals with disabilities. The requirements listed in this document are the minimum levels of knowledge, skills, or abilities. This document does not create an employment contract, implied or otherwise, other than an at will relationship. The company is a drug-free workplace and complies with ADA regulations as applicable.

Requirements

Minimum Qualifications

• Master’s degree in social work, counseling, marriage and family therapy, psychology, or a related behavioral health field required.
• Current independent clinical licensure in South Carolina required, such as:
• Licensed Independent Social Worker – Clinical Practice (LISW-CP)
• Licensed Professional Counselor (LPC)
• Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist (LMFT)
• Licensed Psycho-Educational Specialist (LPES), if applicable to assigned scope of work
• Other independently licensed behavioral health credential recognized under applicable state, payer, and agency requirements
• Licensure must meet applicable requirements to provide clinical supervision, sign clinical documentation, and support Medicaid-billable services within the assigned scope of work.
• Minimum of 3 years of post-graduate clinical experience working with children, adolescents, families, or vulnerable populations required.
• Experience with child welfare, foster care, family preservation, juvenile justice, community mental health, or Medicaid-funded behavioral health services strongly preferred.
• Minimum of 2 years of supervisory, lead clinical, program management, clinical consultation, or staff development experience preferred.
• Experience with Medicaid documentation, medical necessity, treatment planning, authorizations, compliance review, and audit readiness preferred.
• Demonstrated ability to provide direct clinical services while also supporting staff, documentation quality, and program development.
• Ability and willingness to carry a limited caseload or provide direct services as needed.

Knowledge & Skills

• Strong clinical knowledge of child and adolescent mental health, trauma-informed care, attachment, family systems, child welfare dynamics, behavioral intervention, crisis stabilization, and community-based service delivery.
• Ability to assess clinical needs, risk factors, protective factors, family strengths, safety concerns, service barriers, and progress toward treatment goals.
• Knowledge of Medicaid-funded behavioral health services, documentation standards, medical necessity, authorizations, service plans, and compliance expectations.
• Ability to develop, review, and monitor diagnostic assessments, treatment plans, behavior modification plans, psychosocial rehabilitative service documentation, family support documentation, safety plans, progress notes, and transition plans.
• Strong understanding of how trauma, substance use, family stress, placement instability, cognitive or developmental needs, and environmental factors may affect youth behavior and functioning.
• Ability to use strengths-based, systems-based, trauma-informed, cognitive behavioral, motivational interviewing, and behavioral approaches in clinical work.
• Strong supervision, coaching, training, and staff development skills.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills, including the ability to explain clinical needs, documentation concerns, compliance expectations, and service recommendations clearly and professionally.
• Ability to work collaboratively across clinical, operational, compliance, finance, billing, and program teams.
• Strong organizational skills and ability to manage competing priorities, documentation requirements, service needs, and staff support responsibilities.
• Ability to build respectful partnerships with youth, families, caregivers, staff, DSS, schools, MCOs, providers, and community partners.
• Comfort using electronic records, shared tracking tools, dashboards, Microsoft 365, and other technology systems to support service delivery and compliance.
• Sound clinical judgment, ethical decision-making, and ability to maintain appropriate professional boundaries.

Additional Requirements

• Valid driver’s license and reliable transportation required.
• Ability to travel within South Carolina as needed for direct services, meetings, staff support, family needs, program operations, or partner engagement.
• Flexibility to work evenings or weekends when needed to support families, staff, crisis response, or program operations.
• Successful completion of background checks, reference checks, and any required child welfare, Medicaid, payer, or agency screenings.
• Maintenance of active professional licensure, continuing education, and good standing with all applicable licensing boards.
• Commitment to confidentiality, mandated reporting, ethical practice, documentation integrity, and compliance with agency policies.
• Ability to function effectively under stress and model professional self-care, sound judgment, and calm leadership.
• Dedication to Growing Hope’s mission, vision, values, and commitment to serving children, youth, and families with dignity, respect, and hope.