Mental Health Specialist (ACSW) Garden Grove, CA Weekend Shift

About the role

At Healthcare in Action, we serve patients experiencing homelessness through an innovative “street medicine” approach by contracting with Medicare and Medicaid health plans as well as hospitals and health systems. Street medicine entails using a medically equipped van to deliver medical care directly to people experiencing homelessness in locations such as parking lots, encampments, and parks. The Garden Grove Mobile Crisis Response Team (MCRT) is a co-response program operated by Healthcare in Action (HIA) in partnership with the City of Garden Grove and the Garden Grove Police Department (GGPD), delivering mobile mental health and crisis stabilization services in the field. The program provides eight hours of coverage per day, seven days per week, through two field teams, each pairing an EMT with an associate-level behavioral health clinician—an Associate Clinical Social Worker (ACSW), Associate Marriage and Family Therapist (AMFT), or Associate Professional Clinical Counselor (APCC)—who has prior crisis or field-based behavioral health experience. The Mental Health Specialist serves as the behavioral health clinician on a two-person MCRT field team, working alongside an EMT to respond to crisis calls with GGPD. Once GGPD clears the scene, the clinician leads the crisis assessment, de-escalation, suicide risk assessment, and crisis counseling; triages the individual’s needs; connects them to appropriate services; and completes timely, accurate documentation of each response. The clinician works under the clinical supervision of the LCSW Supervisor, including supervision toward licensure.

Responsibilities

• Conduct crisis assessment, triage, and behavioral health evaluation of individuals in the field once GGPD has cleared the scene.
• Lead de-escalation and provide crisis counseling to individuals experiencing mental health and/or substance use crises, both housed and unhoused.
• Perform suicide and violence risk assessment and safety planning, determining when an individual requires a higher level of care.