Residential Counselors at Center for Disability Services

The Center for Disability Services is a place in the Capital Region that offers services for individuals living with a disability.

They have 85 locations throughout Upstate New York. Among these locations, Albany, Schenectady, and Rensselaer counties offer housing programs for adults living with a disability. There are approximately 2300 current employees, 40 percent of whom are residential counselors.

Residential counselors work in a community house where four to nine adults with developmental disabilities live. There are multiple community residences, all of which contain houses where people living with different disabilities live.

“The work the residential counselor does [will] depend on the house they are working in,” says Ron Zinoman, the Senior Human Resources Clinical Recruitment Specialist.

The job of a residential counselor is to help these adults with their daily living skills. “The activities a residential counselor will help with depend on the function level of the individual. You might take someone to the movies, cook their meals, or help them to the bathroom even, “says Zinoman.

Since the main goal of this position is to help disabled adults live their lives, there are many qualities that need to be considered.

Zinoman says, “Our staff must help with community involvement, independence, and normalization.” Essentially, the goal of a residential counselor is to show their clients that they are normal and can do things on their own.

The Center for Disability Services is looking to hire residential counselors. The requirements for this position are a high school diploma or GED and applicants must be 18 years old.

A driver’s license is also highly recommended but is not required. Having a driver’s license will make a counselor able to drive clients to their activities.

Residential counselors must take part in a four week period of paid training, once hired. The training includes multiple classes that help the counselor work with clients who are developmentally disabled.

These classes include first aid and CPR classes, a medication certification, behavior management lessons, and a driving course, which includes the van used in activities done with the clients. All of this will aims to provide comfort and experience for the new counselor.

The starting wage of a worker with non-committed hours is $9.40 per hour. By having set hours, the salary can go up by up to $3. The maximum a person with a non-committed schedule can make with experience is $10.15.

There are many benefits of working as a residential counselor for the Center for Disability Services. The hours and schedules are flexible to fit a college student’s needs. As a college student with day classes, one can work as a residential counselor during nights and weekends.

Starting as a residential counselor, there is also a lot of room to advance to a higher position. Benefits of becoming a residential counselor include health insurance, a 401(k) retirement plan, paid time off, paid holidays, and tuition assistance.

For more information, please visit www.cdfsny.org.