Behavioral Health Clin I

About the role

The Behavioral Health Clinician provides comprehensive patient care, focusing on assessment, treatment planning, and counseling models and modalities. They also assist with care coordination and discharge planning to ensure patients access necessary supports.

Responsibilities

• Provide comprehensive assessments to identify cognitive, emotional, and behavioral functioning and risk assessment, using a biopsychosocial approach.
• Identify disposition decisions, determining the appropriate level of care for each patient.
• Attend treatment team huddles and coordinate care in close collaboration with other treatment team members.
• Complete clinical formulations to include diagnosis and treatment approach, taking the lead on and providing input to a patient’s Individual Service Plan (ISP).
• Complete progress notes on interventions conducted and patient response, including daily documentation of patient mental status, behaviors, activities, and incidents.
• Engage patients in various individual and group activities and therapeutic interventions, stimulating their interest and cooperation.
• Utilize effective strategies for managing emotional and behavioral crises, providing appropriate crisis intervention as necessary.
• Use counseling skills to include active listening, appropriate voice tone, and volume of voice, providing positive reinforcements, maintaining appropriate boundaries, and promoting a positive peer culture.
• Communicate effectively with families and convey a positive, professional image.
• Work cooperatively as a member of the larger treatment team, providing collaboration and flexible work scheduling when necessary.
• Oversee patient engagement and morale, maintaining a warm and positive environment that is supportive of individual choices, enriching, homelike, safe, and nurturing for people in mental health crisis receiving emergency stabilization services.
• Develop a therapeutic relationship with psychiatric patients and directly address their behavioral support needs.
• Observe patient progress during treatment, monitor leisure time, recreational, and social activities of choice within the unit for each patient.
• Collaborate with the clinical team to ensure effective communication and progress monitoring.
• Lead, train, and support the psychiatric units' team members in Handle with Care/De-escalation techniques.
• Link behavioral health patients to services and supports specified in their Individualized Service Plan.
• Aid physicians in navigating medical temporary detention orders, when needed.
• Assist in the milieu management to ensure a safe, therapeutic environment for patients and staff.

Requirements

• Minimum: A degree in human services or related field (social work, psychology, psychiatric rehabilitation, sociology, counseling, vocational rehabilitation, human services counseling, nursing, or other degree deemed equivalent to those described) from an accredited college or 4+ years of equivalent work experience.
• Preferred: Equivalent to a master’s degree in psychology, social work, counseling, or a related field from an accredited college or university.
• Experience: 2+ years’ work experience in behavioral health assessment and treatment; must have a good working knowledge of mental health treatment, resources, assessment, referral, and civil mental health procedures in the Commonwealth of Virginia.
• Certificates, Licenses, Registrations Required: QMHP eligible, as defined by the Virginia Board of Counseling; must be fully QMHP registered with the Virginia Board of Counseling within 6 months of hire; BLS Certification required; if not current upon hire, must complete BLS certification within 90 days of hire.

Qualifications

• Knowledge of behavior management techniques.
• Sound understanding and assistance in the management of a therapeutic milieu, providing structure, social support, patient-education, safety, and social skills training.
• Knowledge of assessment, diagnosis, and treatment for individuals with mental illness, intellectual and developmental disability, and substance use.
• Humanistic, cognitive, expressive, and behavioral therapies as well as treatment modalities and intervention techniques, such as behavior management, independent living skills training, supportive counseling, family education, crisis intervention, verbal de-escalation, discharge planning, and service coordination.
• Services, systems, and programs available in the community including primary health care, support services, eligibility criteria and intake processes, generic community resources, mental health, intellectual and developmental disability community resources, and substance use treatment programs.
• The nature of mental illness, intellectual and developmental disability, and substance use.
• Civil mental health procedures in the Commonwealth of Virginia to include Emergency Custody Orders, Temporary Detainment Orders, and Medical Temporary Detainment Orders.
• Different types of assessments, including functional assessments, and their uses in service planning.
• The use of medications in the care or treatment of the population served.
• All applicable federal and state laws, state regulations, and local ordinances.

Skills

• Recognize and appropriately react to behavioral emergencies.
• Strong communication skills for interacting with clients and their families.
• Observe and accurately report and describe observations in writing.
• Identify and document an individual's needs for resources, services, and other supports.
• Using information from assessments, evaluations, observation, interviews, and individual service plans to develop an appropriate discharge plan.
• Identifying services and resources within the community and established service system to meet the individual's needs; and documenting how resources, services, and natural supports, such as family, can be utilized to achieve an individual's personal habilitative/rehabilitative and life goals.
• Coordinating the provision of services by public and private providers.