Career and Education

The Senior Social Worker is the Community Outreach for the Homeless Programs. This position represents Albany VA Homeless Program within the 18-county catchment area and coordinates for VA homeless programs to fully collaborate with the community, including the Continuum of Care (CoC) and other Homeless Program community agency partners, to coordinate the housing and homeless Veteran treatment planned entry efforts in that community. 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: Social Worker Citizenship: US Citizen Education: Have a master's degree in social work 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 http://www.cswe.org/Accreditation to verify that the 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-0185 series in 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/. Physical Requirements: See VA Directive and Handbook 5019, Employee Occupational Health Services. English Language Proficiency: Candidates must be proficient in spoken and written English to be appointed for this vacancy. May qualify based on being covered by the Grandfathering Provision as described in the VA Qualification Standard for this occupation (only applicable to current VHA employees who are in this occupation and meet the criteria). NOTE: If social workers covered under the grandfathering provision of the 1991 Federal law regarding licensure or certification of VHA social workers leave the GS-0185 social work series, they lose the grandfathering protection. If they choose to return at a later date to the GS-0185 series, they must be licensed or certified to qualify for employment as a social worker. Grade Determinations: Creditable Experience: The candidate must have 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-Master of Social Work (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. 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 level. Senior Social Worker, GS-12 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: 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. Ability to incorporate complex multiple causation in differential diagnosis and treatment within approved clinical privileges or scope of practice. 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. 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. 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. Assignments: For all assignments above the full performance level, the higher-level duties must consist of significant scope, complexity (difficulty), and variety and be performed by the incumbent at least 25% of the time. Senior social workers are licensed or certified to independently practice social work at an advanced level. Senior social workers typically practice in a major program area such as but not limited to: Polytrauma Rehabilitation Center or Polytrauma Network Site; a Spinal Cord Injury Rehabilitation Center, or a national VHA referral center, such as a national Center for Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder or a national Transplant Center, or other program areas of equivalent scope and complexity. The senior social worker may be assigned administrative responsibility for clinical program development and is accountable for clinical program effectiveness and modification of service patterns. Assignments include clinical settings where they have limited access to onsite supervision such as CBOCs or satellite outpatient clinics. The senior social worker collaborates with the other members of the treatment team in the provision of comprehensive health care services to Veterans, ensures equity of access, service, and benefits to this population, ensures the care provided is of the highest quality. The senior social worker provides leadership, direction, orientation, coaching, in-service training, staff development, and continuing education programs for assigned social work staff. They serve on committees, work groups, and task forces at the facility, VISN and national level, or in the community as deemed appropriate by the supervisor, Social Work Executive or Chief of Social Work Services. This assignment is to be relatively few in number based on the size of the facility/service and applying sound position management. This assignment must represent substantial additional responsibility over and above that required at the full performance grade level and cannot be used as the full performance level of this occupation. References: VA HANDBOOK 5005/120 PART II APPENDIX G39 The full performance level of this vacancy is GS-11. The actual grade at which an applicant may be selected for this vacancy is the GS-12. Physical Requirements: See VA Directive and Handbook 5019, Employee Occupational Health Services. ["VA Careers - Social Work: https://youtube.com/embed/enRhz_ua_UU Duties and Responsibilities: Plans, develops and maintains a network of relationships with community resources and other advocates to effectively screen and identify veteran members with housing insecurity. Interviews potential clients and interprets VHA guidelines and eligibility requirements and completes a psychosocial history and assessment. Develop community planning and process and assistance with community policy development to ensure direct linkage from community services to VHA homeless program services through regular and consistent outreach, communication and collaboration with community agency providers, Veteran Service Organizations and county Veterans Service Offices. Makes initial and continuing decisions regarding the services available and referrals needed. Provides clinical services to include guidance, emotional support and other case management services. This includes securing vital documents, applying for housing opportunities, assisting with financial benefits, and facilitating health care needs at the medical center. Triages veterans presenting with housing needs. Responsible for case management on an ongoing basis newly housed veterans with a goal of helping to maintain housing and overall wellbeing. Makes provision for referral services to other agency organizations, community resources, or other governmental resources to resolve problems. Employs casework methods and techniques to maintain a therapeutic relationship that will help the veteran work towards the best way of dealing with issues. Adjusts the psychosocial treatment plan and interventions based on changing needs and response to interventions. As part of a large multidisciplinary team of clinical staff serving veterans with current and previous housing insecurity, the Social Worker will have access to a government vehicle, VA issued smartphone, and VA issued laptop to allow for ease of care in the community. Policy and procedures development to ensure efficient sharing of Veteran data and program information, as allowable under VA Privacy and Information Security policies and Directives. This will include knowledge of HMIS and HOMES data standards, data sharing and privacy authorities, HUD guidance, and other applicable documents or established guidance. Provide support to the VA homeless program teams as a functional member of the team, to include coordination of all program outreach activities and consultation on community involved interventions for homeless Veterans to include annual community Point in Time (PIT) counts. Serve as a senior member of a multidisciplinary homeless program treatment team to link treatment team discussions to the community's case conferencing discussions. Directly outreach to and develop active partnerships with community agencies, both public and private, with regular contact and communication and development of Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) agreements as needed. Develop and provide linkages to quickly enroll Veterans in VA care with complex housing needs that have not previously connected to services to allow full access to VA healthcare services and homeless programs. Provide appropriate clinical documentation for all contacts with or about Veterans who are engaged through outreach services. Provide oversight to ensure timely and accurate entry into VA data systems such as HOMES and periodic audit of the data to improve performance and delivery of services to homeless Veterans. Provide education and training to community agencies regarding recovery-oriented and housing first services, and military culture with the goal of helping the Veteran transition back to community services to allow the Veteran to live independently in the community at the Veteran's highest level of functioning. Other duties as assigned Work Schedule: Monday to Friday 8:00 AM to 4:30 PM Compressed/Flexible: Available Telework: Not Available Virtual: This is not a virtual position. Functional Statement #: 37897F Relocation/Recruitment Incentives: Not Authorized Permanent Change of Station (PCS): Not Authorized PCS Appraised Value Offer (AVO): Not Authorized Financial Disclosure Report: Not required"]

Return to Search Results