Established in 1805, the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene (the NYC Health Department) is the oldest and largest health department in the country. Our mission is to protect and improve the health of all New Yorkers, in service of a vision of a city in which all New Yorkers can realize their full health potential, regardless of who they are, how old they are, where they are from, or where they live.

As a world-renowned public health agency with a history of building transformative public health programming and infrastructure, innovating in science and scholarship to advance public health knowledge, and responding to urgent public health crises from New York City’s yellow fever outbreak in 1822, to the COVID-19 pandemic we are a hub for public health innovation, expertise, and programs, and services. We serve as the population health strategist, and policy, and planning authority for the City of New York, while also having a vast impact on national and international public policy, including programs and services focused on food and nutrition, anti-tobacco support, chronic disease prevention, HIV/AIDS treatment, family and child health, environmental health, mental health, and racial and social justice work, among others.

Our Agency’s five strategic priorities, building off a recently-completed strategic planning process emerging from the COVID-19 emergency, are:
1) To re-envision how the Health Department prepares for and responds to health emergencies, with a focus on building a “response-ready” organization, with faster decision-making, transparent public communications, and stronger surveillance and bridges to healthcare systems 2) Address and prevent chronic and diet-related disease, including addressing rising rates of childhood obesity and the impact of diabetes, and transforming our food systems to improve nutrition and enhance access to healthy foods
3) Address the second pandemic of mental illness including: reducing overdose deaths, strengthening our youth mental health systems, and supporting people with serious mental illness
4) Reduce black maternal mortality and make New York a model city for women’s health
5) Mobilize against and combat the health impacts of climate change

Our 7,000-plus team members bring extraordinary diversity to the work of public health. True to our value of equity as a foundational element of all of our work, and a critical foundation to achieving population health impact in New York City, the NYC Health Department has been a leader in recognizing and dismantling racism’s impacts on the health of New Yorkers and beyond. In 2021, the NYC Board of Health declared racism as a public health crisis. With commitment to advance anti-racist public health practices that dismantle systems that perpetuate inequitable power, opportunity and access, the NYC Health Department continues to work in and with communities and community organizations to increase their access to health services and decrease avoidable health outcomes.

Division and Job Description:

The New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene is expanding home visiting in NYC and streamlining how providers, organizations and community residents can access quality home visiting services. The goal is to improve maternal and child health and well-being outcomes by matching families’ assessed risks to evidence-based (EB) or evidence-generating (EG) home visiting (HV) models that are most appropriate for them based on their needs, and to connect them to other resources as needed. Racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic inequities create disparate outcomes in the neighborhoods served by existing Agency sponsored locally designed home visiting programs as compared with the rest of the city, and providing services beginning in the prenatal through postpartum period is vital to addressing these outcomes.

In addition, recent attention to inequities in maternal morbidity and mortality, especially in New York City, points to the to promote more respectful maternity care and greater agency for people during childbirth, both of which the program’s home visiting staff will facilitate: We are seeking a candidate that can demonstrate leadership and is able inspire, influence, and enable others to achieve a specific mission and meet unit goals.

DUTIES WILL INCLUDE BUT NOT BE LIMITED TO:

Conduct home visits and Virtual visits to eligible mothers, provide instruction and health education on maternal and infant health issues, including breastfeeding,

Conduct home environmental assessments and connect families to community resources to address identified needs.

Work on a multi -disciplinary team to support referral follow up for program clients that are visited by the Newborn Home Visiting Program and other partners.

Conduct telephone follow ups with program clients to provide follow up health education on maternal and infant health education, including breastfeeding, safe sleep, early childhood development and chronic illness.

Collect and enter data; monitor, review, manage case assignments and conduct referral follow-up.

1. A baccalaureate degree from an accredited college, including or supplemented by twelve semester credits in health education, or in health, social or biological sciences; or
2. A baccalaureate degree from an accredited college, and six months of full-time satisfactory experience in a health promotion or disease intervention/prevention program, performing one or more of the following: interviewing, conducting field investigations, assessing health risks, making referrals, or collecting and analyzing epidemiological data; or
3. A four-year high school diploma or its educational equivalent, and four years of full-time satisfactory experience as described in "2" above; or
4. Education and/or experience equivalent to "1", "2" or "3" above. Undergraduate college credit can be substituted for experience on the basis of 30 semester credits from an accredited college for one year of full-time experience. However, all candidates must have a four-year high school diploma or its educational equivalent, and either twelve semester credits as described in "1" above or six months of experience as described in "2" above.
Additional Requirements
A. To be assigned to Assignment Level II, candidates must have, in addition to meeting the minimum qualification requirements listed above, at least one year of experience as a Public Health Adviser, Assignment Level I, or at least one additional year of experience as described in Qualification Requirement "2" above.

Experience working with low-income families and/or families in a shelter setting. Community outreach experience, early-childhood development, breastfeeding, and/or maternal-child health education experience. Data collection experience and familiarity with Microsoft Office applications is needed. Excellent written and oral communication skills, fluency in English, Spanish, Haitian-Creole, French, Mandarin, Yiddish and Bengali preferred and a NYS driver's license. LICENSE REQUIREMENTS: A motor Vehicle Driver's license valid in the State of New York is required for certain assignments. If required, this license must be maintained for the duration of employment.

This position is also open to qualified persons with a disability who are eligible for the 55-a Program. Please indicate at the top of your resume and cover letter that you would like to be considered for the position through the 55-a Program.

As a prospective employee of the City of New York, you may be eligible for federal loan forgiveness programs and state repayment assistance programs. For more information, please visit the U.S. Department of Education’s website at https://studentaid.gov/pslf/

New York City residency is generally required within 90 days of appointment. However, City Employees in certain titles who have worked for the City for 2 continuous years may also be eligible to reside in Nassau, Suffolk, Putnam, Westchester, Rockland, or Orange County. To determine if the residency requirement applies to you, please discuss with the agency representative at the time of interview.

The City of New York is an inclusive equal opportunity employer committed to recruiting and retaining a diverse workforce and providing a work environment that is free from discrimination and harassment based upon any legally protected status or protected characteristic, including but not limited to an individual's sex, race, color, ethnicity, national origin, age, religion, disability, sexual orientation, veteran status, gender identity, or pregnancy.