Site Lead - South Carolina

Foster America believes that, together, we can transform family-serving systems that today fall short of providing parents and children with the support they need and deserve. Every day, in communities across the nation, Foster America works alongside bold, innovative leaders in pursuit of a reality where: 

• Parents facing hardship know where to go for help – and the resources to help them raise their children are plentiful and provided equitably. 
• Child welfare systems are far smaller and placing children in foster care is incredibly rare, so families are free from unnecessary and harmful involvement in the child welfare system.
• All children and families can thrive in safe and supportive communities that sustain their wellbeing.

In pursuit of that future, Foster America is: 

• Working with those who have experienced the child welfare system firsthand, so they can lead the way in creating its replacement. 
• Accelerating transformation by building capacity in places that are ripe for change, through dedicating our team to advance local efforts and by developing the skills of local leaders.

• Testing, refining, and scaling transformative new approaches to caring for families.

Role Purpose

The Site Lead serves as Foster America's primary, on-the-ground coordinator in South Carolina orchestrating the collective work and communication of diverse local and national partners to advance implementation of an innovative initiative designed to create meaningful alternatives to support families in their communities and avoid formal child welfare systems involvement. This role requires an exceptional systems thinker with strong organizational and relationship building skills to see across organizational boundaries, build trust among stakeholders with different roles and perspectives, and translate strategic goals into action. This is a hands-on, day-to-day coordination role — the person who ensures that the right people are talking, the right materials exist, and the right decisions get made on time.

The Site Lead will be a “backbone leader” for South Carolina’s implementation of OPT-In. Foster America is one of three technical assistance partners, working in partnership with the Doris Duke Foundation, the South Carolina Department of Social Services, and three South Carolinian communities around Richland, Orangeburg, and Aiken Counties. Together, we are building community pathways, in which families referred to child welfare but for whom abuse and neglect are not present can instead receive voluntary connection and support, including economic assistance. As the initiative begins its first full year of operation, the Site Lead is accountable to two animating goals: that families and communities are genuine partners, truly engaging with new approaches being offered, and that implementation is continuously improving.

To reach these goals, we seek a Site Lead who is an influential service-leader. The ideal candidate creates lasting impact through preparation, facilitation, partnership, and strategic communication. Success in the role means holding complexity, managing competing priorities and viewpoints diplomatically, creating the conditions for effective collaboration, and developing project materials that bring clarity and propel coordinated actions by diverse project partners. 

Responsibilities

Site Leadership & Backbone Coordination

Maintain the “pulse” of South Carolina's OPT-In implementation — maintaining comprehensive visibility across all workstreams and ensuring that activities, partners, and priorities stay sequenced and on track.

• Develop and maintain integrated work plans that track activities, identify dependencies, and surface bottlenecks before they become problems
• Design agendas, prepare materials, facilitate sessions, and drive follow-through for site Advisory Groups, Steering Committees, and a host action-oriented initiative meetings
• Partner with jurisdiction partners and technical assistance teams to host Community of Practice sessions as well as other initiative meetings into high-impact learning spaces for site practitioners and partners as they continue to strengthen results for families

Communication & Material Creation

Produce materials that keep a multi-partner initiative coherent and effective — making complex matters clear and ensuring the right information reaches the right people at the right time.

• Develop agendas, meeting summaries, briefings, memos, and presentations that are clear, accurate, and actionable for both local and national audiences
• Serve as a communication bridge across diverse partners — translating between perspectives and surfacing what needs to be understood and acted on by whom
• Across local, national, funder, policy, and family audiences, elevate narratives about South Carolina's progress and learning on creating meaningful alternatives to supporting families while avoiding formal child welfare systems involvement 

Initiative Management & Integration

Maintain end-to-end visibility across OPT-In's core components — keeping implementation strong, resources well-deployed, and the perspectives of those with lived experience of child welfare central to how the work is designed and refined.

• Stay close to the implementation of service navigation and support delivery — tracking progress, troubleshooting alongside partners, and supporting continuous improvement
• Coordinate the deployment and impact-reporting on flexible economic resources to families in close partnership with local and national partners
• Champion the integration of lived experience perspectives into program design and decision-making, ensuring it shapes and refines the work

Partnership, Influence & Systems Alignment

Build and sustain the relationships that make systems change possible — working through influence rather than authority, across organizational boundaries, to cultivate trust, develop local capacity, and connect South Carolina's work to the broader national initiative.

• Cultivate authentic partnerships with South Carolina DSS leadership, community organizations, lived experts, and national partners — practicing cultural humility and building trust across difference
• Prepare local leaders navigating key meetings, decisions, and communications — providing thought partnership, coordination and context that sharpens their impact
• Collaborate with Think of Us to ensure lived experts are authentically engaged and that advisory structures are sustained over time
• Connect South Carolina's work to national initiative structures and to the broader landscape of family strengthening and child welfare prevention work across the state

Learning, Data & Sustainability

Bridge what the initiative is learning to opportunities for improvement — employing data as an essential tool for improving practice while building the local ownership and infrastructure that make lasting change possible.

• Serve as the primary local partner to formative evaluator Chapin Hall — supporting data collection, helping ensure findings are relevant to the South Carolina context, and translating insights into practice improvements for local stakeholders
• Bring data into the room: ensure that formative evaluation findings, implementation learnings, and site-level insights are actively informing meetings, decisions, and design conversations across partners
• Support the development of funding strategies and operational plans that position the initiative for sustainability and integration with South Carolina’s overall prevention continuum

Organizational Contribution & Codification

Bring your full range to the team by contributing specialized expertise and translating on-the-ground learning into insights that strengthen Foster America's collective practice and impact. We intentionally build our team to reflect a diverse and complementary set of leadership experiences and rely on one another to advance shared outcomes across initiatives.

• Contribute specialized expertise such as co-design, facilitation, child welfare practice or policy, data, fiscal strategy, or analytics - in ways that build capacity across teams and with initiative partners

• Capture, synthesize, and codify lessons from South Carolina's implementation into tools, insights, and recommendations that inform OPT-In and Foster America's broader strategy and scaling efforts

• Take on organization- and/or OPT-IN-wide responsibilities that leverage your leadership and experience, contributing to cross-site alignment and continuous improvement

• Ensure insights from South Carolina are consistently integrated into organization-wide learning, strategy refinement, and external influence

The Site Lead will be an experienced, relationship-oriented professional ready to guide a complex, multi-partner initiative. The ideal candidate brings:

• Coordination & project management: Demonstrated ability to manage complex, multi-workstream initiatives with multiple interdependent partners — tracking activities, sequencing priorities, and maintaining momentum with collaborators
• Facilitation & meeting leadership: Skilled at designing and leading high-stakes meetings and learning sessions, with the ability to set agendas that move work forward and turn collective gatherings into productive, action-oriented spaces
• Communication & writing: Strong written communicator who produces clear, accurate materials for diverse audiences — government, community, funder, and family stakeholders — and can synthesize complexity into clarity
• Coaching & influencing: Track record of building trust and effectiveness with peer and senior stakeholders through relationship and thought partnership, including preparing others for high-stakes meetings, decisions, and communications
• Partnership & relationship building: Experience working authentically across difference — with government agencies, community organizations, and people with lived experience of child welfare or adjacent systems — with a genuine commitment to cultural humility and centering lived experience
• Data & learning: Comfort working alongside researchers and evaluators as a bridge between data and practice — able to bring findings into operational conversations and translate them into next steps for local partners
• Systems knowledge: Familiarity with child welfare, family strengthening, or prevention systems sufficient to navigate the landscape, build credibility with government partners, and connect local work to broader policy and practice contexts
• Sustainability & strategic thinking: Ability to think beyond current implementation toward what it will take for the work to last — including funding strategy, local ownership, and integration with South Carolina's broader prevention continuum
• Education & experience: Bachelor's degree required; an advanced degree in public administration, social work, public policy, or a related field is strongly preferred, alongside a track record of progressive leadership responsibilities in systems change, social services, public policy, or a related field
• South Carolina rootedness: Strong familiarity with South Carolina's social service landscape, government culture, and/or community ecosystems is required — and physical presence in South Carolina is strongly preferred, as the relationships this role depends on are built in person

In addition to these role-specific qualifications, Foster America’s orientations are the behaviors that reflect our values, demonstrated in how we approach our work, engage with one another, and partner with communities. We actively practice these orientations to advance our mission of strengthening child and family well-being and seek a Site Lead who will model:

• Curiosity: Demonstrating openness to learning, inquiry, and new ideas that advance innovative approaches to systems transformation.
• Support: Creating an environment where staff, partners, and communities feel empowered, valued, and equipped to contribute their expertise.
• Solutions: Driving innovative strategies that address complex challenges within child-and family-serving systems and translating ideas into actionable initiatives.
• Collaboration: Building strong partnerships across teams, jurisdictions, and sectors to align stakeholders and advance shared goals.
• Integrity: Leading with transparency, accountability, and ethical decision-making while advancing equitable and just systems for children and families.
• Assets: Recognizing and elevating the strengths of communities, partners, and lived experts, ensuring their leadership informs program design and implementation.

Benefits & Compensation

Salary is commensurate with experience in the range of $112,500-$130,000. Foster America offers a comprehensive benefits package, including medical insurance, paid vacation, paid parental leave, paid holidays, commuter benefits, participation in a retirement plan, paid sick time, and professional development opportunities.

Work Location & Conditions

The Site Lead serves on a team with peers in three other OPT-In locations, reporting to the Senior Director for OPT-In at Foster America. They work routinely with close partners in the South Carolina Department of Social Services, as well as with local partners in the three South Carolina counties; Aiken, Orangeburg, and Richland

The role requires regular computer-based work and may include up to 25% travel to support partnerships, program initiatives, and organizational priorities. Should the candidate live outside of South Carolina, additional travel may be required.

Equal Employment Opportunity & Employment Practices

Foster America is committed to building a team that reflects the communities most affected by the systems we work to transform. We believe that diversity of lived experience, professional background, and perspective is essential to our work. 

Foster America is an equal opportunity employer, and all qualified applicants will receive consideration without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity,national origin, disability, or veteran status.