Senior Social Worker

About the role

The Senior Social Worker is assigned administrative responsibility for clinical program development and is accountable for clinical program effectiveness and modification of service patterns. They are also assigned in settings where they have no access to social work supervision, such as CBOCs or satellite outpatient clinics. They may be assigned to work with special patient populations with highly-complex health or mental health problems requiring expert level psychosocial interventions.

Responsibilities

• Ability to independently implement treatment modalities, and provide counseling or psychotherapy for individuals, families and groups.
• Provides trauma focused therapy to Veterans.
• Functions as a key member of the multidisciplinary PTSD team and ensure continuity of care for Veterans receiving treatment for trauma utilizing evidence based treatment modalities, including but not limited to Cognitive Processing Therapy, EMDR and/or Prolonged exposure.
• Administers and interprets trauma assessment measures, and provide therapy designed to improve quality of life by addressing Veterans' history of trauma.
• Independently conducts psychosocial assessments.
• Independently diagnoses Veterans according to the latest version of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders or other recognized diagnostic manuals of mental disorders.
• Develops treatment plans in collaboration with the Veteran and/or family and with the interdisciplinary treatment team.
• Offers psychosocial intervention and utilizes professional judgment in determining the method and techniques to be used.
• Acts as a subject matter expert and liaison with community agencies.
• Driving will be for a variety of reasons, including but not limited to: Transportation of Veterans.

Requirements

This vacancy is open to current permanent VA Nationwide employees, Federal employees of other Agencies, and U.S. Citizens.

Note: The 2-page Resume requirement does not apply to this position. For more information, refer to Required Documents below.

Qualifications

• Have a master's degree in social work from a school of social work fully accredited by the Council on Social Work Education (CSWE).
• 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.
• 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).
• Demonstrated Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities: In addition to the experience above, candidates must demonstrate all of the following KSAs:
  • (a) 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.
  • (b) Ability to incorporate complex multiple causation in differential diagnosis and treatment within approved clinical privileges or scope of practice.
  • (c) 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.
  • (d) 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.
  • (e) 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.