Senior Social Worker

Major Duties and Responsibilities

• Plan, develop and maintain a network of relationships with community resources and other advocates for the homeless.
• Utilizes knowledge of community resources, makes referrals to the community and other government agencies as appropriate, and coordinates services.
• Provides clinical services, guidance, emotional support and other assistance to clients. Involves clients in individual or group counseling.
• Interviews potential clients, interprets VHA guidelines and eligibility requirements and completes a psychosocial history and assessment. Initiates eligibility determination, and forwards to VA eligibility staff members. Establish an initial assessment at the time of the first visit. Develop an appropriate treatment plan.
• Contributes to policy formulation and participates in establishing procedures within the assigned service area. Assists with Community Homelessness Assessment, Local Education and Networking Groups surveys.
• Responds to Homeless National Call Center referrals. Organizes and participates fully in various community projects.
• Affords assistance with inspections of Health Care for Homeless Veteran contracted facilities as needed.
• Advocates for Veterans experiencing homelessness with community partners.
• Utilizes a range of specialized interventions and treatment modalities in treatment or with specialized Veteran populations, including individual, group, and/or family counseling or psychotherapy, and advanced level psychosocial and/or case management.
• Employs casework methods and techniques to maintain a therapeutic relationship with the client to work towards the best way of dealing with his/her problems.
• Assumes responsibility for independent professional functioning and regularly works with a variety of complex cases within the assigned areas including selection of cases and determination of priorities based on assessment of the patient, family and program needs, requesting consultation in unusually difficult situations and problematical decisions.
• Accountable for keeping the Homeless/CWT Program Manager and Chief of Social Work Service informed of administrative matters, professional activities, progress of work, significant occurrences, developments and plans, and identifying problem areas that should be brought to the attention of the Program Manager.
• May be assigned supervisory responsibility for one or more student trainees.
• Assist with writing policies and procedures.

Qualifications

• Basic Requirements:
• United States Citizenship: Be a citizen of the United States.
• 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).
• 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.
• English Language Proficiency: Candidates must be proficient in spoken and written English to be appointed as authorized by 38 U.S.C. § 7403(f)
• Loss of Licensure or Certification: Once licensed or certified, social workers must maintain a full, valid, and unrestricted independent license or certification to remain qualified for employment. Loss of licensure or certification will result in removal from the GS-0185 social worker series and may result in termination of employment.
• 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.