The Prisons and Justice Initiative (PJI) was founded in 2016 in order to address the national crisis of mass incarceration, one of the most urgent moral and political issues of our time. In addition to an extensive series of academic and policy events, PJI offers a series of innovative courses to Georgetown undergraduates, including one (Making an Exoneree) that involves direct advocacy on behalf of wrongfully convicted people. Additionally, PJI has developed several programs serving incarcerated and formerly incarcerated people in the DC area, including both Georgetown credit-bearing courses for incarcerated students (the Prison Scholars Program at the DC Jail) and certificate programs in business and entrepreneurship (the Pivot Program) and paralegal studies (the MORCA-Georgetown Paralegal Program) for returning citizens. In 2022, PJI began offering a Bachelor of Liberal Arts degree program to incarcerated students at the Patuxent Institution in Jessup, Maryland. In all of its programming, PJI works to better understand the causes and consequences of the mass incarceration crisis, contribute to bipartisan solutions for effective reform, and improve the lives of incarcerated and formerly incarcerated people in the DC area and beyond.

PJI seeks a licensed independent clinical social worker to provide targeted and stable support to our reentry program participants, students and staff. The Staff Social Worker will identify those who need help, assess client needs and situations to formulate goals, and refer clients to community resources such as childcare and healthcare. They advocate for their clients at government and non-profit organizations and follow-up with them to monitor their progress.

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Work Interactions

Reporting the Deputy Director of the Prisons and Justice Initiative, the Staff Social Worker collaborates closely with the Director of Reentry Services and the Program Managers for the two education-to-employment reentry programs: Pivot and the MORCA-Georgetown Paralegal Program.

They support fellows from both of those programs, as well as those who return home to the area from our BLA and Prison Scholars Programs; liaise with community organizations in the area to provide referrals for fellows and former students for needed services outside the scope of PJI’s current portfolio of services; and provide training and certification for our Program Associates and others on PJI staff - e.g., Peer Recovery Specialist and Supervisor training and certification.

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Requirements and Qualifications

• Master’s degree in Social Work
• LICSW or LISW in Washington, DC
• At least 5 to 7 years of work experience
• Familiarity with DC and regional social services
• Both clinical and case management experience
• Experience planning and standardizing assessment and crisis responses to acute and emergent client needs
• Experience managing and documenting cases and or processes, producing reports and maintaining files
• Proficient with standard office software programs, such as MS Office Word, Excel, and PowerPoint
• Excellent organizational and communications skills - both written and verbal
• Strong organizational, problem-solving and analytical skills
• Strong communications skills -both written and verbal
• Ability to work with and relate to individuals of diverse backgrounds, including the formerly incarcerated; and to service providers within the criminal justice system in a professional and compassionate manner
• Ability to identify and resolve problems in a timely manner
• Ability to adhere to high standards of confidentiality

Preferred requirements and qualifications

• Experience working with incarcerated and returning citizens
• Familiarity with needs and risk assessment tools, including HCR-20, DRAOR, or RM2000
• Instructor certification (or willingness to acquire) in Mental Health First Aid, Trauma-informed Care, and related peer- and layman-oriented treatment modalities