Schedule: Monday-Friday, 9am-5pm

Insurance Benefits: Dental, Life, Long-term Disability, Medical (no premiums/payroll deductions for employee coverage)

Other Benefits: Employee Assistance Program (EAP), Flexible Spending Account (FSA), ORCA card subsidy, Paid Time Off (34 days per year), Retirement Plan

Supervised by: ORCA Senior Medical Lead

A cover letter is required as part of your application to be considered for this role.

About DESC:

DESC (Downtown Emergency Service Center) is a nonprofit organization working to help people with the complex needs of homelessness, substance use disorders, and serious mental illness achieve their highest potential for health and well-being through comprehensive services, treatment, and housing. Our vision is a community where no person is abandoned, ignored, or experiencing homelessness.

As the region's leading provider of services to multiply disabled adults who have experienced chronic homelessness, DESC serves almost 3,000 people each day. Our integrated service model is designed to help people secure and maintain appropriate, safe and affordable housing. DESC is recognized nationally and regionally as an innovator in developing solutions to homelessness.

About the Opioid Recovery & Care Access (ORCA) program

DESC’s ORCA program provides compassionate, low-barrier, and evidence-based care to individuals who are recovering from opioid overdose and those seeking treatment for opioid use disorder (OUD). The ORCA Center, our brick-and-mortar location, provides post-overdose subacute stabilization services and provides walk-in access to medications for opioid use disorder (MOUD). The ORCA Patient Outreach Division (POD) delivers field-based MOUD care – meeting people where they literally are in the community.

ORCA Center

The ORCA Center is open 24 hours per day, 7 days per week, including holidays. It is staffed by a multidisciplinary team, including providers, nurses, medical assistants, peers, and milieu specialists. The ORCA Center offers four overlapping types of services:

• Care to individuals in stable condition who have experienced an opioid overdose, brought to the ORCA Center by first responders or transferred from local emergency departments.
• Rapid initiation of medications for opioid use disorder (MOUD), including buprenorphine (sublingual and long-acting injectable) and methadone (under the “72-hour rule”, or CFR Title 21 §1306.07 (b)), for people with OUD, regardless of whether an opioid overdose has recently occurred.
• Harm reduction counseling and OUD-related physical and behavioral health services.
• Follow-up care for individuals who have started MOUD to ensure support in MOUD continuation.

ORCA POD

ORCA POD is ORCA’s field-based care team, bringing MOUD induction, stabilization, and maintenance services as well as education and other supports directly to patients in the community. ORCA POD operates during business hours (Monday through Friday, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.). ORCA POD is a multidisciplinary team, including providers, nurses, and peers, operating across several geographic areas throughout the greater Seattle region including:

• Permanent Supportive Housing (PSH) sites
• Emergency shelters
• Encampments or unsanctioned sites
• High-need geographic zones identified in collaboration with DESC and community partners
• Areas without easy access to low-barrier MOUD services

JOB OVERVIEW:

The ORCA POD Operations Manager is a key operations-focused leadership role ensuring that staff, supplies, data systems, workflows, and partnerships are in place to support high-quality, low-barrier outreach services. This position works closely with ORCA leadership, the Medical Department, and other internal DESC teams. Over time, the position may assume responsibilities supporting additional DESC OUD initiatives.

MAJOR DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES:

Program Planning, Implementation & Operations

• Support planning, implementation, and ongoing improvement of ORCA POD services.
• Oversee day-to-day operations of POD, including field-based follow-up care and outreach workflows.
• Guide budgeting, financial sustainability, and regulatory compliance activities.
• Ensure timely procurement, stocking, and tracking of medical supplies, medications, equipment, client supplies, and food.
• Create and manage staff schedules, particularly triaging new intakes, assigning follow-up injections, and coordinating outreach in distinct geographic zones. 
• Support crisis drill planning, safety protocol development, and operational readiness.

Administrative, Hiring & Staff Development

• Provide administrative support for recruitment, hiring, onboarding, training, and staff development.
• Work with ORCA leadership to create training materials and tools for workflow changes and quality assurance.
• Participate in managerial-level meetings, supervise the POD data collection coordinator, and assist with hiring, performance improvement, and investigation activities as assigned.
• Incorporate an equity framework in all staffing, training, and operational activities.

Data, Quality Improvement & Compliance

• Partner with DESC’s Quality & Information Management team to ensure accurate data collection, reporting, and analysis.
• Develop and maintain tracking systems, resource lists, manuals, schedules, and operational dashboards.
• Provide oversight of program evaluation for workflow changes, contract deliverables, and service performance.
• Assist in implementing documentation improvements and EHR-related updates with clinical and CHASERS staff.
• Support continuous quality improvement initiatives, including medication inventory management.

Partnerships & External Collaboration

• Develop and maintain collaborative relationships with partner agencies, funders, research partners, and healthcare/public health entities.
• Represent DESC in policy and systems discussions related to opioid use disorder treatment and overdose response.

Additional Duties

• Perform limited clinical services as appropriate to credentials.
• Other duties as assigned.

MINIMUM QUALIFICATIONS

• At least two years working in a low-barrier buprenorphine program or a Federal Opioid Treatment Program in a clinical or administrative capacity.
• Experience working with people experiencing homelessness, mental illness and/or substance use disorders.
• Demonstrated ability to support clinical programs through problem-solving, system-building, and client-centered design.
• Strong skills in organization, documentation, scheduling, and administrative systems.
• Proficiency with Microsoft Word, Excel, data entry, and EHR documentation (or the ability to learn quickly).
• Excellent written and oral communication skills, including technical writing.
• Ability to manage sensitive information professionally and maintain confidentiality.
• Desire to serve people with complex needs who are or have been experiencing homelessness and are living with serious and persistent mental illness, substance use disorder, and other complex medical conditions.
• Able to work effectively with clients displaying a wide range of challenging behaviors .
• Adaptable to changing priorities, processes, or workflows as the program grows and evolves.
• Able to give and receive constructive feedback.
• Familiar with trauma-informed care, harm reduction, and equity and social justice principles.
• Possess cultural humility and able to work effectively with individuals of diverse backgrounds and identities.
• Willing to travel across the greater Seattle area.

PREFERRED QUALIFICATIONS

• Eligible for a Licensed AAC credential or any other superseding credential that meets RCW 71.05.020 requirements to act as a Mental Health Professional whose scope of practice includes independently conducting mental health assessments and making mental health diagnoses.
• Experience working in a low-barrier buprenorphine program or a federally regulated Opioid Treatment Program (OTP) in a clinical, outreach, or administrative role.
• Experience supporting quality improvement initiatives.
• Experience with program budgeting and monitoring.
• Ability to prioritize and shift focus to meet operational needs in a fast-paced environment.
• Experience with implementation science, healthcare research, or evaluation.
• Leadership or supervisory experience.
• Experience in Medicaid and non-Medicaid funding structures.
• Master’s degree in public health, data science, health informatics, epidemiology, or a related field.
• Bilingual in Spanish/English.
• Ability to drive an agency or personal vehicle to conduct agency related business, which requires a current Washington State driver's license and insurable driving record.

PHYSICAL DEMANDS:

The physical demands described here are representative of those that must be met by an employee to successfully perform the essential functions of this job. Reasonable accommodations may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform the essential functions. While performing the duties of this job, the employee will be required sit for long periods of time, communicate with other persons by talking and hearing, required to lift and carry items weighing up to 25 pounds and to operate computer hardware systems. Specific vision abilities required by the job include close vision, distance vision, color vision, peripheral vision, depth perception, and the ability to adjust focus.

EQUAL OPPORTUNITY EMPLOYER:

DESC is committed to diversity in the workplace and promotes equal employment opportunities for all staff members and applicants. The Agency will not discriminate against any employee or applicant for employment on the basis of race, creed, color, sex, gender, sexual orientation, age, national origin, caste, marital status, or the presence of any sensory, mental or physical disability in any employment practice, unless based on a bona fide occupational qualification. Minorities and veterans are encouraged to apply.