Senior Licensed Professional Mental Health Counselor (Tribal HUDVASH Case Manager)

About the role

This position is eligible for the Education Debt Reduction Program (EDRP), a student loan payment reimbursement program. You must meet specific eligibility requirements per VHA policy and submit your EDRP application within four months of appointment. Program Approval, award amount (up to $200,000) & eligibility period (one to five years) are determined by the VHA Education Loan Repayment Services program office after review of the EDRP application. Former EDRP participants ineligible to apply.

Responsibilities

• Program Administration and Organization
  • Implements and maintains referral and screening procedures for potential Homeless Program Veteran participants that meet national policy as well as the needs of medical center behavioral health services. Referral, screening, and admission criteria recognizes program eligibility, prioritization of subsets of the homeless Veteran population, and other policy, regulation, or law pertaining to program administration.
  • Ensures criteria and procedures are maintained. Provides primary input for program participant selection based on structured interviews and clinical assessments.
  • Provides input to the Homeless Section Chief for program development, monitoring, administration and determining the effectiveness of all Homeless Programs.
• Provides services in serious, complex, and complicated cases, often referred by other workers and interdisciplinary team members. Carries full responsibility for cases presenting a wide range of psychosocial and environmental problems.
• Works closely with the VA medical center's homeless programs, residential and community care programs, to ensure that coordination between these entities is facilitated and Veteran's direct care, referral, and follow up is contiguous and based on a continuum of services.
• Outreach
  • Provides direct outreach services to areas where people experiencing homelessness congregate; including the street, remote campsites, and homeless camps under the freeway, most of which are often not suitable for human habitation.
  • Requires some overnight travel to rural and remote areas in all types of weather to contact Veterans and their family members.

Qualifications

• 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.
  • English Language Proficiency. LPMHCs must be proficient in spoken and written English in accordance with VA Handbook 5005, Part II, chapter 3, section A, paragraph 3.j.
  • Education. Hold a master's or doctoral degree in: 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).
  • Licensure. Persons hired or reassigned to LPMHC positions in the GS-0183 series in VHA must hold a full, current, and unrestricted license to independently practice as a Licensed Professional Mental Health Counselor, which includes diagnosis and treatment.
• Grade Determinations:
  • GS-12 Senior Licensed Professional Mental Health Counselor
    • Experience, Education, and Licensure. In addition to the basic requirements, candidates must have at least one year of progressively complex LPMHC experience equivalent to the GS-11 grade level. Senior LPMHCs must have five years of post-licensed experience 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.
    • Demonstrated Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities. In addition to meeting the KSAs for the GS-11 grade level, the candidate must demonstrate all of the KSAs below:
    • 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.
    • 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.