Assistant Program Director (ACT) - Community Support Program

The Bridge offers supportive housing and behavioral health services to vulnerable New Yorkers facing behavioral health and substance use challenges. We provide individuals with the tools they need to pursue their dreams and live meaningful lives. The Bridge envisions a world where adults experiencing serious mental illness can live and thrive within their communities. As a recognized leader in developing and operating supportive housing and community-based programs, The Bridge has 70 years of experience helping New Yorkers with mental illness, including those affected by homelessness, incarceration, and institutionalization. 

Scope of Position: The Assistant Program Director (APD) of the ACT team provides clinical and operational leadership within a mobile, community-based program serving individuals with serious mental illness, co-occurring substance use disorders, trauma histories, homelessness, and criminal justice involvement. As a key member of the leadership team, the APD delivers direct, recovery-oriented services in the field, where approximately 80% of the work occurs, supporting participants transitioning from long-term hospitalizations, correctional facilities, shelters, and the community. The APD promotes community integration and stability through coordinated, person-centered care while also providing programmatic oversight, clinical guidance, and staff support. In the absence of the Program Director, the APD assumes responsibility for team leadership and daily operations to ensure continuity of high-quality services.

Essential Position Functions:

• Complete comprehensive initial assessments and updated six-month assessments, using results from standardized screening instruments for substance use, suicidality, and trauma.

• Complete crisis intervention and relapse prevention plans.

• Identify the treatment services consumers should receive based on the severity of their substance use diagnosis, stage of change, and immediate needs, and recommend treatment objectives for the consumer’s treatment plan.

• Assess and provide services to consumers to address housing, income support, education and vocational training, social supports, employment, and primary care needs.

• Complete comprehensive, recovery-oriented initial treatment plans and six-month treatment plan reviews, and modify plans based on feedback from recipients and relevant others.

• Involve social supports in the consumer’s treatment with the ACT team.

• Complete progress notes within 24 hours of service delivery and ensure that progress notes are available for review at the morning organizational meeting.

• Provide treatment services, including engagement, problem-solving, wellness self-management, medication support, family support and treatment, individual mental health services, relapse prevention, harm reduction, and substance use counseling, using motivational interviewing and cognitive behavioral approaches to mental illness and substance use.

• Work effectively with community providers to ensure ACT members receive all services for which they are entitled.

• Complete the expected minimum number of monthly treatment contacts.

• Provide weekly reports to AOT staff for consumers with AOT orders.

• Assist the Program Director in managing caseloads and providing supervision to staff.

• Serve as the administrative and clinical leader of the team in the absence of the Program Director.

• Perform other duties as assigned.

• Master’s degree or higher, with licensure in one of the following areas: Social Work, Psychology, or Mental Health Counseling, and at least three years of prior experience working in mental health or substance use treatment, preferably with an ACT team.

• Supervisory experience preferred but not required.

• Candidates without a license will not be considered.

• Spanish-speaking bilingual candidates are highly desirable.

The Bridge Inc. is an Affirmative Action / Equal Opportunity Employer