Rehabilitation Counselor- Mental Health

About the role

Serves Veterans who have myriad barriers to overcome and achieve competitive employment, educational, and independent living goals.

Serves as a journey level Rehabilitation Counselor providing personal adjustment counseling, therapeutic rehabilitation interventions, and case coordination services, and uses evidence-informed and evidence-based modalities to aid Veterans with severe disabilities, such as physical, psychosocial, psychological, or neurological barriers, integrate successfully into the community.

Responsibilities

• Serves Veterans who have myriad barriers to overcome and achieve competitive employment, educational, and independent living goals.
• Conducts biopsychosocial assessments using medical records, pertinent disability documentation, observation and interviews with Veterans and their support systems to generate personal, vocational, and educational histories.
• Selects, administers, and interprets vocational and other psychometric instruments to evaluate abilities, transferrable skills, functional capacity, labor market analyses, aptitudes, interests, values, preferences, and overall work resilience and synthesize into an interpretive data report.
• Customizes vocational exploration activities to identify self-determined rehabilitation needs and goals, and administers Measurement Based Care instruments to track progress throughout treatment and adjust goals and services as needed.
• Determines a clinical need for and capacity to benefit from therapeutic and rehabilitation services to include work restoration/resilience treatment, transitional work placement and/or competitive employment, assistive technology, financial benefits counseling and potential benefits protections.
• Develops patient-centered treatment plans utilizing Specific, Measurable, agreed upon, Realistic, and Time-based (SMART) goals and provides ongoing assessment of Veteran's progress and Provides a variety of professional rehabilitation counseling services such as personal adjustment counseling, therapeutic rehabilitation interventions and case coordination services, utilizing evidence-informed and evidence-based modalities and professional counseling practices to aid Veterans with severe disabilities in achieving competitive employment and educational and independent living goals.
• Uses effective counseling skills to promote self-awareness, adjustment to disability, enhanced job retention and successful integration to the community.
• Provides psychoeducational and/or psychotherapeutic groups to facilitate effective job search skills, employer-desired soft skills, work and life skills fostering independence and recovery.
• Provides job development, customized employment, job carving, job coaching, job accommodation, advocacy, and adaptation services to both Veterans with severe disabilities and to educate and support employers.
• Consults with interdisciplinary teams to enhance coordination of care, ensure medical clearance, and provide for optimal timing of further interventions.
• Synthesizes assessment information to identify barriers to employment and their vocational implications.
• Devises solutions to reduce and/or eliminate barriers and meet Veterans' placement needs which may require substantial modification to environmental or functional demands within a work setting.
• Procures and manages transitional work agreements from community, state, and federal agencies, and monitors worksite compliance with agreements to ensure Veterans are appropriately trained and evaluated consistent with industry standards.
• Establishes and maintains a liaison between the Medical Center and organizations within the community which provide competitive employment opportunities for Veterans.
• Provides disability education and program-specific training to staff and stakeholders.
• Uses knowledge of the military culture, military transition to civilian occupations, and specific factors and dynamics associated with Veterans, particularly combat Veterans, to advise those who are returning to the community, and community-based work.

Requirements

This position is in the Excepted Service and does not confer competitive status.

This position is not in a Bargaining Unit position.

Current and former Federal employees must submit copies of their most recent SF-50, (Notice of Personnel Action). The SF-50 must identify the position title, series, grade, step, tenure and type of service (Competitive or Excepted).

Completion of one year of professional experience equivalent to the next lower grade level directly related to the position being filled.

Or, a doctoral degree in rehabilitation counselor education or related field (e.g. rehabilitation psychology) from a CACREP accredited institution or from an institution accredited by a national or regional accrediting body accredited by CHEA.

Or, foreign graduates with a degree acceptable by the Commission on Rehabilitation Counselor Certification (CRCC).

And, certification: Current, full and unrestricted certification as a certified rehabilitation counselor (CRC) from the CRCC to practice vocational rehabilitation counseling.