Clarification from the agency

All qualified candidates encouraged to apply. Open to current permanent Department of Veterans Affairs employees, current permanent Federal employees of other agencies and all US Citizens. NOTE: The 2-page Resume requirement does not apply to this occupational series. For more information, refer to Required Documents below.

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Duties and responsibilities may include but are not limited to:

CLINICAL FUNCTIONS (90% to 97%)

• Conducts psychosocial assessments.
• Develops treatment plans in collaboration with the Veteran/family and with the interdisciplinary treatment team.
• Participates in scheduling, triaging, and monitoring the flow of patients in the MHC and assisting with admissions of MHC patients to inpatient psychiatry unit when indicated.
• Establishes and maintains effective therapeutic relationships with Veterans and their families.
• Possesses general knowledge of Veterans' benefits and services relating to special programs, service connected compensation and non-service-connected pension.
• Facilitates referrals based upon Veteran needs and eligibility.

ADMINISTRATIVE FUNCTIONS (3% to 10%)

The BHIP team Senior Licensed Professional Mental Health Counselor has the following administrative responsibilities:

• Works with the BHIP Team in the accomplishment of routine Team and unit activities.
• Attends BHIP team huddles/meetings
• Actively participates in panel management and identifies stable patients to be referred back (discharge) to the PACT teams.
• Collaborates with the team AMSA, RN or LPN in responding to secure messaging from Veterans.
• Completes customer services tasks such as addressing patient concerns and performing service recovery.
• Completes paperwork including forms that the Veteran may request, documentation in the medical record, secure messages, and responds to facility emails.

Work Schedule: Monday through Friday; 8:00a.m. to 4:30p.m.
Telework: Available; Ad-hoc only as determined by agency policy.
Virtual: This is not a virtual position.
Functional Statement #: 921970
Relocation/Recruitment Incentives: Not Authorized.
Permanent Change of Station (PCS): Not Authorized.

Conditions of employment

• You must be a U.S. Citizen to apply for this job.
• Selective Service Registration is required for males born after 12/31/1959.
• Must be proficient in written and spoken English.
• Subject to background/security investigation.
• Selected applicants will be required to complete an online onboarding process. Acceptable form(s) of identification will be required to complete pre-employment requirements (https://www.uscis.gov/i-9-central/form-i-9-acceptable-documents). Effective May 7, 2025, driver's licenses or state-issued dentification cards that are not REAL ID compliant cannot be utilized as an acceptable form of identification for employment.
• Participation in the seasonal influenza vaccination program is a requirement for all Department of Veterans Affairs Health Care Personnel (HCP).
• Complete all application requirements detailed in the "Required Documents" section of this announcement.

As a condition of employment for accepting this position, you will be required to serve a 1 or 2-year trial period during which we will evaluate your fitness and whether your continued employment advances the public interest. In determining if your employment advances the public interest, we may consider:

• your performance and conduct;
• the needs and interests of the agency;
• whether your continued employment would advance organizational goals of the agency or the Government; and
• whether your continued employment would advance the efficiency of the Federal service.

Upon completion of your trial period, your employment will be terminated unless you receive certification, in writing, that your continued employment advances the public interest.

Qualifications

Applicants pending the completion of educational or certification/licensure requirements may be referred and tentatively selected but may not be hired until all requirements are met.

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 - Master's or doctoral degree in one of the following:

• Clinical Mental Health Counseling; Clinical Rehabilitation Counseling; Clinical Mental Health Counseling and Clinical Rehabilitation Counseling; OR
• A related field, from a program accredited by the Council on Accreditation of Counseling and Related Educational Programs (CACREP). Examples of related mental health counseling fields include but are not limited to Addiction Counseling; Community Counseling; Gerontology Counseling; Marital, Couple, and Family Counseling. CACREP defines the date when graduates are considered to have graduated from a CACREP accredited program. Additional information may be obtained from http://www.cacrep.org/directory/.

NOTE: Traditional Rehabilitation counseling programs that are accredited by CACREP do not meet the Licensed Professional Mental Health Counselor (LPMHC) qualification standards as Traditional Rehabilitation counseling differs from Clinical Rehabilitation counseling.

Licensure - Must hold a full, current, and unrestricted license to independently practice as a Licensed Professional Mental Health Counselor, which includes diagnosis and treatment.

Grandfather Provision: An LPMHC employed in VHA on the effective date of the qualification standard (4/3/2018) who did not meet all the basic requirements in this standard may not be promoted beyond the full performance level (GS-11) or be newly placed in supervisory or managerial positions until meeting the full qualification requirements.

Grade Determinations: In addition to the basic requirements stated above, the following qualification criteria must be met for each grade. The candidate's qualifications must clearly demonstrate the level of competence required for the grade.

GS-12 Senior LPMHC Experience Requirements: In addition to meeting the basic requirements, you must possess:

1. A minimum of 5 years of post-licensed experience (with at least 1 year equivalent to the GS-11 grade level) that demonstrates possession of advanced practice skills and judgment, demonstrating progressive professional competency and expertise and be licensed to provide clinical supervision to trainees or unlicensed LPMHCs, AND;
2. Experience that Demonstrates the following GS-11 Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities?

• Ability to make professional evaluations, decisions, and recommendation for treatment planning and implementation.
• ·Advanced knowledge and mastery of the fundamentals of the counseling process which includes defining patient/family problems and maintaining an effective counseling relationship.
• Ability to provide subject matter consultation to colleagues and trainees on the counseling process within various specialty areas, build on the foundation of competence through regular meetings and discussions to explain assignments, review progress of cases and confer about the counseling perspectives and orientation.
• Ability to provide complex crisis intervention and stabilization to patients who are in psychological distress. Requires independent judgment and skill.
• Ability to establish goals/treatment through a collaborative process with the patient utilizing advanced counseling skills, including evidenced- based practices, screening, and psychosocial assessment.
• Ability to use a wide variety of individual, group, or family counseling interventions.
• Ability to fully utilize the current DSM in making diagnoses and formulation of treatment goals and application of appropriate clinical intervention using professional counseling practices.
• Ability to develop and facilitate psychotherapy and psycho- education groups that include life skills, family support, and community integration. This may include evidence-based psychotherapy.

GS-12 Senior LPMHC Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities: In addition to meeting the GS-11 level experience and KSAs above, you must possess the following Knowledge, Skills and Abilities (KSAs):

• Advanced knowledge of and mastery of theories and modalities used in the specialized treatment of complex 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 of services needed and provide specialized treatment.
• Advanced and expert skill in a range of specialized interventions and treatment modalities for Veterans with complex needs. 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.
• Ability to coordinate the delivery of specialized psychosocial services and programs. Ability to design system changes based on data.
• Ability to provide subject matter consultation to colleagues and trainees on the psychosocial treatment of patients, rendering professional opinions based on experience, expertise and role modeling effective clinical skills.
• Ability to teach, mentor staff and trainees, and provide supervision for licensure or for specialty certifications.
• Ability to engage in written and oral communication with leadership/staff and community stakeholders regarding policies, procedures, practice guidelines, and issues pertaining to the practice of the profession.

Preferred Experience: Behavioral Health Interdisciplinary Program - general mental health psychotherapy. Training in evidence-based psychotherapy. Couple and/or family therapy experience.

Reference: For more information on this qualification standard, please visit https://www.va.gov/ohrm/QualificationStandards/.

The full performance level of this vacancy is GS-12.

Physical Requirements: The work is sometimes sedentary. Typically, the employee will sit to perform administrative work. However, other position duties include physical requirements which include but not limited to, long periods of walking; standing; bending; crouching, reaching and lifting of a variety of moderately heavy items, carrying of light items such as papers, books, small parts; or driving an automobile, etc. No special physical demands are required to perform the work.

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, resume, C.V., and/or supporting documentation will be verified. Please follow all instructions carefully. Errors or omissions may affect consideration for employment.

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. To be creditable, the experience must have required the use of knowledge, skills, abilities, and other characteristics (KSAs), also referred to as core competencies associated with the scope of LPMHC practice.

Part-Time Experience. Part-time experience is creditable according to its relationship to the full-time work week. For example, one week of full-time credit is equivalent to two weeks of part-time work.

Knowledge of Current LPMHC Practices. To be creditable, the experience must have demonstrated the knowledge, skills, and abilities associated with current mental health counseling practice. Experience satisfying this requirement must be active professional practice at the post- master's degree level, which is paid/non-paid employment as a professional mental health counselor.

Fellowships or Post-Graduate Training. Fellowship and post- graduate training programs are typically in a specialized area of clinical practice, i.e., mental health counseling. Training as a fellow or post-graduate may be substituted for creditable experience on a year-for-year basis.

Practicum in a VA Setting. VHA practicum experience may not be substituted for experience, as the practicum (field placement) is completed prior to graduation with a master's degree in mental health counseling or related field.

The Department of Veterans Affairs performs pre-employment reference checks as an assessment method used in the hiring process to verify information provided by a candidate (e.g., on resume or during interview or hiring process); gain additional knowledge regarding a candidate's abilities; and assist a hiring manager with making a final selection for a position.

It is the policy of the VA to not deny employment to those that have faced financial hardships or periods of unemployment.

Veterans and Transitioning Service Members: Please visit the VA for Vets site for career-search tools for Veterans seeking employment at VA, career development services for our existing Veterans, and coaching and reintegration support for military service members.

Eligible applications will be reviewed and referred in the following order:

1. Current permanent VA employees of the facility.
2. All other VA employees.
3. All other applicants.

Non-citizens may be appointed when it is not possible to recruit qualified citizens.