Incumbent provides comprehensive services through a broad range of interventions in a mental health setting and can make complex and independent clinical judgement. Diagnose mental disorders, conduct psychosocial assessments, treat mental disorders through a variety of modalities and provide adjunctive interventions for treatment of medical disorders. The modalities provided are individual, family, and group psychotherapies, psychoeducation classes, crisis interventions and case management.

Requirements

Qualifications

Applicants pending the completion of educational or certification/licensure requirements may be referred and tentatively selected but may not be hired until all requirements are met. 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: Candidates must be proficient in spoken and written English to be appointed as authorized by 38 U.S.C. 7403(f). Education Requirement : You must have 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). Examples of related mental health counseling fields include, but are not limited to Addiction Counseling; Community Counseling; Gerontology Counseling; Marital, Couple, and Family Counseling. CACREP defines the date when graduates are considered to have graduated from a CACREP accredited program. Additional information may be obtained from http://www.cacrep.org/directory/. NOTE: Traditional Rehabilitation counseling programs that are accredited by CACREP do not meet the LPMHC qualification standards as Traditional Rehabilitation counseling differs from Clinical Rehabilitation counseling. Licensure: Candidates must hold a full, current, and unrestricted license to independently practice as a Licensed Professional Mental Health Counselor, which includes diagnosis and treatment. NOTE: It is VHA policy that a LPMHC who does not yet have a license that allows independent practice must be supervised by a licensed independent practitioner of the same discipline who is a VA staff member and who has access to the electronic health record. Loss of Licensure: Once licensed, LPMHCs must maintain a full, valid, and unrestricted license to independently practice mental health counseling, which includes diagnosis and treatment. Loss of licensure will result in removal from the GS- 0101 LPMHC occupation and may result in termination of employment. Experience - In addition to the basic requirements candidates must have at least one year of progressively complex experience equivalent to the GS-11 grade level. Experience must demonstrate possession of advanced practice skills, judgment, and competency. Assignments: At this level, LPMHCs administratively supervise their licensed staff and/or graduates and are considered LPMHC subject matter experts and may serve as the discipline lead. LPMHCs may provide treatment to patients. They direct the development and implementation of services and treatment to patients through the administrative supervision, mentoring, and oversight of assigned clinical staff. Their experience must demonstrate practice skills in a specialty area or in administration demonstrating progressively more professional competency and judgment. In addition to meeting the KSAs for the GS-12 grade level, the candidate must demonstrate all of the KSAs below: 1. Advanced knowledge and mastery of and experience with the disease processes, courses of treatment, medications, and risk factors associated with psychiatric disorders in general, and Serious Mental Illness (SMI) in particular. 2. Ability to determine priority for services and provide specialized treatment services, including coordinating and collaborating with other teams within and outside of the organization for optimal patient benefit. 3. Advanced knowledge of the co-morbidities associated with mental health conditions, in terms of characteristics of those co-occurring conditions, their impact upon patient and family, and their treatment (within scope of practice), with special cognizance of psychiatric disorders. 4. Demonstrated advanced knowledge of and skill in the application of specialized assessment and treatment services to Veterans with SMI and co-occurring conditions. 5. Mastery of and sound judgment and flexibility in the use of a wide range of mental health treatment skills, including the more difficult therapeutic techniques and evidenced-based interventions for Veterans with SMI and co-occurring conditions. 6. Experience in making objective and accurate psychosocial assessments, formulating sound and workable treatment plans, and making appropriate clinical interventions for Veterans with SMI and co-occurring conditions. Reference: VA Regulations, specifically VA Handbook 5005/106, Part II, Appendix G43 Licensed Professional Mental Health Counselor Standard. This can be found in the local Human Resources Office Physical Requirements: See VA Directive and Handbook 5019. The full performance level of this vacancy is GS-12.

Education

IMPORTANT: A transcript must be submitted with your application if you are basing all or part of your qualifications on education.

Note: Only education or degrees recognized by the U.S. Department of Education from accredited colleges, universities, schools, or institutions may be used to qualify for Federal employment. You can verify your education here: http://ope.ed.gov/accreditation/. If you are using foreign education to meet qualification requirements, you must send a Certificate of Foreign Equivalency with your transcript in order to receive credit for that education. For further information, visit: http://www.ed.gov/about/offices/list/ous/international/usnei/us/edlite-visitus-forrecog.html.

Grandfathering Provision:
All persons employed in VHA in as LPMHC on the effective date of this qualification standard are considered to have met all qualification requirements for the grade held, including positive education and licensure/certification/registration that are part of the basic requirements of the occupation. For employees who do not meet all the basic requirements required in this standard, but who met the qualifications applicable to the position at the time they were appointed to it, the following provisions apply:

(1)Such employees in an occupation that requires a licensure, may be reassigned, promoted up to and including the full performance level, or demoted within the occupation, but may not be promoted beyond the full performance level or placed in supervisory or managerial positions.
(2)Such employees in an occupation that requires a licensure/certification/registration only at higher grade levels must meet the licensure/certification/registration requirement before they can be promoted to those higher grade levels.
(3)Employees who are appointed on a temporary basis prior to the effective date of the qualification standard may not have their temporary appointment extended or be reappointed, on a temporary or permanent basis, until they fully meet the basic requirements of the standard.
(4)If an employee who was retained (grandfathered) under this provision leaves that occupation, the employee loses protected status and must meet the full VA qualification standard requirements in effect at the time of reentry to the occupation.
(5)Employees initially grandfathered into this occupation, who subsequently obtain additional education and/or licensure/certification/registration that meet all the basic requirements of this qualification standard must maintain the required credentials as a condition of employment in the occupation.

Contacts

• Address Robley Rex VA Medical Center 800 Zorn Avenue Louisville, KY 40206 US
• Name: Lisa Chigbu
• Email: [email protected]