As a member of a multidisciplinary team, the Inpatient Medicine/Surgery Senior Social Worker will provide a wide range of health services to patients. Provides complex physical, mental illness, and psychosocial issues on the inpatient medical/surgical wards and/or clinic area. Will demonstrate advanced practice skills and experience in specialized areas such as medicine and/or mental health, geriatrics, and rehabilitation care. Experience working in a hospital setting is preferred.

Duties

Major Duties: Assesses and treats the highly complex physical, mental illness and psychosocial issues of patients. Possesses knowledge and experience in use of medical and mental health diagnoses, disabilities, and treatment procedures, including acute, chronic and traumatic illnesses, and substance abuse disorders. Identifies and screens patients for psychosocial needs, to include high risk screening. Ability to independently implement treatment modalities, provide counseling or psychotherapy, .and conduct comprehensive psychosocial assessments. Possesses the knowledge of assessment, treatment, discharge, and aftercare planning. Develops and implements methods for measuring effectiveness of social work practice and services in specialty area, utilizing outcome evaluations to improve treatment services. Ability to design changes based on empirical findings. Participates in planning, organizing, and coordinating social work services in the hospital, and preparing and implementing the referral selection process of veterans to VA programs. Offers consultation to colleagues on the psychosocial treatment of patients treated in specialty areas, rendering professional opinions based on experience and expertise and role modeling effective social work practice skills. Demonstrates the ability to teach and mentor staff in the special area of practice and to provide supervision for licensure or specialty certifications. Work Schedule: Sunday - Thursday 7:00 a.m. - 3:30 p.m. Virtual: This is not a virtual position Relocation/Recruitment Incentives: Not Authorized Permanent Change of Station (PCS): Not Authorized Financial Disclosure Report: Not required

Requirements

Qualifications

Basic Requirements Citizenship: Citizen of the United States. Non-citizens may only be appointed when it is not possible to recruit qualified citizens in accordance with VA Policy. Licensure: Candidate 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. Education: Master's degree in social work (MSW) from a school of social work fully accredited by the Council on Social Work Education (CSWE). Graduates of schools of social work that are in candidacy do not meet this requirement until the school of social work is fully accredited. A doctoral degree in social work may not be substituted for master's degree in social work. Preferred Experience: Best qualified candidate will have two years of experience as a LCSW with experience in medical and clinical case management. Grade Determinations: GS-12 Senior Social Worker Experience: In addition to the basic requirements, applicants 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. 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. Assignments. Senior social workers are licensed or certified to independently practice social work at an advanced level. Senior social workers typically practice in a major program area such as but not limited to: Polytrauma Rehabilitation Center or Polytrauma Network Site; a Spinal Cord Injury Rehabilitation Center, or a national VHA referral center, such as a national Center for Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder or a national Transplant Center, or other program areas of equivalent scope and complexity. The senior social worker may be assigned administrative responsibility for clinical program development and is accountable for clinical program effectiveness and modification of service patterns. Assignments include clinical settings where they have limited access to onsite supervision such as CBOCs or satellite outpatient clinics. The senior social worker collaborates with the other members of the treatment team in the provision of comprehensive health care services to Veterans, ensures equity of access, service, and benefits to this population, ensures the care provided is of the highest quality. The senior social worker provides leadership, direction, orientation, coaching, in-service training, staff development, and continuing education programs for assigned social work staff. They serve on committees, work groups, and task forces at the facility, VISN and national level, or in the community as deemed appropriate by the supervisor, Social Work Executive or Chief of Social Work Services. This assignment is to be relatively few in number based on the size of the facility/service and applying sound position management. References: VA Handbook 5005, Part II, Appendix G39 - Social Worker Qualification Standard. Physical Requirements: This work is primarily sedentary but also requires some standing, walking, bending, lifting and carrying of items. Selected applicants will be required to complete an online onboarding process. This position is above the Full Performance Level for this series. The actual grade at which an applicant may be selected for this vacancy is GS-12. 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.

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 Greater Los Angeles Healthcare System 11301 Wilshire Boulevard Los Angeles, CA 90073 US
• Name: Sharlene Harrigan
• Phone: (253) 426-0407
• Email: [email protected]