
Director of Care Operations (Remote, Volunteer, Part-Time)
Internal Role: Head of Continuity Service
Right to Live Canada | Remote | Volunteer | Part-Time
------ About Right to Live
Right to Live is building systems intended to make continued life the default response when a person faces an otherwise avoidable path toward death.
Our work began in response to economic euthanasia in Canada: situations in which disability, poverty, inadequate services, housing, lack of care, or other solvable circumstances can leave a person seeing death as their only viable option.
Our work is expanding beyond that immediate problem toward a broader objective: building practical systems that identify, finance and execute preferable living futures when a person's current circumstances are pushing them toward death.
One of those systems is the Continuity Service.
------ The Opportunity
We are looking for an experienced Director of Care Operations to serve internally as Head of Continuity Service.
We need someone who has already built, launched, and managed a complex care-delivery, care-navigation, case-management, patient-support, disability-support, community-care, or comparable human-services service.
This is a firm requirement.
You must have personally taken a service from development into real-world operation and then been responsible for managing it after launch.
You must be able to demonstrate firsthand experience:
- building the operating model, workflows, staffing structure, intake system, case-management processes, provider relationships, quality controls, escalation pathways, documentation, and other infrastructure required for the service to function;
- launching that service into actual operation; and
- managing the live service, including its people, cases, performance, operational problems, quality, and continuous improvement.
Experience solely managing, scaling, advising, redesigning, consulting on, or working inside a service built by someone else does not satisfy this requirement.
The person we are looking for must be able to credibly say:
“I built it. I launched it. I ran it.”
You may have done this inside a healthcare startup, private care company, digital-health organization, patient-navigation business, complex-care provider, disability-services organization, health plan, human-services agency, or another high-performance service environment.
The type of organization matters much less than whether you personally know how to build a complex human service from the ground up, put it into operation, and make it work.
This is not primarily a senior caseworker position.
You will own the Continuity Service Department as a whole and lead its development from its current early-stage architecture into a functioning service.
------ What Is the Continuity Service?
Continuity Service works with a person facing a potential-death scenario to identify an achievable preferable living future and help make that future happen.
The service is designed to look beyond whatever options happen to exist locally.
Depending on the case, a Continuity Plan might involve:
- healthcare or treatment options;
- disability and community supports;
- housing or relocation;
- income and benefits systems;
- rehabilitation;
- assistive technology;
- international providers or treatment pathways;
- family or social supports;
- financing;
- other interventions capable of materially changing the person's future.
The underlying operating model is:
Identify → Propose → Finance → Execute → Outcome
The concept exists.
The job now is to build the organization capable of executing it reliably.
------ Your Mandate
You will own the Continuity Service Department as a whole.
Your immediate responsibility is to lead its development from an early-stage service architecture into a functioning, testable and ultimately operational service.
You will be responsible for determining how the department actually works—not merely supervising individual cases.
This includes:
Build the Service Model
- Convert the existing Continuity Service concept into a complete operating model.
- Define how a person moves from initial referral through assessment, planning, financing, execution, monitoring, closure and possible re-entry.
- Establish clear pathways for different types of referrals and cases.
- Determine what decisions belong to case staff, senior case-management leadership, specialists, financial functions and department leadership.
- Design escalation paths for urgent, complex, unusual or high-risk situations.
Build the Operating System
- Develop the procedures, workflows, decision trees, forms, statuses, documentation and handoffs needed to operate the service.
- Establish practical standards for case review, approvals, amendments, holds, transfers, closure and reactivation.
- Build procedures for provider failure, complaints, appeals, incidents and other operational failures.
- Ensure the department can operate consistently without relying on undocumented knowledge or constant CEO intervention.
Build the Team
- Help define and recruit the initial Continuity Service team.
- Establish clear responsibility between departmental leadership, senior case-management leadership, Case Navigators and intake/provider-network functions.
- Determine what specialist expertise should be permanent, fractional, advisory or accessed externally.
- Build a management structure capable of scaling as case volume grows.
Build the Provider and Resource Network
- Establish a usable network of healthcare, social, disability, rehabilitation, housing, financial and other relevant resources.
- Develop methods for identifying and validating providers and options beyond the client's immediate geography.
- Build domestic and international pathways where appropriate.
- Establish standards for provider information, verification, availability, cost and contingency planning.
Prove the Model
- Lead structured tabletop cases before the service is relied upon at scale.
- Identify failure points and redesign the system around what those tests reveal.
- Establish readiness criteria for moving from development into live operation.
- Build a service that competent staff can execute consistently rather than one that depends on heroic improvisation.
Own the Department
As Head of Continuity Service, you will ultimately be accountable for:
- service strategy;
- department priorities;
- operating performance;
- staffing and capacity;
- service quality;
- case-management systems;
- provider-network strategy;
- procedures and documentation;
- major operational decisions;
- cross-department coordination;
- continuous improvement;
- the transition from development into live operation.
The question attached to this seat is simple:
Is Continuity Service working, and if not, what are we doing about it?
You own the answer.
Who We Are Looking For
Required:
You must have substantial professional experience in care operations, care delivery, care navigation, case management, patient services, complex care, human services, disability services or another closely related service environment.
More importantly, you must have personally played a major role in building or transforming the operating system itself.
We are specifically looking for evidence that you have done things such as:
- built a service or program from an early stage;
- launched a new care-delivery or navigation operation;
- designed workflows and operating procedures;
- established staffing models and management structures;
- built intake and case-management processes;
- implemented quality and performance systems;
- developed external provider or partner networks;
- translated a service concept into live operations;
- scaled an operation after initial launch;
- repaired a dysfunctional or immature service system.
You should also have:
- strong operational judgment;
- the ability to turn ambiguity into a working system;
- experience leading multidisciplinary professionals;
- excellent written documentation skills;
- confidence making decisions without excessive bureaucracy;
- strong analytical and systems thinking;
- a high standard for execution and accountability;
- comfort operating in an early-stage organization where substantial infrastructure still needs to be created.
Strongly Preferred:
Experience in one or more of the following is particularly relevant:
- healthcare startups;
- digital health;
- complex-care organizations;
- patient navigation;
- care coordination;
- virtual care;
- disability services;
- home and community care;
- integrated care;
- patient advocacy;
- international care navigation;
- high-complexity case-management programs;
- building a new agency, service line or operating division.
Experience in private industry, startups and high-performance operating environments is fully welcomed.
We are not specifically looking for someone whose career has been limited to the nonprofit sector.
What Does Not Qualify by Itself
Being a highly experienced Case Manager, Social Worker, Nurse, Care Coordinator or other practitioner is valuable, but it does not by itself satisfy the central requirement of this position.
We need someone who can demonstrate:
“I helped build the system.”
not only:
“I worked inside the system.”
------ Professional Licensure
This is a service-development and departmental leadership role rather than a clinical-practice position.
A professional clinical or social-service licence may be valuable depending on your background, but it is not automatically required.
Operational competence and demonstrated service-building experience are the primary qualifications.
------ Time Commitment
This is a serious volunteer leadership position.
Required commitment: 10–12 hours per week.
Applicants should be prepared to consistently provide that level of effort rather than treating the role as an occasional advisory engagement.
Minimum commitment: four months.
A substantially longer commitment is strongly preferred because the successful candidate will be building a department that they may continue to lead as it moves into operation.
Attendance at the relevant weekly team meeting is required. The meeting schedule will be confirmed during onboarding; all other work may generally be scheduled at your convenience.
Because Right to Live operates as a virtual organization, you must be able to participate professionally in online meetings and collaborative work.
You must possess good equipment for virtual meetings, both video and audio.
You must also attend meetings from an environment where you can give the meeting your full attention and participate professionally.
------ What Volunteering at Right to Live Means
A volunteer role at Right to Live is a real organizational position with defined ownership and expected output.
We do not measure contribution simply by attending meetings or being associated with the organization.
You will be trusted with meaningful responsibility and expected to complete the work attached to your role.
In return, this position offers the opportunity to take genuine ownership of building a new service from the ground up rather than contributing narrowly to a mature system someone else designed.
------ What You Will Have the Opportunity to Build
If successful, you will have played a central role in creating:
- the Continuity Service operating model;
- its department structure;
- its case-management architecture;
- its service manual;
- its provider network;
- its quality and escalation systems;
- its initial team;
- its pilot process;
- and ultimately the functioning service itself.
This is an opportunity for someone who enjoys building institutions, not merely occupying positions inside them.
------ How To Apply
Apply through LinkedIn with your resume OR the form on our website ( www.righttolive.ca/volunteer ) or email volunteer@righttolive.ca.
Thank you for your consideration.
Required career level
- Volunteer