Senior Director, Direct Services

Think of Us · Washington · $150,000–$180,000 (stated in the posting)

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About Think of Us

Think of Us (TOU) is transforming the child welfare system into one where young people and families can heal, develop, and thrive. We drive purpose-driven work aligned with meaningful systems change, powered by data and the insights of lived experience. Our focus is on prevention, keeping families strong before crisis, and on building kinship-first systems so children grow up with people they know and trust. Through bold collaborations with leaders and innovators across the public and private sectors — from Presidential Administrations to local providers — we identify leverage points and co-create solutions that re-architect child welfare for the future.

Here’s what this looks like:

• Built the Lived Experience Engine into the largest dataset of its kind (51,000+ voices), powering AI tools and shaping reforms
• Partnered with California to launch the Kinship Accelerator in 8 counties, backed by $150M and a budget increase from $317M → $896M
• Drove a national kin-first shift: 39 states (plus 5 tribes) adopting kinship standards, unlocking $3B for families
• Operate one of the largest direct resource networks, connecting 1,827 families to $28M+ in support 

Our team members share a commitment to driving systems change through creative problem-solving, obsessive curiosity, and a love of quickly driving innovative, measurable, and impactful results. 

Position Overview

Department: Programs & Services - Direct Services 

Reports to: Executive in Residence 

Direct Reports: Senior Manager, Care Navigation; Senior Manager, Beta Team

Location: Hybrid; Washington, DC (min. 3 days in the office) 

Relocation assistance is available for eligible candidates and will be 

provided based on organizational guidelines and approved eligibility criteria. 

Category: Full Time; Exempt 

Think of Us (TOU) is seeking a mission-driven, operationally strong senior leader to serve as Senior Director of Direct Services — providing programmatic and operational oversight of TOU’s direct services work across two complementary teams: the Care Navigation team serving kinship families, foster youth, and transition-age youth (TAY) in California, and the Beta Team advancing digital resource navigation in Texas Region 7. 

This is a cross-functional leadership role that sits at the intersection of direct service delivery, operational management, and systems innovation. The Senior Director will ensure both teams are delivering high-quality, lived-experience-centered support while building the infrastructure, practice standards, and learning systems needed to sustain and scale TOU’s direct service model. The Senior Director will directly supervise the Senior Manager of Care Navigation and the Senior Manager of the Beta Team, creating alignment across both programs while honoring the distinct contexts and goals of each. 

At Think of Us, direct service is not separate from systems change — it is systems change in action. The Senior Director of Care Navigation holds the vision that every family and young person served is both supported in the moment and contributing to the evidence base that transforms child welfare at scale. 

Candidates must be based in Washington, DC and able to meet the hybrid requirements (minimum 3 days per week in office) of this role in order to be fully considered. 

Key Responsibilities

Senior Leadership & Team Oversight

• Provide direct supervisory oversight of the Senior Manager of Care Navigation (California) and the Senior Manager of the Beta Team (Texas), ensuring both leaders have the clarity, coaching, and support needed to lead their respective teams effectively. 
• Set and sustain a shared leadership culture across both teams that centers lived experience, trauma-informed practice, unconditional positive regard, and continuous learning. 
• Hold programmatic accountability for service quality, team performance, and outcome achievement across Care Navigation and Beta Team operations. 
• Create alignment between the two teams — identifying opportunities for shared learning, cross-pollination of practice insights, and coordination without collapsing the distinct purposes of each model. 
• Partner with the Executive in Residence to translate frontline learning and operational insights into organizational strategy and senior leadership decision-making. 
• Represent the direct services portfolio in cross-functional leadership conversations, ensuring the voice of families, youth, and frontline staff informs TOU’s broader systems change agenda. 

Programmatic Oversight — Care Navigation (California)

• Provide strategic and programmatic oversight of TOU’s Care Navigation model in California, ensuring the delivery of whole-person, relationship-centered support to kinship families, foster youth, and transition-age youth. 
• Ensure the Care Navigation model is implemented with fidelity to TOU’s values — centering lived experience as a core design and accountability mechanism throughout service delivery. 
• Support the Senior Manager of Care Navigation in building and sustaining a team of Care Navigators who deliver proactive, system-navigating support rather than transactional referrals. 
• Monitor program performance against key outcomes, using data and qualitative learning to identify practice trends, gaps, and opportunities for model refinement. 
• Ensure compensation structures, engagement protocols, and participation supports for people with lived expertise are equitable, accessible, and consistently implemented across the California program. 

Programmatic Oversight — Beta Team (Texas)

• Provide strategic and operational oversight of TOU’s digital resource navigation model in Texas Region 7, ensuring service quality and the integrity of the navigation model as it evolves. 
• Support the Senior Manager of the Beta Team in managing day-to-day operations, coaching Beta Community Responders, and maintaining the human-centered quality of support delivered to TAY and kinship caregivers. 
• Ensure frontline learning from the Texas Beta Team is systematically captured, synthesized, and fed into TOU’s broader program design and strategy. 
• Serve as a senior liaison between the Beta Team’s operational realities and TOU’s design, data, and engineering functions, ensuring staff insights shape tool and workflow development. 
• Monitor the Texas program’s KPIs and ensure the Beta Team’s work is contributing meaningfully to TOU’s national learning agenda on human-AI collaboration in direct service delivery. 

Operations, Infrastructure & Quality

• Build and maintain the operational infrastructure — workflows, protocols, quality standards, and accountability mechanisms — needed for both teams to function with consistency, efficiency, and integrity. 
• Establish shared performance frameworks across Care Navigation and Beta Team operations, with clear KPIs for responsiveness, engagement, lived experience integration, and outcome achievement. 
• Lead cross-team learning and knowledge management processes that ensure insights from both programs inform each other and contribute to organizational learning. 
• Oversee resource allocation, staffing, and workflow planning across both teams in coordination with the Senior Managers, ensuring sustainable coverage and team well-being. 
• Ensure adherence to quality standards, service protocols, data privacy requirements, and ethical guidelines across all user interactions and programmatic activities. 
• Identify and address operational risks, practice gaps, and capacity constraints proactively, escalating to the Executive in Residence as appropriate. 

Data, Learning & Strategy

• Oversee data collection, reporting, and measurement across both direct service teams, ensuring accuracy, consistency, privacy, and alignment with TOU’s organizational learning agenda. 
• Partner with TOU’s data and design teams to analyze trends across both programs, synthesize cross-team learnings, and generate insights that inform program strategy and system change. 
• Generate senior-level learning briefs, program reports, and strategic recommendations that communicate what is working, what needs adaptation, and what is next for TOU’s direct service model. 
• Contribute to funder reporting, grant deliverables, and external communications related to Care Navigation and Beta Team outcomes. 
• Ensure both programs are building the evidence base — through rigorous documentation and learning practices — that supports TOU’s broader advocacy and systems change goals. 

Partnerships & External Engagement

• Cultivate and maintain relationships with government agencies, community-based organizations, philanthropy partners, and other stakeholders connected to TOU’s direct service work in California and Texas. 
• Represent TOU’s direct services model in external convenings, partner meetings, and cross-sector learning spaces. 
• Surface insights about access barriers, resource gaps, and systemic patterns from both programs to inform TOU’s policy and advocacy work. 
• Support the communication and outreach of both the Care Navigation and Beta Team models across providers, partners, and key stakeholders in relevant regions. 

About You

We recognize that candidates may not meet every listed qualification. Research shows that individuals from underrepresented groups are more likely to opt out of applying if they don’t meet 100% of the criteria. If you believe you meet many of the criteria and can succeed in this role, we encourage you to apply — we want to learn about your unique strengths and experiences.

Qualifications:

• You bring 8–12 years of progressive experience in child welfare, social services, human-centered direct service programs, or related fields, including at least 3–4 years of senior program leadership experience overseeing multiple teams, programs, or geographies. 
• You bring personal or professional experience with the child welfare system or other social impact work, and carry a deep commitment to Think of Us’ mission to build a Child and Family Well-Being System centered on healing, development, and thriving. You approach this work with humility, curiosity, and a willingness to grow alongside the communities we serve. 
• You are a senior leader who creates trust, accountability, and shared purpose across diverse teams and geographies — equally comfortable setting strategic direction and rolling up your sleeves to solve operational challenges. 
• You are an experienced people leader who develops other managers, not just individual contributors. You know how to coach leaders, not just staff, and you build the conditions for strong management practice throughout the teams you oversee. 
• You are a strong communicator who models Unconditional Positive Regard and trauma-informed care in all interactions and expectations. You understand systemic inequities and are committed to building fair, healing-centered systems. 
• You are a strategic thinker who connects frontline practice to data insights, organizational learning, and system transformation — and who can translate operational realities into senior leadership recommendations. 
• You thrive in complex, multi-program environments and bring clarity, composure, and a solutions-oriented mindset to ambiguity and rapid change. 
• You have working familiarity with AI-assisted tools and human-technology collaboration in service delivery, and bring an active learning orientation to how emerging tools can strengthen the work. 
• You are bilingual in Spanish (preferred) and understand language access as a core equity commitment across both programs. 
• You are willing and able to meet the hybrid working requirements of this role. 
• You bring experience working with or alongside systems that impact youth and families — or you’re deeply committed to learning about these systems and approaching the work with humility, curiosity, and care.
• You’re motivated by impact and systems change. You thrive in a fast-growing, evolving organization and see change as an opportunity to innovate, learn, and make things better.
• You actively explore and apply AI tools to make your work more effective — using them thoughtfully to increase efficiency, improve insight, and support sound, human-centered decision-making.

Education & Training:

• Bachelor’s degree in social work, counseling, human services, public policy, or related field required. 
• Master’s degree in Social Work (MSW), Public Administration, or related field strongly preferred. 
• Significant senior leadership experience in lieu of advanced degree will be considered. 

Compensation & Benefits

At TOU, we believe that taking care of our people is foundational to the impact we aim to make. Our compensation philosophy is rooted in transparency and a holistic understanding of people’s needs. We believe fair, market-competitive pay is essential to attracting and retaining the exceptional talent needed to achieve our ambitious goals. As a not-for-profit organization, we design our compensation packages—including both salary and benefits—with care and in alignment with our financial sustainability. 

The annual salary for this role is $150,000–$180,000. Starting salaries for new hires will be determined based on a combination of the new hire’s relevant experience and market demands.

TOU’S benefits go beyond the basics. They’re designed to support your well-being, growth, and sense of purpose at work and beyond. From comprehensive health coverage to professional development support and meaningful time off, our benefits reflect our commitment to nurturing a workplace where people can thrive, both personally and professionally.

Health & Insurance

• 100% employer-paid medical, dental, and vision coverage for employees; 50% for dependents.
• Access to Talkspace for confidential therapy and mental health support.
• Short-Term Disability, Life, and AD&D Insurance included.
• Optional Long-Term Disability and Supplemental Life Insurance.
• Health Care and Dependent Care FSAs available.

Financial Benefits

• 401(k) Plan for pre-tax retirement contributions.
• Work-from-home setup stipend to optimize your workspace.

Paid Time Off

• Flexible PTO policy, plus sick leave and paid leaves of absence.
• 8 company holidays, plus two organization-wide seasonal breaks.

Learning & Development

• TOU values continuous learning and invests in the professional development of its employees in alignment with organizational needs based on role, performance, business needs, and Company policies.
• Regular organization-wide learning sessions on relevant and reflective topics.

Application Instructions 

As part of your application,  please submit a resume outlining your skills and experiences relevant to this role.

Please note: We do not accept phone inquiries about this position in order to ensure a fair and consistent hiring process for all applicants. 
Equal Opportunity Statement

Think of Us is an Equal Opportunity Employer. We welcome and value applicants of all backgrounds, knowing that diverse perspectives strengthen our work with children, youth, and families. All qualified candidates will receive consideration without regard to race, color, religion, sex (including pregnancy, sexual orientation, or gender identity), national origin, age, disability, veteran status, or any other status protected by law. We provide reasonable accommodations for individuals with disabilities and for applicants’ religious practices as required by law.

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