The Lead Childcare Specialist provides advanced direct care, guidance, and leadership within a residential setting for children and adolescents. This role works closely with the treatment team to ensure residents' safety, well-being, and progress while serving as a mentor and resource to direct care staff. The Lead Childcare Specialist helps maintain a structured, trauma-informed environment, supports daily operations, and may assume leadership responsibilities during shifts as needed. Responsibilities include supervising residents, meeting their physical, emotional, educational, and medical needs, supporting behavior management and crisis intervention efforts, coordinating daily activities, assisting with staff training, and promoting a positive living environment. The Lead Childcare Specialist must demonstrate strong judgment, leadership, and communication skills while modeling professionalism and best practices in residential care. This position includes onsite shared living arrangements and requires employees to remain on campus during scheduled shifts. Residential services operate 24/7, including holidays and inclement weather. The role requires frequent standing, walking, and the ability to safely perform approved crisis intervention techniques when necessary.
Requirements
Benefits
Cal Farley's is an Equal Opportunity Employer.
The Organization
Founded in 1939 north of Amarillo in the Texas Panhandle, Boys Ranch, Founded by Cal Farley's is one of America's largest privately-funded child and family service organizations, specializing in residential services provided at no cost to the families of children in its care. Boys Ranch's residential programs offer a campus environment at the organization’s flagship campus where children live in homes or cottages, and basic-care services offer 24-hour supervision in a small, community setting where the residents attend school and have a myriad of academic, experiential learning, athletic and other extracurricular opportunities. Houseparent couples, caseworkers, other adult mentors and professionals guide the children to develop their potential and help them become principled, contributing members of society upon graduation or completion of their individual therapeutic plans.
Boys Ranch sits on about 12,000 acres in the rugged mesas northwest of Amarillo. Boys Ranch itself is a self-supporting community on a 1,000-acre footprint. Facilities on the property include barns, livestock and horse arenas; residence homes; a chapel; an independent school district with elementary, middle and high schools, a gymnasium, a natatorium and an auditorium; recreational installations such as a ropes course; a greenhouse; a fire department; and water treatment facility. While at first glance, the Boys Ranch campus might appear much like any other Texas Panhandle town, it is much more. Open to at-risk children ages 5 to 18, Boys Ranch is an entire community built intentionally to surround children from across the nation with nurturing support and structure, meeting the six essentials of Cal Farley’s Model of Leadership and Service®, those areas of need the organization believes every human being must satisfy to achieve his/her God-given potential: safety, belonging, achievement, power, purpose and adventure.
