Job opening: Senior Social Worker - Suicide Prevention Coordinator (SPC)
Salary: $86 975 - 113 068 per year
Relocation: YES
Published at: Sep 27 2023
Employment Type: Full-time
The Suicide Prevention Coordinator (SPC) facilitates the implementation of suicide prevention strategies at a local level through education, monitoring, and coordination activities.
Duties
The SPC functions as a coordinator for care of Veterans at suicide risk and an advisor to Behavioral Health and Medical staff leadership, the Mental Health Executive Council, facility leadership, program managers, and staff concerning suicide prevention strategies for individual patients, for the facility and Veteran community as a whole. Services include assessing Veterans for high risk for suicide, diagnosing mental health and high risk factors related to suicide and suicide prevention, and providing treatment options. The SPC tracks appointments and coordinates enhanced care as needed, educating providers, Veterans, families, and members of the community about risk factors and warning signs for suicide. The Social Worker is capable of practicing at the advanced level and has specialized knowledge of practice typically related to suicide (causes and prevention). Services include assessing Veterans for high risk for suicide, diagnosing mental health and high-risk factors related to suicide and suicide prevention, and providing treatment options.
Major duties and responsibilities of the position include but are not limited to:
The SPC tracks appointments and coordinates enhanced care as needed, educating providers, Veterans, families, and members of the community about risk factors and warning signs for suicide.
The LPMHC is capable of practicing at the advanced level and has specialized knowledge of practice typically related to suicide (causes and prevention).
Provides educational, facilitative, and therapeutic leadership with veterans' group and individual therapy treatments within the Mental Health Clinic.
Performs initial and follow-up evaluations, treatment planning, and individual and group evidenced based psychotherapies.
Provides emergency care, as needed, for all patients enrolled in the CBOC, including referring patients for emergency primary care treatment, psychiatric medication evaluation, or coordinating the admission of patients to the inpatient psychiatric unit of the Denver VA Medical Center or other VA facilities or local non-VA facilities.
Provides a range of treatment services, including but not limited to individual, couples, and group treatment.
Participates in staff meetings regarding clinical, administrative, and staff development issues.
Maintains up-to-date charting in the Computerized Patient Record System (CPRS), documenting all assessment, treatment and case management contacts with patients.
Actively participates in program planning and development, making recommendations for changes in policies and procedures as needs and opportunities arise.
Facilitates referrals for veterans' benefits and services based upon veteran's needs and eligibility.
Coordinates care with the primary care medical providers, and other mental health clinicians with prescriptive authority, who may provide care on site or via telehealth.
Work Schedule: Monday-Friday, 8:00am-4:30pm
Telework: May be available.
Virtual: May be available within the commuting distance to VA Montana Health Care System for highly qualified applicants.
Functional Statement #: 436-55883-O
Relocation/Recruitment Incentives: Available
Financial Disclosure Report: Not required
Qualifications
Qualifications: To qualify for this position, applicants must meet all requirements by the closing date of this announcement.
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.
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). Graduates of schools of social work that are in candidacy status 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 the master's degree in social work. Verification of the degree can be made by going to http://www.cswe.org/Accreditation to verify that the social work degree meets the accreditation standards for a masters of social work.
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. Current state requirements may be found by going to http://vaww.va.gov/OHRM/T38Hybrid/.
English Language Proficiency. Candidates must be proficient in spoken and written English to be appointed as authorized by 38 U.S.C. § 7403(f).
Grade Determinations: In addition to the basic requirements for employment, the following criteria must be met when determining the grade of candidates.
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.
Assignments. For all assignments above the full performance level, the higher-level duties must consist of significant scope, complexity (difficulty), and variety and be performed by the incumbent at least 25% of the time. 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. This assignment must represent substantial additional responsibility over and above that required at the full performance grade level and cannot be used as the full performance level of this occupation.
References: VA Handbook 5005/120 Part II Appendix G39, Dated September 10, 2019.
The full performance level of this vacancy is GS-12.
Physical Requirements: he work is sedentary. Some work may require movement between offices, hospital, warehouses, and similar areas for meetings and to conduct work. Work may also require walking/standing, in conjunctions with travel to and attendance at meetings and/or conferences away from the work site. Incumbent may carry and lift light items weighing less than 15 pounds.
Education
IMPORTANT: A transcript must be submitted with your application if you are basing all or part of your qualifications on education. Transcripts (official or unofficial) must include your name, the school's entire name, name of course(s) completed, date course(s) taken, grade received for course(s), amount of credits earn for the course(s), date degree conferred (if applicable), name of degree received (if applicable).
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 Fort Harrison VA Medical Center
3687 Veterans Drive
Fort Harrison, MT 59636
US
- Name: Sokhan York
- Phone: 801-584-1284 X3119
- Email: [email protected]
Map