Job opening: Senior Social Worker (Veteran Justice Outreach)
Salary: $106 649 - 138 644 per year
Published at: Oct 30 2023
Employment Type: Full-time
The Veterans Justice Outreach (VJO) / Healthcare for Reentry Veterans (HCHV) is part of the Health Care for Homeless Veterans (HCHV) Program within the VA Long Beach Health Care System, under Social Work Services. The VJO/HCRV Social Worker is a Senior Social Worker whose primary responsibilities will focus upon justice-involved Veterans in a hybrid model that encompasses court and prison outreach (hybrid VJO/HCRV).
Duties
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Duties include, but are not limited to:
Skilled in diplomacy, patient advocacy, and negotiation in spanning boundaries of multiple large institutions, including VA, the court system, and/or corrections facilities.
Possesses knowledge of correctional cultures and their impact upon Veteran, institutional, and community perceptions and behavior, as well as skill in assisting Veterans to adopt behaviors adaptive to community living.
Provides psychosocial assessments, case management services, continuous quality improvement activities, evaluation/consultation, placement services, and referrals.
Provides additional linkage to various community agencies for Veterans who are within six-months of release from correctional institutions and/or are being monitored by the courts, including treatment or problem- solving courts.
Meets with judges, officers of the court, correctional administrators, and staff on a regular basis to design and/or maintain appropriate policies and procedures required for each setting.
Attends justice system staff trainings relevant to working with offenders and high-risk populations and represents the VA at community meetings, seeking or maintaining membership on relevant boards, councils, workgroups, and task forces.
Conducts active outreach to Veterans involved with the justice system, including those who may be participants, or candidates for participation, in treatment court programs, including Veterans Courts.
May perform work in maximum, medium, or minimum-security correctional institutions usually under a "no hostage" policy. Observes established VA safety precautions while working in correctional facilities and/or in community settings.
Collaborates with county probation officers, prosecutors, public defenders, retained defense counsel, and parole officers as appropriate to develop a post-release plan and/or community-based alternatives to incarceration.
Participates as an active member of the court treatment team, providing or coordinating the provision of clinical treatment using Participates in development of a treatment plan for each Veteran contacted through outreach.
Must be able to obtain security clearance to enter court and correctional facilities.
Other duties as assigned.
Work Schedule: Monday-Friday, 8:00am-4:30pm
Location: Long Beach and Orange County, CA
Compressed/Flexible: Not Available
Telework: As determined by leadership
Virtual: This is not a virtual position. This is not a remote position.
Functional Statement #: 000000
Relocation/Recruitment Incentives: Not Authorized
Permanent Change of Station (PCS): Not Authorized
Financial Disclosure Report: Not required
Qualifications
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 the CSWE website to verify that the Social Work degree meets the accreditation standards for a Master's 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. License documentation must be submitted with application.
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:
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.
Preferred Experience: Experience with justice system and veterans. Experience with Mental Health and Substance Use Disorder.
References: VA Handbook 5005/12, Part II, Appendix G39
Physical Requirements: Must be in overall good health, able to sit at a desk working at a computer, engage in light to moderate physical activity including sitting, walking, bending, and carrying supplies. Applicants must be able to perform primarily light and sedentary duties with occasionally moderate physical demands, exercise patience, and control emotions, with reasonable accommodation, if necessary, without endangering the health and safety of the applicant or others.
The position requires walking throughout the Medical Center and clinics, community agencies/court rooms, standing for extended periods of time, and involves sitting at a computer and in counsel and consultation with Veterans and interdisciplinary teams. This position also requires close visual acuity to perform an activity such as: preparing and analyzing data and figures; transcribing; viewing a computer terminal; extensive reading; and repetitive motions of the wrists, hands, and/or fingers.
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 Long Beach VA Medical Center
5901 East Seventh Street
Long Beach, CA 90822
US
- Name: Lindsay Tillery
- Phone: 8164913680
- Email: [email protected]