The goals of the Health Services Office at the Department of Social Services (DSS), are to improve the health and well-being of New Yorkers experiencing homelessness, reduce morbidity and mortality, thereby increasing their chances of succeeding in permanent housing and independent living, improving access to care and health outcomes for low-income and vulnerable populations. The Office brings public health and evidence-based interventions to DSS in the areas of health, mental health, substance use, and nutrition and our staff work with other divisions at DSS and with shelter and clinical providers on linkage to health services, coordination with hospitals and other health care providers, implement interventions, conduct programmatic research and evaluation and provide medical consultation.

Visiting Psychiatric Services (VPS) provides psychiatric evaluation and crisis intervention services, housing eligibility services, and assistance in obtaining federal disability benefits by working in collaboration with the Department of Homeless Services (DHS), Adult Protective Services (APS), HIV/AIDS Services Administration (HASA), and Permanent Supportive Housing Providers throughout New York City. DSS is developing their capacity to track clients evaluated through VPS to ensure that clients identified with outstanding needs are linked to appropriate care and services, perform QA/QI, and develop standard reports; they will also develop a new program to identify those in need of psychiatric services in the DHS shelter system and methods for evaluating current service delivery outcome as well as new programming initiatives to drive service delivery improvements.

Reporting directly to the Department of Social Services Assistant Deputy Commissioner of Mental Health Services, the VPS Data Analyst will work in collaboration with the VPS multidisciplinary team to support the development of data management and evaluation systems to improve client and referring agency’s engagement with the service recommendations provided by the VPS unit to improve mental health, social, and health-related consumer needs.

DSS Medical and Health Services Office is recruiting one (1) City Research Scientist I, to function as a Data Analyst, who will:

- Perform data input and weekly quality checks to support case record organization and progress tracking of current clients in the VPS OPTIONS database and CARES, a system-wide case management system.

- Build chart visualizations and pivot tables utilizing quantitative and qualitative data to report on trends with internal staff to identify unmet mental health needs among current VPS clients.

- Analyze case records to identify clients with complex behavioral health needs and/or medical issues in the VPS OPTIONS database to support implementation of interventions including linkage to case management services, medical/mental health/substance use treatment or linkage to community-based resources and track outcomes.

- Disseminate monthly analytic reports for leadership.

- Perform retrospective data analysis of complex case data.

- Participate in collaboration with local partner agencies, such as DOHMH, DHS shelter providers, NYC Health and Hospitals, APS, HASA, OMH, and other relevant agencies.


Work Location: 33 BEAVER STREET

Hours/Schedule: 9:00 am - 5:00 pm (Flexible)

CITY RESEARCH SCIENTIST - 21744

1. For Assignment Level I (only physical, biological and environmental sciences and public health) A master's degree from an accredited college or university with a specialization in an appropriate field of physical, biological or environmental science or in public health.
To be appointed to Assignment Level II and above, candidates must have:
1. A doctorate degree from an accredited college or university with specialization in an appropriate field of physical, biological, environmental or social science and one year of full-time experience in a responsible supervisory, administrative or research capacity in the appropriate field of specialization; or
2. A master's degree from an accredited college or university with specialization in an appropriate field of physical, biological, environmental or social science and three years of responsible full-time research experience in the appropriate field of specialization; or
3. Education and/or experience which is equivalent to "1" or "2" above. However, all candidates must have at least a master's degree in an appropriate field of specialization and at least two years of experience described in "2" above. Two years as a City Research Scientist Level I can be substituted for the experience required in "1" and "2" above.

NOTE:
Probationary Period
Appointments to this position are subject to a minimum probationary period of one year.

- Knowledge of care management, mental health services, quantitative analysis methods, including familiarity with data collection, matching, cleaning, correlation, descriptive statistics, and regression models. - Knowledge of public health research and use of data for epidemiologic monitoring, intervention implementation, and evaluation. - Experience in project management and high-level organizational skills - Ability to read, interpret, and synthesize epidemiologic and other scientific literature. - Superior written and oral communication skills. - Proficient in Microsoft Office Suite, database/tools development and management, familiar with R, Statistical Analysis System (SAS), SPSS and/or SQL.

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.