The Senior Social Worker practices across all Specialty Medical programs areas supporting inpatient medicine at the VA San Diego Healthcare System. The number of medically complex inpatient cases continues to increase and needs advanced case management for successful discharge. These case managers work with patient populations with highly complex health and mental health problems.

Duties

VA Careers - Social Work: https://youtube.com/embed/enRhz_ua_UU Total Rewards- Social Worker Major duties include but are not limited to: Incorporate complex multiple causation in differential diagnosis and treatment of veteran patients, including making psychosocial and psychiatric diagnoses within approved clinical privileges or scope of practice. Provide a variety of psychosocial services to Veterans in the inpatient setting. Provide supportive counseling, education, and appropriate case management services to reduce the Veteran's stress throughout all phases of diagnosis, treatment, and ongoing care. Provide individual, group, and family psychotherapy and advanced level case management interventions used in the treatment of veterans with serious medical and psychiatric disorders. Provide services that access the continuum of care from outpatient, inpatient, independent and institutional settings. Meet clients in the community to facilitate treatment plans. Develop and implement methods for measuring effectiveness of social work practice and services utilizing outcome evaluations to improve treatment services. Design changes based on empirical findings. Offer consultation to colleagues and students 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. Teach and mentor staff and students in the special area of practice and to provide supervision for licensure or specialty certifications. Work Schedule: Monday-Friday, 7:00 am to 3:30 pm Telework: Not Available Virtual: This is not a virtual position. Functional Statement #: 000000 Relocation/Recruitment Incentives: Not Authorized Permanent Change of Station (PCS): Not Authorized Paid Time Off: 37-50 days of annual paid time offer per year (13-26 days of annual leave, 13 days of sick leave, 11 paid Federal holidays per year) Selected applicants may qualify for credit toward annual leave accrual, based on prior [work experience] or military service experience. Parental Leave: After 12 months of employment, up to 12 weeks of paid parental leave in connection with the birth, adoption, or foster care placement of a child. Child Care Subsidy: After 60 days of employment, full time employees with a total family income below $144,000 may be eligible for a childcare subsidy up to 25% of total eligible childcare costs for eligible children up to the monthly maximum of $416.66. Retirement: Traditional federal pension (5 years vesting) and federal 401K with up to 5% in contributions by VA Insurance: Federal health/vision/dental/term life/long-term care (many federal insurance programs can be carried into retirement) Financial Disclosure: Not required Bargaining Unit: Yes

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: United States Citizenship: Non-citizens may only be appointed when it is not possible to recruit qualified citizens in accordance with VA Policy. 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/. 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). Grade Determinations: Senior Social Worker 0185, GS-12 Preferred Experience: Experience working with medically complex patients (oncology, dementia, etc.); experience with homeless patients; having an understanding of public benefits; experience working with nursing homes, independent living facilities, and assisted living facilities; and/or past experience providing supervision. Experience: 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. Demonstrated Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities. In addition to the experience above, candidates 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. Reference: For more information on this qualification standard, please visit https://www.va.gov/ohrm/QualificationStandards/. VA Handbook 5005/120, PART II, APPENDIX G39 dated September 10, 2019 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. 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.

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 San Diego VA Medical Center 3350 La Jolla Village Drive San Diego, CA 92161 US
• Name: Michael Kelly
• Email: [email protected]