Position: Early Literacy Strategist
Full-Time | Salary Range: $48,000 - $52,000

Culture:
Trying Together’s mission is to support high-quality care and education for young children.

Trying Together is a Pittsburgh-based nonprofit that supports the work of early childhood by providing advocacy, community resources, and professional growth opportunities for the needs and rights of children, their families, and the adults who interact with them. A fast-paced organization, Trying Together looks for dedicated and passionate staff who bring positivity to their work and a solution-oriented sensibility.

Trying Together is an equal opportunity employer. Trying Together does not discriminate and encourages qualified candidates of any gender, race, class, sexual orientation, faith, disability, or age to apply. All candidates will be evaluated on a merit basis.

Purpose:

The Early Literacy Strategist will create, manage, and provide equitable opportunities for early literacy development and learning for young children and their caregivers in Allegheny County. Through Buzzword Pittsburgh, the Early Literacy Strategist will manage the collaboration between community partners and Allegheny County Family Centers to provide engaging activities, content, and events that enable young children to learn new words. Additionally, the Early Literacy Strategist will look for existing and new opportunities for collaboration to assist young children with building their literacy skills, families with supporting these skills, and educators with introducing and reinforcing them. This individual will be an employee of Trying Together, work out of Homewood, and report to the Director of The Homewood Early Learning Hub & Family Center.

Responsibilities:

• Practice equity in daily decisions. Apply an equity lens to goals, planning, materials, outreach/enrollment, communications, follow-through and partnerships and seek input from people most affected by decisions.
• Build a culture of belonging. Use inclusive meeting norms, invite under-represented perspectives, offer constructive feedback, and address harm respectfully.
• Improve practices that cause harm. Flag practices, processes, and/or policies that undermine the dignity, safety, or equitable treatment of children, families, educators; propose and help implement and evaluate improvements.
• Serve as the liaison between Buzzword Pittsburgh community partners and Allegheny County Family Centers to manage, create, and distribute word-themed early literacy content. 
• Coordinate monthly in-person Buzzword Pittsburgh events that enable opportunities for early literacy development and learning, and positive parent-child interaction. 
• Represent Trying Together on the Western Pennsylvania Early Literacy Team and similar early literacy projects that support children, families, and early learning programs.  
• Build relationships with early learning programs and providers and work with the Trying Together Quality Initiatives team to coordinate and offer professional growth opportunities that meet the early literacy interests and needs of the children and families in the region. 
• Build relationships with community partners who provide early literacy resources, programs, and services to co-create, manage, and promote these to all children, families, and educators in Allegheny County. 
• Evaluate development and learning monthly by working with the Trying Together Data & Research team to document and track impact.
• Consistently use the NeonCRM platform to build relationships with constituents, record data that measures project performance, and to support continuous quality improvement in the organization's resources and services. 

Qualifications:

• Bachelor’s Degree in Education, Early Childhood Education, or related field. 
• Deep knowledge of reading, writing, and literacy development. 
• Strong interpersonal skills such as communication, problem-solving, conflict management, and collaboration.
• Experience with building productive relationships with diverse individuals and groups. 
• Strong organizational skills. 
• Teaching Certificate, Reading Certification, or License preferred. 
• Experience within an early learning program setting is a plus.

Required Clearances: 

• Clean Act 33 Child Abuse Clearance.
• Clean Act 34 PA State Police Clearance.
• Clean Act 73 Federal Criminal History Clearance.
• National Sex Offender Registry (NSOR) Verification.
• Valid Driver’s License and proof of insurance.

Required Training:

• Mandated Reporter Training (must be completed in the first month of placement).
• NeonCRM Training (required and recommended online courses must be completed in the first three months of placement).
• PQAS Professional Development Instructor Certification (must be obtained within the first year of employment).

Benefits:

• Competitive compensation and benefits package.
• Appreciative inquiry and strengths-based review process.