The incumbent works at the Veterans Affairs Medical Center (VAMC) in Lexington, KY, which is affiliated with the teaching hospital of the University of Kentucky (UK). The affiliation with UK is extremely active and has representation of all major clinical specialties and subspecialties. This posting will be used to fill multiple vacancies.

Duties

The incumbent will provide a full range of psychological assessment services and diagnoses mental disorders, particularly for complex or unusually difficult patients many of whom have psychiatric and medical problems. Major duties and responsibilities include but are not limited to: Provides education to patients, family members, and significant others. Provides comprehensive evidence based psychotherapeutic interventions, including individual, family, and group psychotherapy, including by telemental health. Provides clinical supervision to interns and post-doctoral fellows in areas related to behavioral health and social services provision to attain goals and objectives of recovery programs. Develops, implements, and documents the psychotherapeutic treatment plan for an assigned caseload of patients, including prompt completion of clinical reminders. The incumbent will functions independently at the VA Medical Center, and assumes complete professional responsibility for his/her clinical assessment findings, patient care decisions, and documentation. The incumbent reviews all data, subjective and objective, and makes a clinical assessment, identifying needs and strengths. Effectively uses professional skill, objectivity and insight. Uses advanced clinical training, insight and experience to interpret data and to identify viable treatment options. Assess high risk factors, acuity and need for services. The incumbent has the ability to serve veterans who tend to have frequent and severe crises, lack of family or adequate community support network, be poor at self monitoring, frequently fail to comply with instructions and treatment, have significant deficits in coping skills and require continuing professional psychological support. Independently evaluates the client's situation, including the veteran's reaction to it and ability to deal with it, and arrives at a reasoned conclusion. Based on the psychosocial assessment, uses professional judgment and advanced practice skills to make a psychiatric diagnosis. Assess at-risk factors and develop a preliminary disposition plan, involving the-veteran, and family members or significant others. Performs insightful assessment of serious and complicated cases involving psychiatric illness, catastrophic medical conditions, dementia and other high-risk diagnoses. Makes independent professional decisions and recommendations for agency action. The incumbent on an inpatient/outpatient basis, finds a-suitable means of treatment to help veterans and/or significant others cope with stressful situations. Treatment is aimed at helping veterans find practical solutions to the problems. The incumbent develops psychosocial treatment plans in coordination with interdisciplinary team-members, including goals for psychosocial clinical treatment. Using known available resources and the initial assessment of the veteran's likelihood to accept differing types of assistance makes initial and continuing decisions regarding use of VA and non-VA services and referrals. Makes adjustments to the psychosocial treatment plan and interventions based on changing needs an9 response to interventions. Initiates and effects changes in methods and interventions to promote efficient practice and improve patient outcomes. The incumbent effectively uses professional skills, objectivity, and insight. The incumbent provides clinical services to veterans and family members/significant others in support of the veteran's treatment. Gives advice, guidance, emotional support and other assistance. Provides individual and group counseling services, in some settings including psychotherapy. Organizes community services on behalf of beneficiaries, developing and coordinating procedures for use of these services by related staff. Develops working relationships with other organizations having the responsibilities for the same patient population. Develops and maintains a productive network of referral sources. Makes provisions for referral services from other agencies, community resources (i.e. transition or halfway houses, shelters, etc.) and other Governmental agencies to resolve problems. Independently documents in the computerized medical record. Complies with all CPRS documentation procedures, including timeliness standards for documentation and proper patient check out procedures (e.g., entering diagnostic and procedure codes). Work Schedule: 8:00am to 4:30pm Monday to Friday Compressed/Flexible: Not Authorized Telework: Ad-Hoc as determined by agency policy. Virtual: This is not a virtual position. Functional Statement #: 000000 Relocation/Recruitment Incentives: Not Authorized Permanent Change of Station (PCS): Not Authorized PCS Appraised Value Offer (AVO): Not Authorized Financial Disclosure Report: Not required

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- 0183 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-09 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-11 grade level, the candidate must demonstrate all of the KSAs below:1. Ability to administratively supervise other providers and conduct meetings.2. Ability to maintain a professional environment by following organizational policies, guidelines and safety standards.3. Ability to establish and clearly communicate guidelines and performance expectations for staff. Reference: VA Regulations, specifically VA Handbook 5005/106, Part II, Appendix G43 GS-0183 Qualification Standard. This can be found in the local Human Resources Office Physical Requirements: Light lifting, light carrying, use of fingers, hearing (aid permitted), operation of a motor vehicle may be required. The full performance level of this vacancy is GS-11.

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.

Contacts

• Address Lexington VA Health Care System 2250 Leestown Road Lexington, KY 40511 US
• Name: Paulette Stewart
• Email: [email protected]