Clarification from the agency

1st Area of Consideration - current permanent G.V. (Sonny) Montgomery VA Medical Center employees; 2nd Area of Consideration - current permanent VA Nationwide employees; 3rd Area of Consideration - other current permanent Federal employees. All others are encouraged to apply under vacancy announcement CBCZ-10702678-20-20-MM.

The Mental Health Senior Social Worker will provide appropriate group and individual Case Management and treatment and will provide the following services: Psychosocial Assessments within 24 hours of the Veterans admission to the inpatient Unit, complete coordination of care and Interfacility Handoffs on veterans with primary care assignment in other VAMCs and CBOCs, discharge planning, conduct groups, Advance Directive Planning, obtaining certifications and providing evidence-based therapies, and crisis management. Further the incumbent will provide ongoing Social Work Service support to residential programs and case management to the homeless population served. Additional duties include, but are not limited to:

• Provide direct MH inpatient services for the Medical Center in the community.
• Provide Outreach services for Mental Health programs in the community.
• Provide training for other members of multidisciplinary treatment team in areas related to assessment, anger management, life skills, and with co-occurring disorders.
• Conduct intake and needs assessments of Veterans and their significant others, identifying symptoms leading to a clinical diagnosis.
• Provide all necessary assessment functions, e.g. interviewing, psychosocial histories and assessments to aid in the development of treatment plans.
• Additional duties as assigned.

Work Schedule: Monday - Friday, 8:00am - 4:30pm. Subject to change based on agency needs.
Financial Disclosure Report: Not required.

Conditions of employment

• You must be a U.S. Citizen to apply for this job
• Designated and/or random drug testing may be required
• Selective Service Registration is required for males born after 12/31/1959
• You may be required to serve a probationary period
• Subject to a background/security investigation
• Must be proficient in written and spoken English
• Selected applicants will be required to complete an online onboarding process

Qualifications

To qualify for this position, applicants must meet all requirements by the closing date of this announcement, 02/03/2020.
Basic Requirements:

• United States Citizenship: Non-citizens may only be appointed when it is not possible to recruit qualified citizens in accordance with VA Policy.
• Education: Have a master's degree in social work (MSW) from a school of social work fully accredited by the Council on Social Work Education (CSWE). Graduates of schools of social work that are in candidacy status do not meet this requirement until the school of social work is fully accredited. A doctoral degree in social work may not be substituted for the master's degree in social work. Verification of the degree can be made by going to the CSWE website to verify if that Social Work degree meets the accreditation standards for a Master of Social Work.
• Licensure: Persons hired or reassigned to social worker positions in the GS-185 series VHA must be licensed or certified by a state to independently practice social work at the master's degree level. Current state requirements may be found by going to http://vaww.va.gov/OHRM/T38Hybrid/.
• English Language Proficiency: Social workers must be proficient in spoken and written English in accordance with VA Handbook 5005, Part II, chapter 3, section A, paragraph 3j.

Preferred Experience: Experience conducting suicide risk assessments,; providing and/or certification in providing evidence based treatments; providing brief diagnostic evaluations; experience working in a primary care or outpatient Mental Health clinic.

Grade Determinations: GS-12 Senior Social Worker
Experience/Education. The candidate must have at least two years of experience post advanced practice clinical licensure and should be in a specialized area of social work practice of which, one year must be equivalent to the GS-11 grade level. Senior social workers have experience that demonstrates possession of advanced practice skills and judgment. Senior social workers are experts in their specialized area of practice. Senior social workers may have certification or other post-masters training from a nationally recognized professional organization or university that includes a defined curriculum/course of study and internship or equivalent supervised professional experience in a specialty.
Licensure/Certification. Senior social workers must be licensed or certified by a state at the advanced practice level which included an advanced generalist or clinical examination, unless they are grandfathered by the state in which they are licensed to practice at the advanced practice level (except for licenses issued in California, which administers its own clinical examination for advanced practice) and they must be able to provide supervision for licensure.
Demonstrated Knowledge, Skills and Abilities. In addition to the experience above, candidates must demonstrate all of the following KSAs:
(a) Skill in a range of specialized interventions and treatment modalities used in specialty treatment programs or with special patient populations. This includes individual, group, and/or family counseling or psychotherapy and advanced level psychosocial and/or case management.
(b) Ability to incorporate complex multiple causation in differential diagnosis and treatment within approved clinical privileges or scope of practice.
(c) Knowledge in developing and implementing methods for measuring effectiveness of social work practice and services in the specialty area, utilizing outcome evaluations to improve treatment services and to design system changes.
(d) Ability to provide specialized consultation to colleagues and students on the psychosocial treatment of patients in the service delivery area, as well as role modeling effective social work practice skills.
(e) Ability to expand clinical knowledge in the social work profession, and to write policies, procedures, and/or practice guidelines pertaining to the service delivery area.

Advanced Practice Level: Advanced Practice Level is defined as the ability to provide independent and expert clinical psychosocial and case management services in a specialized area of practice to Veterans who tend to have serious and severe crises, may lack any familial and community support, may be poor self-monitors, may frequently fail to comply with instructions and treatment, or may have major deficits in coping skills and require continuing professional psychological support. The advanced practice or senior social worker has an increased depth and breadth of practice skills; has expertise in participating in the professional development of colleagues through mentorship and teaching; demonstrates leadership in developing and expanding professional intervention strategies; demonstrates leadership in defining and attending to professional practice issues; and has the ability to expand the conceptual knowledge of the profession. The advanced practice or senior social worker will make independent professional decisions and recommendations for agency action; the consequences to the Veteran of these decisions and actions may be quite serious. Work involves intensive social work services requiring the exercise of mature professional judgment and the flexible use of a wide range of complex social work practice skills not typically required in routine social work interventions. The advanced practice or senior social worker has mastered a range of specialized interventions and provides consultation to colleagues, renders professional opinions based on experience and expertise, develops new models of psychosocial assessment or intervention, and incorporates complex multiple causation in differential diagnosis and treatment. The advanced practice or senior social worker utilizes outcome evaluations to further treatment and designs system changes based on empirical findings.

Differentiating Independent Practice from Advanced Practice Level: Experience must be evaluated to differentiate between independent practice and advanced practice levels. A social worker practicing at the independent level has a generalized knowledge of practice, (which is required for all social workers at the full performance level and above.), whereas the social worker practicing at the advanced level has specialized knowledge of practice typically related to a particular diagnosis or patient population. The advanced practice social worker can be further differentiated from the independent practice social worker by their ability to expand clinical knowledge in the profession, provide consultation and guidance to colleagues, role model effective social work practice skills, teach or provide orientation to less experienced social workers, develop innovations in practice interventions, and provide clinical supervision for social work licensure or certification. A social worker with advanced practice skills and personal qualifications that meet the standard for the senior social worker will have passed an advanced generalist or clinical Association of Social Work Boards (ASWB) examination and be assigned to a position that requires use of the advanced practice skills in order to be considered for the senior social worker grade.

References: VA Handbook 5005, Part II, Appendix G39, Social Worker Qualification Standard.

The full performance level of this vacancy is Grade 12.

Physical Requirements: Heavy lifting 50 pounds and over; Heavy carrying 50 pounds and over; straight pulling (1-2 hours); pushing (1-2 hours); walking (2-4 hours); standing (2-6 hours); use of fingers; both hands required; ability for rapid mental and muscular coordination simultaneously; near vision correctable; far vision correctable; depth perception; hearing (aid permitted); work closely with others; use stretchers to transfer patients and use of patient lifts (if applicable); emotional and mental stability.

How you will be evaluated

You will be evaluated for this job based on how well you meet the qualifications above.

IN DESCRIBING YOUR EXPERIENCE, PLEASE BE CLEAR AND SPECIFIC. WE MAY NOT MAKE ASSUMPTIONS REGARDING YOUR EXPERIENCE. Your application, résumé, C.V., and/or supporting documentation will be verified. Please follow all instructions carefully. Errors or omissions may affect consideration for employment.

NOTE: The Professional Standards Board (a peer-review group) will review the selected candidate's education and experience and recommend the grade and salary at which the candidate will be placed. For internal selectees eligible for promotion, the board will recommend grade and HR will determine step in accordance with policy.

Experience refers to paid and unpaid experience, including volunteer work done through National Service programs (e.g., Peace Corps, AmeriCorps) and other organizations (e.g., professional; philanthropic; religions; spiritual; community; student; social). Volunteer work helps build critical competencies, knowledge, and skills and can provide valuable training and experience that translates directly to paid employment. You will receive credit for all qualifying experience, including volunteer experience.