The Palliative Care Coordinator Social Worker provides psychosocial and case-management services to eligible veterans and their family members to meet biological, psychological, social, and environmental needs throughout the VA Medical Center. Veterans treated come from a wide geographic area. Their health care and psychosocial challenges and needs are complex and require a high degree of clinical oversight and creative problem-solving.

Duties

The Hospice and Palliative Care Program Coordinator participates as an active member of the Palliative Care Consult Team and serves as the Social Work coordinator for inpatient and/or outpatient services for the Hospice and Palliative Care Programs. You will Provide psychosocial assessment and treatment to a wide variety of individuals from various socioeconomic, cultural, ethnic, educational, and other diversified backgrounds. You will independently conduct psychosocial assessments and provide psychosocial recommendations and/or treatment to a wide variety of individuals from various socio-economic, cultural, ethnic, educational, and other diverse backgrounds. This requires knowledge of human development and behavior (physical and psychological) and the differential influences of the environment, society, and cultural conduct. You will participate in discharge planning with other disciplines and will be responsible for assisting that the identified discharge plans are executed in a manner that is timely, safe, and appropriate. You will work with patients and families who are experiencing a variety of psychiatric, medical, and social challenges utilizing individual, group, and family counseling skills. You will assess the psychosocial functioning and needs of veterans and their family members and will assist in formulating and implementing a treatment plan, identifying the veterans' problems, strengths, growth opportunities, and coping skills. You will provide to veteran and family recommendations for psychosocial interventions. Advanced knowledge of various psychosocial treatment modalities and ability to implement treatment modalities in working with individuals, families, and groups to achieve treatment goals. This requires clinical judgment and skill in using supportive, problem solving, or crisis intervention techniques. Knowledge of medical and mental health diagnoses, disabilities, and treatment procedures. This includes acute, chronic, and traumatic illnesses/injuries; common medications and their effects/side effects; and medical terminology. You will provide a full range of Social Work services within commonly accepted standards of Social Work practice which includes assessment, individual, family and group counseling, discharge planning, case management and other services as appropriate. Ability to provide consultation services to other staff about the psychosocial needs of patients and the impact of psychosocial challenges on health care and compliance with treatment. Ability to provide orientation and coaching to new social workers and Social Work graduate students. Ability to serve as a field instructor for Social Work graduate students who are completing Veterans Health Administration field placements. Ability to independently provide counseling and/or psychotherapy services to individuals, groups, and families using a patient-centered approach. You will assist patients and their significant others with coping and dealing with the anticipatory and actual loss and grief experiences in disability, terminal illness and death and will be highly skilled in end-of-life services, psychosocial treatment, and bereavement services. You will act as liaison between VA and community resources, to include marketing and public relation duties as needed. You will provide case management to Veterans and families, as needed. You will provide wellness/prevention education and facilitate patient/family support groups as appropriate. You will coordinate treatment and communicate with the care lines. You will document Social Work interventions and activities in patient's clinical record utilizing CPRS and ensure appropriate warm hand-off when transferring patient care. You will provide consultation/education to Veterans and families on community resources, advance directives, and VA benefits. Ability to establish and maintain effective working relationships with Veterans, families, VAMC staff, and representatives of community agencies. Ability to communicate effectively, both orally and in writing. Knowledge of community resources, how to make appropriate referrals to community and other governmental agencies for services, and ability to coordinate services. Experience in physical and clinical presentation of medical and behavioral health diagnoses, disabilities, and treatment procedures. Demonstrates an advanced ability to quickly establish rapport with veterans and families and maintains collaborative relationships with veterans, families, and fellow staff. You will achieve and maintain current knowledge of end-of-life issues, bereavement, grief counseling interventions, and veteran/family characteristic needs and signs during end-of-life/transition situations. Work Schedule: Monday - Friday, 8:00 a.m. - 4:30 p.m. Functional Statement #: 54453F Relocation/Recruitment Incentives: 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: Citizenship. Be a 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. Education. Have a 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 status do not meet this requirement until the school of social work is fully accredited. Please note: A doctoral degree in social work may not be substituted for the master's degree in social work. Licensure. Licensed or certified 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 in accordance with VA Regulations. May qualify based on being covered by the Grandfathering Provision as described in the VA Qualification Standard for this occupation (only applicable to current VHA employees who are in this occupation and meet the criteria).Must pass a background check. Grade Requirements:GS-12 Senior Social Worker 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. 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. License. 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:1. 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.2. Ability to incorporate complex multiple causation in differential diagnosis and treatment within approved clinical privileges or scope of practice.3. 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.4. 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.5. 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. References: VA Handbook 5005/120, Part II, Appendix G39, Social Worker Qualification Standard. The full performance level of this vacancy is GS-11. The actual grade at which an applicant may be selected for this vacancy is a GS-12. The full performance level of this vacancy is 12. Physical Requirements: See VA Directive and Handbook 5019.

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: https://sites.ed.gov/international/recognition-of-foreign-qualifications/.

Contacts

• Address Carl Vinson VA Medical Center 1826 Veterans Boulevard Dublin, GA 31021 US
• Name: Manuel Argumedo
• Phone: 210-956-9231
• Email: [email protected]