We're looking for an acting Senior Hearings Administrator to provide leadership and direction for quasi-judicial administrative hearings or processes handled by DCYF, in addition to serving as the administrative hearings or processes liaison with the Office of the Attorney General. If you have this experience, and a natural ability to lead others, apply today!

Click here to learn more about DCYF.  

The Opportunity:
In this role, you are the agency's statewide lead in overseeing critical and highly consequential areas of the administrative hearings and processes program. You will oversee staff that conduct hearings where they rule on procedures, determine violations, and determine credibility and reliability of evidence. You are the advanced level subject matter expert that provides briefings on consequential administrative hearings and processes to DCYF leadership and staff. This position coordinates a high-volume of time-sensitive requests for documents required for administrative hearings and processes.

Some of what you will do:

• Oversee and establish a fair, constitutional, and legal administrative hearing and process.
• Manage all administrative hearings and processes.
• Management of CAPTA appeals.
• Oversee staff conducting hearings where they rule on procedures, determines violations, and determines credibility and reliability of evidence.
• Review all hearings and processes to understand the facts of each case and identify any practice issues.
• Coordinate document request activities in response to administrative hearings and processes.
• Identify areas of risk negatively impacting DCYF's mission to serve children and families and develop mitigation strategies.
• Provide expert-level technical assistance and deliver confidential consultation to DCYF executive leadership.
• Monitor workloads to ensure even distribution across teams.
• Investigate and respond to complaints from internal and external stakeholders about the business of the unit.
• Lead, direct, and supervise staff responsible for DCYF's Hearings and Administrative Process teams. Conduct ongoing individual conferences, regularly scheduled section meetings, recruiting, hiring, and training of staff.
• Develop and monitor performance expectations and complete timely annual performance evaluations. Develop and monitor corrective action plans, manage routine personnel issues, and support staff development.

Required Qualifications:

• A bachelor's Degree in law, social science, health, public administration, or related field.

AND

• Six years of professional experience handling discovery, claims and lawsuits.
• Six years of professional experience in planning, administering, developing, or delivering programs in business, public administration, and conducting research and analyzing policies, laws, rules, or regulations.
• Six years progressively responsible supervision and directing the activities and performance of others.

OR

• A master’s degree in business, public administration, law or Doctor of Jurisprudence (JD), or closely allied field.

AND

• Three years of professional experience handling discovery, claims and lawsuits.
• Three years of professional experience in planning, administering, developing, or delivering programs in business, public administration, and conducting research and analyzing policies, laws, rules, or regulations.
• Three years progressively responsible supervision and directing the activities and performance of others.

Please Note- Years of experience can be gained concurrently.

Required Competencies:

• Demonstrate abilities to earn the trust, respect and confidence of colleagues, employees, partners, and customers.
• Describe an inspiring, long-term vision with deep meaning for the organization or team.
• Bring great people with the right skills and the right motivation into the organization and enable them to do their best work every day.
• Create and nurture a performance-based culture of continuous improvement.
• Support and invests in employee learning and development.
• Build and maintains internal and external relationships that creates positive customer satisfaction with the services offered by the Department.
• Navigate the organization through complex and changing environments and engage staff to seek creative solutions and drive change.
• Reach out to leverage diverse points of view, talents, and capabilities.

Degree must be obtained from an accredited college or university whose accreditation is recognized by the U.S. Department of Education and the Council for Higher Education Accreditation (CHEA), or foreign equivalent verified by a NACES-approved organization at naces.org. 

Foreign Equivalency certification must be attached to the application for degrees obtained outside the U.S. Incomplete applications may be screened out of the recruitment process.

In addition to those required qualifications, our ideal applicant will also have some or all of the following:

• Doctor of Jurisprudence (JD) is preferred.
• Knowledge of APA guidelines/procedures.
• Familiarity with administrative hearings.
• Experience interpreting and drafting legislation, rules, agency policies and procedures.
• High volume litigation management experience.
• Experience formulating and supporting legal defense strategies, preferably on behalf of state agencies.
• Mediation experience.
• Experience managing high volume legal/claims programs, processes, and procedures.
• Project management experience.
• Experience developing and implementing new processes and programs.

How do I apply:
Complete the online application and attach the following documents to your profile:

• Letter of interest describing how you meet the specific qualifications for this job.
• Current resume detailing experience and education.

Supplemental Information:

The Department of Children, Youth, and Families (DCYF) is committed to Washington’s children and youth growing up safe, healthy, and thriving. We invite all candidates to join us in our mission to create a diverse and equitable workplace that reflects the communities we serve.  If you are excited about this role but you believe that your education and/or experience might not align perfectly with every qualification in the job posting, we encourage you to apply anyway.

The Department of Children, Youth, and Families (DCYF) is an equal opportunity employer and does not discriminate on the basis of age, sex, marital status, sexual orientation, race, creed, color, national origin, honorably discharged veteran or military status, or the presence of any sensory, mental, or physical disability or the use of a trained service animal by a person with a disability.

If you have any questions pertaining to this recruitment or if you would like to request an accommodation throughout the application/interview process, contact Steven Loduha (Talent Acquisition Manager) at Steven.Loduha@dcyf.wa.gov. If you're experiencing technical difficulties creating, accessing or completing your application, call NEOGOV toll-free at (855) 524-5627 or email support@neogov.com.

Persons needing accommodation in the application process or this announcement in an alternative format may call (360) 902-2276 or the Telecommunications Device for the Deaf (TDD) at (800) 833-6388.