Job opening: Senior Social Worker - Housing and Urban Development - VA Supported Housing
Salary: $98 863 - 128 523 per year
Published at: Oct 26 2023
Employment Type: Full-time
HUD-VASH is an intensive case management program for chronically homeless veterans aimed at providing psychosocial services to veterans while residing in stable housing through HUD's Section 8 voucher system.
Duties
The incumbent will work within the HUD-VASH program as a HUD-VASH social work lead. The incumbent will act as a consultant for HUD-VASH social workers who serve Veterans with complex mental health, medical, comorbid disorders or who display increased risk for mild to moderate disruptive behavior.
The incumbent is also responsible for providing case management for a caseload of veterans in the HUD-VASH program, some of whom may be at elevated risk for suicidal thoughts or behavior.
The incumbent will be expected to remain informed of best practices within the fields of mental health and recovery.
The incumbent may be asked to provide trainings to staff related to coding, CPRS documentation and best practices within the field.
The incumbent may accompany GS-9 and GS-11 social workers on home or community visits when Veteran has a complex presentation. The incumbent will model the advanced level of practice and provide consultation to less experienced social workers.
The senior social worker will be assigned and independently manage more complex Veterans within their program area. This will be determined based on the Veteran's acuity, severity of condition, diagnosis or other programmatic guidelines as defined within the section they report to.
The senior social worker will function as the subject matter expert in addition to functioning as a lead social worker for their assigned team.
The senior social worker will perform at least one or more of the following; process improvement tasks, supervision of social workers for advanced practice licensure or the graduate trainee program, act as a mentor for less experienced social workers, participate or chair committees or groups that impact social work practice and/or lead roll out of evidence-based practices.
The Senior Social Worker may be expected to act as surrogate to the Social Work Supervisor, for CPRS purposes, cosigning notes/consults/orders and providing clinical guidance when appropriate or necessary.
The incumbent is responsible for providing case management for a caseload of veterans in the HUD-VASH program.
The incumbent is responsible for reviewing agreements between Section 8, landlords, Public Housing Authorities and the VA in establishing appropriate referral sites for HUDVASH placements.
The incumbent performs site visits of HUD-VASH apartments to ensure that veterans reside in safe environments in compliance with local housing codes.- The incumbent verifies the veteran's status, eligibility for VA medical care, and eligibility of program participation.
The incumbent is responsible for collecting and submitting HUD-VASH Program participant data as outlined by NEPEC evaluation procedures and HOMES.
The incumbent is responsible for providing HUD-VASH case management. Case management is defined as the provision of services by VA clinical staff to homeless veterans and includes all activities to provide appropriate treatment to house and maintain veterans in HUD approved stable housing.
The incumbent coordinates care including serving as an advocate on behalf of the veterans to ensure comprehensive service delivery, and linking and referring veterans to the VA Medical Center, VA Regional Offices and/or community agencies.
The incumbent complies with criminal conflict of interest laws and Executive Branch Standards of conduct so as to avoid conflicts of interest while serving as the HUD-VASH Case Manager.
The incumbent actively participates in the HUD-VASH Program conference calls and attends training offered by the HUD-VASH and HCHV program.
The incumbent is responsible for following local policy and SOP for the Medical Center and the HUD-VASH Program. This includes following policies and documentation requirements as required for CARF and JCAHO accreditation.
The incumbent actively participates in program planning and development, advising the supervisor of shifting trends with caseloads and identifying the need for and making recommendations on program procedure or policy changes based upon work experiences
Work Schedule: Monday - Friday, 8:00 a.m. - 4:30 p.m.
Telework: Not Available
Virtual: This is not a virtual position.
Functional Statement #: 51727-O
Relocation/Recruitment Incentives: Not Authorized
Permanent Change of Station (PCS): Not Authorized
Financial Disclosure Report: Not required
Qualifications
Basic Requirements:
United States Citizenship.
Education. Possess 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. For grades below or at the full performance level, VHA social workers who are not licensed or certified at the time of appointment must become licensed or certified at the independent master's level within 3 years of their appointment as a social worker.
Licensure. Possess a full and unrestricted license or certification by a state to independently practice social work at the master's degree level.
English Language Proficiency. Social workers must be proficient in spoken and written English.
Grade Determinations:
Senior Social Worker, GS-12
(1) 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.
(2) 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.
(3) Demonstrated Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities. In addition to the experience above, the candidate 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.
(4) 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, Appendix G39. Social Worker Qualification Standard, GS-185
Physical Requirements: See VA Directive and Handbook 5019, Employee Occupational Health Services.
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 Eastern Colorado HCS Denver
13611 E. Colfax Ave
Aurora, CO 80045
US
- Name: Luis Fuentes Jr.
- Phone: 801-582-1565 X4405
- Email: [email protected]
Map