This job originated on www.usajobs.gov. For the full announcement and to apply, visit www.usajobs.gov/job/459533300. Only resumes submitted according to the instructions on the job announcement listed at www.usajobs.gov will be considered.
The VA is much more than just another employer. It is an honorable, open and welcoming community of those who care. Gratitude is our motivation and service is our mission. The VA has adopted Core Values and Characteristics that apply universally across the Department. The five Core Values define "who we are", our culture, and how we care for our Veterans, their families and other beneficiaries. The Values of Integrity, Commitment, Advocacy, Respect and Excellence ("I CARE").
Cost of Living Allowance (COLA is tax-free) is currently 5.31% and is subject to change in the future.
VA encourages persons with disabilities to apply. The health related positions in VA are covered by Title 38, and are not covered by the Schedule A excepted appointment authority.
This announcement is also being posted for current permanent Federal employees from other agencies and U.S. Citizens, see vacancy number VT-17-MMC-1874028-BU-OCA. Only two positions will be filled.
Recruitment/Relocation Incentive may be authorized upon eligibility, review and approval by management for a highly qualified applicant.
This position is Open Until Filled; applicants who have applied and meet qualifications by January 4, 2017 will be referred first. Applicants who apply after that date and meet qualifications will be referred as they are received. If selections are made, this position will close before December 12, 2017.
Learn more about this agency12/13/2016 to 06/28/2017
$79,738 - $103,659 per year
GS 12
2 vacancies in the following locations:
Not required
No
Permanent - Excepted Service Permanent
Full-time - Full Time
No
VT-17-MMC-1874070-BU-OCA
459533300
The two (2) Social Worker (Tribal Case Manager/HUD-VASH) positions are in Bethel and Juneau, Alaska. The Social Worker functions as the Tribal Case Manager for the Alaska VA Healthcare System's Housing and Urban Development vouchers assigned to the Association of Village Council Presidents Regional Housing Authority (Bethel), and the Tlingit-Haida Regional Housing Authority (Juneau) in the Tribal HUD-VASH Demonstration Project. The two Social Worker's report to the Chief, Healthcare for Homeless Veterans (HCHV) of the Mental Health Services Care Line located in the Alaska VA Healthcare System. Duties of this position include, but are not limited to the following:
Work Schedule: Monday - Friday, 8:00 a.m. - 4:30 p.m.
Functional Statement Title/#: Social Worker (Tribal Case Manager/HUD-VASH)/000000
Physical Requirements: Light lifting (up to 35 lbs); Light carrying (15 - 44 lbs); Use of fingers; Walking (up to 2 hours); Standing (up to 2 hours); Standing (up to 2 hours); Near vision correctable 13" to 16" to Jaeger 1 to 4; Far vision correctable in one eye to 20/20 and to 20/40 in the other; Hearing (aid permitted); Emotional/mental stability.
Working Conditions: Day-to-day work involves sitting, walking, standing and carrying light objects. Requires the ability to utilize local transportation for travel in the service area, on small commuter land and water based aircraft, to perform duties where there is limited road access and infrastructure. Use of computer, mobile telephone and tablet computer. Work may require assisting physically disabled Veterans. May be required to travel overnight to small rural villages, may have travel delays due to weather or unplanned delays with commercial transportation. Work is conducted in the community, including but not limited to various shelters, soup kitchens, churches and public and private agencies where the working conditions are not over seen by the VA. When work is performed in a setting away from the office, the work environment cannot be controlled.
Basic Requirements:
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.
Creditable Experience
(1) Knowledge of Current Professional Social Work Practices. To be creditable, the experience must have required the use of knowledge, skills, abilities, and other characteristics associated with current professional social work practice. The experience or education must be post-MSW degree. Experience and education satisfying this requirement must be active professional practice, which is paid/non-paid employment as a professional social worker, as defined by the appropriate state licensing board.
(2) Quality of experience. Experience is only creditable if it is obtained following graduation with a master's degree in social work and if it includes work as a professional social worker directly related to the position to be filled. Qualifying experience must also be at a level comparable to social work experience at the next lower grade level.
(3) 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. Has expertise in participating in the professional development of colleagues through mentorship and teaching; demonstrate leadership in developing and expanding professional intervention strategies; demonstrate leadership in defining and attending to professional practice issues; and has the ability to expand the conceptual knowledge of the profession. 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 a routine social work interventions. Mastered a range of specialized interventions and provides consultation to colleagues, renders professional opinions based on experience and expertise, develop new models of psychosocial assessment or intervention, and incorporates complex multiple causation in differential diagnosis and treatment. Utilize outcome evaluations to further treatment and designs system changes based on empirical findings.
(4) Differentiating Full Performance Level from Advanced Practice Level. This is done based on differences between independent practice, which is required for all VHA social workers, and advanced practice. A social worker practicing at the independent level has a generalized knowledge of practice, 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 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.
(5) Part-Time Experience. Part-time experience as a professional social worker is creditable according to its relationship to the full-time workweek. For example, a social worker employed 20 hours a week, or on a 1/2-time basis, would receive 1 full-time workweek of credit for each 2 weeks of service.
Experience, Education and Licensure: GS-12 Senior Social Worker Grade Requirements
Senior Social Workers have experience that demonstrates possession of advanced practice skills and judgment. At least two (2) years should be in an area of specialized social work practice. Senior social workers must be licensed or certified by a state at the advanced practice level which included an ASWB 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). In addition, the candidate must demonstrate the professional KSAs listed below. The candidate may be required to submit responses to all the KSAs listed below for Promotion consideration to the Professional Standards Board.
1. Advanced knowledge of and mastery of theories and modalities used in the specialized treatment of complex physical or mental illness. Ability to incorporate complex multiple causation in differential diagnosis and treatment of Veteran patients, including making psychosocial and psychiatric diagnoses within approved clinical privileges or scope of practice. Ability to determine priority for services and provide specialized treatment services.
2. Advanced and expert 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 interventions used in the treatment of Veterans with polytraumatic injuries, spinal cord injuries, traumatic brain injuries, visual impairment, post-traumatic stress disorder, etc.
3. Advanced knowledge and expert skill 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. Ability to coordinate the delivery of specialized psychosocial services and programs. Ability to design system changes based on empirical findings.
4. Ability to provide subject matter consultation to colleagues and students on the psychosocial treatment of patients treated in the specialty area, rendering professional opinions based on experience and expertise and role modeling effective social work practice skills. Ability to teach and mentor staff and students in the specialty area of practice and to provide supervision for licensure or for specialty certifications.
5. Ability to expand clinical knowledge in the profession, demonstrating innovation in the creation of new models of psychosocial assessment or intervention to identify and address specialized clinical needs. Ability to write policies, procedures, and/or practice guidelines pertaining to the specialty population or specialty treatment program.
Assignments: Senior Social Workers are licensed or certified to independently practice social work at an advanced level. The Senior Social Worker is assigned administrative responsibility for clinical program development and is accountable for clinical program effectiveness and modification of service patterns.
References: Input applicable VA Handbook 5005 reference and appropriate VA Qualification Standard.
Note: Only education or degrees recognized by the U.S. Department of Education from accredited colleges, universities, schools, or institutions may be used to qualify for Federal employment. You can verify your education here: http://ope.ed.gov/accreditation/. If you are using foreign education to meet qualification requirements, you must send a Certificate of Foreign Equivalency with your transcript in order to receive credit for that education.
It is the policy of the VA to not deny employment to those that have faced financial hardships or periods of unemployment.
This job opportunity announcement may be used to fill additional vacancies.
This position is in the Excepted Service and does not confer competitive status.
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 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 candidates 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 determine grade and HR will determine step in accordance with policy.
-VA Form 10-2850c - Application for Associated Health Occupations (required). Available at the VA Forms website: http://www.va.gov/vaforms/search_action.asp?FormNo=10-2850&tkey=&Action=Search. Must be signed/dated within one year.
-Current Resume (required) - Must include: a. Name of agency; address, city, state, zip code; b. Job title; series (if applicable); grade (if applicable); c. Current and previous supervisor(s) name, phone number and if they may be contacted; d. Month & year start/end dates (e.g. June 2009 to April 2010); e. Duties (be as detailed as possible); f. Full-time, part-time, intermittent status (include hours worked per week); g. School(s) attended, list of undergraduate/graduate degree(s) completed/date(s) graduated.
-All current Federal employees must submit a copy of your latest NON-AWARD SF-50 (Notification of Personnel Action) showing Title, Series, Grade and Step (required).
-OF-306 - Declaration for Federal Employment (required). Available at http://www.opm.gov/forms/pdf_fill/of0306.pdf. Must be signed/dated within one year.
Faxing Applications or Supporting Documents: You are encouraged to apply online. Applying online will allow you to review and track the status of your application. If you are unable to apply online or unable to upload your supporting documents to your online application, follow the directions located at the following site: Fax Options. The Vacancy ID of the job opportunity announcement is 1874070.
NOTE: If you applied online and your application is complete, do not fax the paper application (1203-FX) as this will overwrite your prior online responses and may result in you being found ineligible.
Education must be accredited by an accrediting institution recognized by the U.S. Department of Education in order for it to be credited towards qualifications. Therefore, provide only the attendance and/or degrees from schools accredited by accrediting institutions recognized by the U.S. Department of Education.
Failure to provide all of the required information as stated in this vacancy announcement may result in an ineligible rating or may affect the overall rating.
All applicants are encouraged to apply online.
To apply for this position, you must complete the View Occupational Questionnaire and submit the documentation specified in the Required Documents section below.
The complete application package must be submitted by 11:59 PM (EST) on Wednesday, June 28, 2017 to receive consideration.
1. To begin, click Apply Online to create a USAJOBS account or log in to your existing account. Follow the prompts to select your USAJOBS resume and/or other supporting documents and complete the occupational questionnaire.
2. Click Submit My Answers to submit your application package.
NOTE: It is your responsibility to ensure your responses and appropriate documentation is submitted prior to the closing date.
To verify your application is complete,log into your USAJOBS account, https://my.usajobs.gov/Account/Login, select the Application Status link and then select the more information link for this position. The Details page will display the status of your application, the documentation received and processed, and any correspondence the agency has sent related to this application. Your uploaded documents may take several hours to clear the virus scan process.
To return to an incomplete application, log into your USAJOBS account and click Update Application in the vacancy announcement. You must re-select your resume and/or other documents from your USAJOBS account or your application will be incomplete.
After we receive application packages (including all required documents) and the vacancy announcement closes, we will review applications to ensure qualification and eligibility requirements are met. During our review, if your résumé and application package do not support your questionnaire answers, we will adjust your rating accordingly. After the review is complete, a referral certificate(s) is issued and applicants will be notified of their status by email (if provided); otherwise, applicants will receive a notification letter via the U.S. Postal Service. Referred applicants will be notified as such and may be contacted directly by the hiring office for an interview. All referred applicants receive a final notification once a selection decision has been made.
You may check the status of your application at any time by logging into your USAJOBS account and clicking on Application Status. For a more detailed update of your status, click on more information. Information regarding applicant notification points can be found in the USAJobs Resource Center.
The Federal hiring process is set up to be fair and transparent. Please read the following guidance.
This job originated on www.usajobs.gov. For the full announcement and to apply, visit www.usajobs.gov/job/459533300. Only resumes submitted according to the instructions on the job announcement listed at www.usajobs.gov will be considered.
Learn more about
Vacancy Identification Number (VIN): 1874070
OUR MISSION: To fulfill President Lincoln's promise "To care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow, and his orphan" by serving and honoring the men and women who are America's Veterans. How would you like to become a part of a team providing compassionate care to Veterans?