Social Worker I

Duties may include but are not limited to the following:
Note: For Social Worker I duties are performed at the entry/trainee level.

• Conducts interviews with clients family members and others in their home in the office or via telephone to assess the basic social physical and mental needs of clients and obtain health information in order to identify and provide social services
• Performs case studies and evaluates individual and family case information to assess the safety of children and adults; determines appropriate types and methods of treatment
• Assesses reports of suspected abuse; may be required to work oncall; may provide information to law enforcement or district attorneys
• Develops and carries out culturally sensitive noncomplex to moderate treatment plans for an assigned caseload in conformance with agency state and federal requirements; assists clients and family members to develop strategies to accomplish case plan goals
• Refers clients to other staff members or to community resources for direct and intensive services and specialized counseling as necessary; advocates on the clients behalf for most appropriate services including enabling services
• Assists applicants and recipients in utilizing available resources
• Interprets policies rules and regulations of the agency to applicants clients and others within the scope of their responsibility
• Makes home visits in connection with casework assignments
• Prepares and maintains case records and databases; communicates decisions timelines recommendations and case plans to clients families and service providers
• May testify in court
• May be assigned to specialized functions
• Participates in inservice training and other staff development activities to increase knowledge of the social work processes and achieve technical competence
• Receives casework consultation from professionally trained staff members
• Provides community outreach for various agency programs
• Maintains client confidentiality; performs all duties in conformance with the National Association of Social Workers (NASW) Code of Ethics
• Performs related duties as assigned

• Principles and practices of organization workload management and time management
• Principles and practices of note taking report writing English composition grammar punctuation and spelling
• Phone etiquette and interview techniques
• Socioeconomic conditions and trends
• Basic principles of individual and group behavior
• Current issues in the field of social welfare
• Role and responsibilities of social workers
• Principles of interviewing and problemsolving methodology
• Basic public welfare programs on the Federal State and local level
• General principles of public assistance policies and programs
• Developing and preparing court report case plans case narratives and safety plans in automated computer systems
• Entering and retrieving data and narratives from automated computer systems
• Basic principles and techniques of interviewing and recording of social casework
• Laws rules and regulations governing the operation of the public welfare agency and the role of a social worker
• Community organization and the social problems calling for the use of public and private community resources
• Basic principles involved in the nature growth and development of personality and ingroup processes
• The medical legal economic and social management needs of individuals and families with special medical needs such as HIV disease drug dependency the medically fragile child Alzheimers and the terminally ill
• The strategies and protocols surrounding crisis intervention techniques such as voice modulation and assessing the potential for suicide
• Basic psychopathology the different types of mental illness diagnoses how mental illness affects human behavior and mental health services and treatments utilized by clients

• Understand and learn the agency programs policies and procedures
• Obtain facts and recognize the relevance and significance
• Organize and maintain work detail
• Establish and maintain effective client rapport and professional working relationships with agency staff clients and others
• Communicate effectively both orally (phone and in person) and in writing
• Analyze situations and adopt effective courses of action
• Interpret and explain to the applicant recipient or others public social service programs policies rules and regulations
• Develop skill in interviewing case recording and interpretation
• Work within a community setting and effectively use appropriate resources and services
• Maintain confidentiality in accordance with legal standards and/or county regulations
• Work effectively in emotionally charged or stressful settings/emergencies
• Operate a personal computer and other office equipment and software
• Analyze data interpret and apply directions rules policies procedures and regulations and develop appropriate responses
• Accept and use constructive feedback
• Interact professionally and respectfully with clients including difficult hostile or distressed clients
• Respect cultural differences
• Work with cases varying in difficulty /clients including clients with dual diagnoses potentially dangerous clients or legally complex cases
• Analyze data from multiple sources interpret and apply complex directions rules policies procedures and regulations and develop appropriate responses

Social Worker I:

Pattern 1: Graduation from an accredited fouryear college or university;

OR

Pattern 2: Successful completion of thirty 30 college semester units or fortyfive 45 quarter units from an accredited college or university including fifteen 15 semester units or twentytwo and a half 22.5 quarter units in social welfare social/human services sociology or other social or behavioral science*;

AND

One 1 year of fulltime experience in the Social Service Aide Eligibility Specialist II Employment and Training Worker II or comparable classification; ORThree 3 years of fulltime experience providing direct client services to disadvantaged adults or children in a private or public agency.

*Examples of acceptable social or behavioral science courses include: anthropology criminal justice education ethnic studies history human development human services law nursing nutrition psychology public health social welfare sociology welfare womens studies.

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION

• A valid drivers license will be required at the time of interview. Individuals who do not meet this requirement due to a disability will be reviewed on a casebycase basis.
• Positions require preemployment screening including background checks and fingerprinting.
• Government agencies accessing US government information which includes federal tax information must ensure that background investigation requirements for all agency employees and contractors that have access to federal tax information are consistent to the IRS background investigation requirements for access to federal tax information. A background check is required for all Social Services positions. Background requirements consist of three components which include fingerprinting citizenship verification and local law enforcement checks. Applicable agencies must conduct investigations during time of hire and ensure a reinvestigation is conducted 5 years from the date of the previous background investigation for each employee that has access to federal tax information.
• Lake County is required to verify Employment and Education if a conditional offer of employment is made to an applicant.
• Lake County offers: Flexible Office Hours available for most positions; Monday Friday with a variety of schedules between 6:30am 7:00pm.
• Work remotely from home available for some positions upon Lake County Department of Social Services Approval.