The City of Virginia Beach is seeking an experienced, compassionate, and visionary leader to serve as our Youth Detention Superintendent, overseeing the City's Juvenile Detention Center and leading a dedicated team committed to rehabilitation, safety, accountability, and positive youth development.
The Virginia Beach Juvenile Detention Center is a secure facility that operates 24 hours a day and provides housing, meals, education, recreation, and medical and mental health services to youth up to age 21. The facility is staffed by 72 full-time and 15 part-time employees who work in direct care, medical, food service, program management, mental health and administrative roles. The detention center houses residents in pre-dispositional and post-depositional status, as well as in the State’s Community Placement Program.
This position reports directly to the Deputy Director of Community Justice and plays a critical role in advancing innovative programming while ensuring the highest standards of care, security, and regulatory compliance.
If you're passionate about leading people, improving systems, and making a lasting impact on the lives of youth and families, we'd love to hear from you.
Duties:
As the Youth Detention Superintendent, you will provide strategic leadership for all operations of the Juvenile Detention Center, including:
- Ensuring property security and fostering a safe, therapeutic, and supportive environment for children and youth.
- Overseeing the development, implementation and evaluation of programs and services that improve outcomes for youth in care.
- Monitoring programs for effectiveness, quality, and compliance with all applicable Department of Juvenile Justice and Interdepartmental Licensure standards of regulations; maintaining program services in compliance with all federal and state laws and local government administrative regulations, policies, and ordinances.
- Managing facility operations, budgeting, purchasing, staffing, scheduling, overtime, employee training, and organizational performance.
- Developing, reviewing, updating, implementing, and enforcing policies and procedures.
- Building and maintaining partnerships with courts, law enforcement, community organizations, schools, and behavioral health providers.
- Championing continuous improvement, data-driven decision making, and innovative practices that strengthen services for youth and families.
- Creating a workplace culture focused on accountability, collaboration, leadership development, and exceptional public service.
The City offers a generous benefits package, which includes health, dental and life insurance, retirement and savings plans, maternity/paternity and parental leave, holidays and leave.
The City of Virginia Beach is an Equal Opportunity Employer.
Home to more than 456,000 people, Virginia Beach is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Virginia and the 39th largest city in the United States. A dynamic community strengthened by a diverse mix of industry, attractions and people, Virginia Beach is recognized globally as one of the best places to live, work and do business. With 38 miles of beaches and 79 miles of scenic waterways, this vibrant East Coast city is situated along the shores of the Atlantic Ocean and the Chesapeake Bay, in the southeastern corner of the state, about a four-hour drive by car to Washington D.C., and within a day's drive or less from two-thirds of the U.S. population.