Position Status: Full time and at will. One (1) open position.
Closing Date: Position open until filled.
Salary & Benefits: Annual salary of $78-90K, based on experience; benefits include health insurance, dental plan, paid time off, and retirement plan.
Job Location: Most work hours will be spent in person at VineCorps multiple program sites, including our primary school partners:
- International High School at Largo (IHSLA) — 505 Largo Road, Largo, MD 20774 (VineCorps Marigold Center and afterschool site)
- International High School at Langley Park (IHSLP) — 5150 Annapolis Road, Bladensburg, MD 20710 (VineCorps Marigold Center and afterschool site)
- Shared community spaces in Cheverly, Maryland, and throughout Prince George’s County, along with periodic program outings and trips further afield.
Work Schedule: This position requires considerable time and schedule flexibility.
Schedules will be established seasonally based on community needs and program design. During the school year, “core hours” will generally be set between 10:00 a.m. – 7:30 p.m. Monday – Friday. Occasional “flex hours” earlier, later, and on weekends will be counterbalanced with hours off within the month to average as closely as possible to 40 hours per week. During summer, intensive all-day programming from the first week of July through the second week of August often requires hours beyond 40 hours per week, counterbalanced with time off in June and later August. Paid holidays include all federal holidays plus the Friday after Thanksgiving, the week between Christmas Eve and New Years Day, and one flex day for spring break/Easter/Ramadan/Passover.
About VineCorps:
VineCorps is a comprehensive positive youth development organization that builds community hubs of connection, action, and growth for teenagers and young adults (ages 14-24) in under-served areas of Prince George's County, Maryland. Working closely with youth who contend with challenging circumstances such as low household income, undocumented or uncertain immigration status, English language learning, first-generation college attainment, learning differences, prejudice and discrimination, VineCorps bridges opportunity gaps while promoting health and wellbeing by fostering learning communities of tailored activities, useful tools, and transformative experiences for young people to learn, grow, and thrive in school, at work, and in life.
Running year-round, weekly out-of-school time programming since 2011, VineCorps offers personally-tailored educational enrichment, academic support, mentoring, family assistance, service learning, outdoor adventure, pathways to high-quality youth employment, and other crucial life experiences beyond the classroom and workplace — all with relentless encouragement. VineCorps engages young people with numerous ways to come together, explore, contribute, own responsibility, make the most of good opportunities, take the right risks, work through setbacks, navigate transitions, heal and revitalize in community, and realize their own unique potential.
Through all our activities, VineCorps young people cultivate a radical sense of belonging by weaving their lives with connectedness, specifically: (1) close relationships with caring people, (2) active participation in community life, (3) exploration of identity, heritage, and purpose as a meaningful part of something larger than oneself, (4) openness to serious challenge, including discomfort and vulnerability, and (5) extensive networks of accessible support. Together, our youth build mutual support systems capable of meeting needs, overcoming obstacles, and achieving goals that they personally identify.
The signature programs this role will oversee include:
- VineCorps Marigold Centers for Wellbeing at International High School at Largo and International High School at Langley Park: providing welcoming safe space; programming and curricula focused on nurturing behavioral health and community life; participating with school staff on the student support team.
- VineCorps After-School Programing at International High School at Largo and International High School at Langley Park: educational enrichment, tutoring, and mentoring that provides academic, social-emotional, and community-building supports and post-graduation planning and preparation.
- VineCorps/UMD Co-Design Team: co-design experiences in research, community activities, civic engagement, and more, in collaboration with the University of Maryland iSchool Youth eXperience Lab.
- VineCorps Summer Leadership Adventures Program (SLA): intensive 7 full-time weeks of leadership development programming comprised of challenging service-learning projects and outdoor adventure activities that require substantial preparation, teamwork, and reflection.
- VineCorps Wellness & Outdoor Activities: nature-based immersive outdoor experiences that expose young people to adventure and healthy risk-taking
About the Role:
The Director of Programs & Community Life will lead a team of youth workers: two VineCorps Marigold SchoolSite Coordinators, one VineCorps Parent & Family Engagement Coordinator, two fulltime Community Youth Wellness Workers and two part-time Community Youth Wellness Workers (3-4 per school site) along with a cadre of program volunteers. The team’s mission is to run an in-depth suite of complementary programs designed to cultivate an engaging and enriching environment for teens and young adults by fostering caring, rooted, supportive community co-created with our young people and their families. The Director will supervise and coach this team in meeting the following central responsibilities:
- Design, plan, implement, facilitate, evaluate, and evolve all VineCorps programming and activities via a youth worker lens, which include an array of educational enrichment, academic assistance, behavioral health support, social-emotional learning, spiritual reflection and renewal, teambuilding, service learning, outdoor immersion and adventure, and family engagement.
- Ensure that all VineCorps personnel, community structures, and program activities adhere to holistic, person-centered approaches, positive youth development principles, healing and restorative best practices, caring accountability in all relationships, and reflective group discernment to guide all decision-making.
- Build and sustain meaningful relationships with staff, youth, and community partners. Effectively, consistently and thoughtfully supervise and coach a staff team with a wide range of ages and experiences towards their growth as youth workers. Be a caring adult, cheerleader, and supervisor to all youth and alumni who work with VineCorps and participate in programs.
- In all things, nurture authentic, intentional community with and for young people, creating places for youth to be known, be loved, belong, and to experience themselves as needed, as instrumental in the wellbeing of others and the world around them.
This role reports directly to the Co-Executive Directors, who will provide guidance, training, coaching, and support. The incumbent shall assume all inherent responsibilities and perform assigned and discerned duties with a high degree of independence, initiative, professionalism, creativity, and good judgment.
Essential Duties and Responsibilities include:
Developmental Relationships —
- Lead the VineCorps Programs Team in building and nurturing a trellis of meaningful, developmental relationships with, for, and among youth, promoting their wellbeing and growth through enthusiastic engagement, skilled listening, deep understanding, relentless encouragement, thoughtful challenges, and other endless opportunities to experience tangible love, all within appropriate relational boundaries.
- Lead effective work with teens and young adults (ages 14-24), having staff and volunteers get to know them well in simple interactions, provide an array of opportunities for them to learn and grow, practice caring accountability regarding specific commitments and goals they choose, and offer a wide variety of other transformative experiences, all while managing healthy relational expectations.
- Proactively motivate youth engagement by always modelling openness, curiosity, responsiveness, positive attitude, healthy belief in one another, and community.
- Work to notice, bridge, and heal any unhealthy social divides or interpersonal conflicts.
Program Delivery & Community Life —
- Lead VineCorps Programs Team in design, development, and implementation of all programs, curricula, program activities, and program events.
- Supervise program staff and volunteers, lead program-related meetings, and facilitate program activities and events alongside Programs Team members.
- Develop and supervise VineCorps Programs Team program and work schedules.
- Develop and monitor, with Co-Executive Directors, all aspects of annual program budget, including tracking, documenting, and reporting all program expenses.
- Ensure all program staff adhere to all administrative, fiscal, evaluation, compliance, and any other system requirements.
- Collaborate effectively and appreciatively with program-partner schools, organizations, and agencies.
- Supervise and support the VineCorps Parent & Family Engagement Coordinator in developing and implementing strategic approaches to involving families with VineCorps.
- Engage non-program VineCorps staff in program activity participation.
- Guide ongoing processes of teams forming, storming, norming, performing, and transforming, all with a cooperative and generous spirit.
- Mentor VineCorps staff and volunteers in their youth development, family support, and community formation roles.
- Ensure all VineCorps program efforts are geared toward growing and fostering wholesome and bounteous community life.
- Guide our VineCorps community in confronting problems, navigating differences, working through conflict, healing from hurt, and rebuilding broken trust.
- Integrate VineCorps’ various circles of community into a unified One Familia.
Program Evaluation —
- Lead VineCorps staff, participants, and partners in our ongoing iterative cycle of planning, execution, feedback, assessment, and evaluation to evolve and grow in ways that enhance student experience and improve program impact.
- Ensure VineCorps Programs Team follows all data collection and management protocols required by the VineCorps Administrative & Data Support Manager, Co-Executive Directors, funders, and compliance authorities.
VineCorps Leadership Team —
- Assume leadership role in overall navigation of the organization as a Leadership Team member alongside other VineCorps Directors, taking full responsibility for striving to make sure everything goes well.
- Contribute to organizational decision-making and fully back all organizational decisions.
- Participate in strategic planning.
- Discern and perform other related duties as needed or assigned.
Key Qualifications:
Qualifications include the following:
Experience —
- A demonstrably successful record of five (5) or more years of direct youth work and positive youth development work, including program design, implementation, and facilitation, required.
- Previous experience as a manager or director of programs for a community-based youth development organization, preferred.
- Familiarity with principles and theory undergirding holistic positive youth development practice and basic adolescent behavioral health concepts and frameworks, preferred.
- Personal experience as a youth participant in youth development programs, preferred.
- Comfortable with leading and supervising teams of adults and youth with diverse experiences and providing actionable direction in a fast-paced environment.
- Leadership experience in intensive team or intentional community environments that practice shared servant leadership, consensus decision-making, mutual caring accountability, and restorative routines as essential principles, preferred.
- Familiarity with Microsoft Outlook and Office Suite, preferred.
Qualities —
- Excited and energized to work with teenagers and young adults ages 14-24.
- Exceptionally open, curious, insightful, patient, and responsive while bringing great initiative, understanding, creativity, and determination to a collaborative, evolving environment.
- Communicative and charismatic disposition that others find energizing and inspiring.
- Excited and energized to lead a youth development program team, both giving and receiving coaching, training, and support, including regular check-ins and constructive feedback.
- Motivated and excited to build programs, systems, and structures from the ground up.
- Excited, energized, and able to lead outdoor programming, with direct guidance and support from Co-Executive Directors, including immersive and intensive experiences such as extended camping trips, long hikes, rock climbing, mountain biking, whitewater rafting, ocean kayaking, and more (experience in this area is preferred but not required).
- Openness to and interest in inward healing and restorative practices such as breathing exercises, awareness reflection, mindfulness meditation, and silence.
- Commitment to shared leadership, reflective group discernment, mutual accountability, social justice, antiracism, and nonviolent conflict resolution.
- A youth worker at heart, passionate belief in the value of positive youth development and committed community.
- Joy in building multicultural community, bridging entrenched divides, and playful fun on the job!
Skills —
- Excellent and intuitive interpersonal, communication, relationship-management, teambuilding, and leadership skills.
- Ability to establish and maintain effective working relationships with colleagues, youth, family members, school staff, community partners, and all other members of the VineCorps Familia.
- Ability, at all times, to maintain proper relational boundaries, manage appropriate relational expectations, and follow VineCorps and other operative institutional protocols with youth and families in ways that model healthy relationships for all.
- Entirely dependable meeting commitments, following through, and working independently.
- Ability to navigate ambiguity with proactivity and people-centered approaches.
- Highly organized, with strong time management and project management skills and sharp attention to detail.
- Adept capacity to identify problems, recognize opportunities, and creatively devise and apply practical solutions.
- Capable and willing to drive large vans full of kids, small trucks full of gear, and tow trailers, often for long distances and during demanding days.
- Proficiently or conversationally bilingual in Spanish and English is strongly preferred but not required.
Essentials — Being a full-time Director for a small community-based nonprofit organization providing intensive programming amid rapid growth requires some unique qualities. Chief among them is the capacity to experience more satisfaction and gratitude than stress and frustration in the “building the plane while flying it” sensation, which entails the following:
- Strong flexibility and high comfort level with ambiguity and uncertainty.
- Enjoyment in being a persistent learner and a jack-of-all-needed-trades generalist (and master of whichever few that circumstances most demand).
- Keen prioritizing and judgement, with a perspicacious sense of taking hold and letting go.
- Caring about the details that make the difference between good and great without letting the perfect become the enemy of the good.
- Enthusiastic desire to co-create and build out an organization primed to re-envision community and youth engagement.
- Being a “mission-driven” team player eager to figure it out and get the job done.
