Retention Lead

Reporting to the Director of Quality, the HealthySteps Retention Lead plays a central role in sustaining strong, customer-centered partnerships after sites reach initial fidelity to the HealthySteps model. As the primary point of contact, the Retention Lead nurtures long-term relationships built on trust, responsiveness, and a shared commitment to delivering strong outcomes for children and families. Grounded in implementation science and customer success principles, this role actively engages sites as they evolve, helping them navigate change, sustain their commitment to the program and continue growing within the HealthySteps - 2 - network. By fostering site stability, amplifying site wins and success stories, and promoting continuous quality improvement, the Retention Lead strengthens the National Office’s efforts to reduce site offboarding, improve site satisfaction, and helps ensure the long-term sustainability of the HealthySteps program. Through collaboration and care the Retention Lead ensures sites not only remain in the network but continue to thrive within it.

ESSENTIAL RESPONSIBILITIES

• Serve as the primary point of contact for sites after initial fidelity attainment, ensuring consistent, reliable, and responsive partnership support beyond initial fidelity attainment.
• Build and maintain authentic trust-centered relationships with sites through consistent communication, active listening, and a structured approach to partnership that reflects the values of equity, respect and shared
• Conduct regular check-ins (e.g., pulse checks, structured calls) to proactively identify emerging challenges—such as staff turnover, reimbursement issues, or workflow barriers—before they escalate.
• Track and interpret early signals of disengagement, such as decreased participation in National Office offerings, delayed responses, or loss of HealthySteps champions or staff.
• Develop and maintain Customer Success Plans, tailored to surface site goals, partnership preferences, ongoing support needs, and continuous quality improvement (CQI) opportunities.
• Monitor site health indicators, customer insights, and qualitative feedback to assess overall site stability and risk of off-boarding.
• Maintain continuous feedback loops with sites to surface lessons learned, inform National Office process improvements, and ensure customer-centered evolution of retention strategies.
• Escalation Planning: Define and maintain clear escalation pathways for sites experiencing high-risk Train other staff in recognizing early indicators and managing escalation effectively.
• Collaborate closely with the Fidelity Manager, Product and Research & Evaluation Team to surface fidelity support, data reporting, and CQI needs and ensure they are addressed.
• Collaborate with the Policy & Finance team to identify and surface emerging sustainability challenges (e.g., loss of grant funding, billing issues) and connect sites to appropriate supports to maintain long-term viability of HealthySteps services.
• Maintain clear boundaries between customer success support and fidelity oversight, collaborating closely with the Fidelity Manager while avoiding duplication of responsibilities.
• Coordinate with Quality, Policy & Finance, Research & Evaluation, Operations, and Product sub teams, to ensure aligned, timely support for sites navigating implementation challenges post-fidelity attainment.
• Troubleshoot complex or novel customer success challenges by coordinating internal National Office responses across Quality, Policy & Finance, Research & Evaluation, and Operations Teams.
• Support National Office planning for cohort-based retention efforts (e.g., grant-funded initiatives) by ensuring tailored planning, streamlined execution, and cross-team alignment.
• Lead the development, refinement, and documentation of the internal processes, tools, and policies that guide how the National Office supports long-term site engagement, retention and partnership continuity.
• Customer Journey Mapping: Collaborate with the Onboarding Lead to align and improve the experience sites have as they move from onboarding into long-term implementation, identifying and addressing any process-related friction that slows or complicates that transition.
• Monitor indicators related to retention trends, site satisfaction, and key milestones, using data to identify friction points and inform improvement efforts.
• Equity Lens: Proactively identify barriers faced by sites serving marginalized Advocate internally for policy or resource changes that improve equitable access to high-quality HealthySteps implementation.
• Community Building: Facilitate learning communities, peer networking opportunities, and other forms of collaborative learning to strengthen relationships among sites in the network and reinforce the value of belonging to the HealthySteps network.
• Capacity Building: Partner with sub teams across the National Office to deliver tailored refreshers, advanced training, and sustainability supports, including support for site succession planning (e.g., onboarding new HealthySteps Specialists), to help sites maintain strong teams and sustain HealthySteps services.
• Encourage deeper site engagement in HealthySteps network opportunities that reinforce long-term success, sustained connection, and visibility, such as attending ZTT Learn Conference, HealthySteps Symposium, participating in research studies, adopting the EPIC Turbocharger Package (TCP), or serving as ambassadors or peer storytellers.
• Perform other duties as assigned to ensure the efficient and effective functioning of the retention process, broader customer success strategy, and the program.

ESSENTIAL SKILLS & EXPERIENCE

• 5–7 years of experience in customer success, implementation support, or client-facing program/project management, ideally in health care, early childhood, or human services settings.
• Demonstrated experience applying customer success principles to support long-term customer relationships, with a focus on proactive engagement and problem-solving.
• Strong facilitation and coaching skills, including guiding customers through CQI conversations, navigating complex challenges, and maintaining partnership alignment over time.
• Exceptional relationship management skills with ability to build trust, maintain engagement, and hold difficult conversations with respect and care.
• Proven ability to identify, analyze, and act on customer health indicators, integrating data and qualitative insights to monitor partnership strength and risk.
• Experience designing or improving systems and tools that support long-term customer success, such as lifecycle engagement frameworks, check-in protocols, escalation pathways, and continuous feedback loops.
• Skill in navigating cross functional teams and influencing without authority to align support around shared customer needs.
• Comfort using operational or experience data (e.g., retention trends, health metrics) to identify friction points and coordinate support.
• Familiarity with the HealthySteps model (or similar evidence-based model),
• Excellent verbal, interpersonal, and written communication
• Experience with Salesforce or similar CRM systems, preferred

EDUCATION

Bachelor’s degree required; advanced degree in public health, social work, education, public administration, or a related field preferred.

Certifications

• Customer Success Management (e.g., SuccessCOACHING or Gainsight), strongly preferred
• Training or certification in implementation science frameworks (e.g., Active Implementation, NIRN), preferred
• Project Management Professional (PMP) or equivalent project management, preferred

COMPENSATION & BENEFITS

This position's salary is estimated to be low $80,000s to low $100,000s depending on experience, geo-location, budget, and other comparable and similarly scoped internal positions. In addition to salary, ZERO TO THREE offers a comprehensive benefits package including medical, dental, vision, HRA, retirement contributions, generous leave benefits and more.

PHYSICAL REQUIREMENTS

While performing the responsibilities of the job, the employee is frequently required to use finger dexterity and sufficient hand dexterity to use a computer keyboard and be capable of reading a computer screen. Also, they may need to remain seated for extended periods, can perform repetitive motions, and reach for objects. An employee is frequently required to hold a writing instrument, communicate verbally, and hear well enough to detect nuances and receive detailed information. They may be required to grasp objects, push, and pull objects, bend, stand, walk, squat, or kneel. Vision abilities required by this job include close vision for data preparation or analysis, and expansive reading. May need to lift up to 30 pounds.