Senior Social Worker

Total Rewards of a Allied Health Professional

You will function as a Senior Social Worker on an integrated interdisciplinary team located at the Chillicothe VA Health Care System. The incumbent serves a high-complexity caseload of up to 12 Veterans who experience severe and persistent mental illness including Schizophrenia Bipolar Disorder Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder or severe mood disorders and who have frequent or long-term hospitalizations and who live in the community.

Duties and responsibilities include but are not limited to:

• Acts as Subject Matter Expert for SMI veteran population to VA staff community partners and veterans/their families to include case consultation.
• Provides programmatic and clinical supervision to intern/fellowship trainees within the MHICM program.
• Independently assesses the psychosocial functioning and needs of Veterans identifying their strengths weaknesses coping skills and psychosocial acuity.
• Provides recovery-oriented care-planning for assigned Veterans incorporating the Veterans goals preferences and strengths and including interventions for building adaptive and social skills increased self-care independent living employment crisis resolution and practical problem solving.
• Provides frequent and clinically intense individual services in the Veterans home or community as warranted by Veterans clinical needs at a given time.
• Facilitates psycho-educational therapeutic and supportive counseling groups related to the treatment of specific SMI psychiatric disorders.
• Provides crisis intervention when indicated including evaluation assessment triage initiation of Emergency Detention procedures and disposition of patients experiencing behavioral health emergencies.
• Participates in periodic interdisciplinary review of ongoing treatment of assigned Veterans.
• Provides ongoing documentation of Veterans treatment progress using a psychosocial and behavioral framework.
• Provides clinical case management and care coordination to facilitate appropriate delivery of health care services incorporating complex multiple causation in differential diagnosis and treatment of Veterans.
• Assures timely access to general medical care services for both routine and acute visits; assists Veterans in receiving recommended preventive services; and assists Veterans in accessing and adhering to recommended general medical treatments (within the scope of licensure).
• Provides education and assistance with Advanced Directives to Veterans who wish to complete them.

Conditions of employment

• This position is considered an incidental driver. A current valid state-issued Drivers License is required for this position. NOTE: We cannot accept photographs therefore; please do not submit a copy of your license with your application package. If an interview is requested you will be required to provide a copy of your current valid state-issued Drivers License. A clean driving record report from the DMV and a copy of your drivers license will be required during the online onboarding process.
• You must be a U.S. Citizen to apply for this job.
• Selective Service Registration is required for males born after 12/31/1959.
• Must be proficient in written and spoken English.
• Subject to background/security investigation.
• Selected applicants will be required to complete an online onboarding process. Acceptable form(s) of identification will be required to complete pre-employment requirements ( Effective May 7 2025 drivers licenses or state-issued dentification cards that are not REAL ID compliant cannot be utilized as an acceptable form of identification for employment.
• Participation in the seasonal influenza vaccination program is a requirement for all Department of Veterans Affairs Health Care Personnel (HCP).
• Complete all application requirements detailed in the Required Documents section of this announcement.

• your performance and conduct;
• the needs and interests of the agency;
• whether your continued employment would advance organizational goals of the agency or the Government; and
• whether your continued employment would advance the efficiency of the Federal service.

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 - Be a citizen of the United States. (Non-citizens may be appointed when it is not possible to recruit qualified citizens in accordance with chapter 3 section A paragraph 3g this part).
• English Language Proficiency - Candidates must be proficient in spoken and written English to be appointed as authorized by 38 U.S.C. 7403(f).
• Education - Have a masters 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 masters degree in social work. Verification of the degree can be made by going to to verify that the social work degree meets the accreditation standards for a masters of social work.
• License - You must be licensed or certified by a state to independently practice social work at the masters degree level.

Experience: You 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. Examples of specialized experience include but are not limited to: assessing and documenting identified behaviors or symptoms of abuse neglect exploitation and/or intimate partner violence; use of clinical social work skills; maintaining patient privacy and confidentiality per policies handbooks or directives; acting as an advocate with appropriate community service providers and agencies when it serves the best interest of the patient and family members/caregiver; independently assessing the psychosocial functioning and needs of patients and their family members identifying the patients strengths weaknesses coping skills and psychosocial acuity. Applicable experience must demonstrate possession of advanced practice skills and judgment.

Licensure: Senior social workers must be licensed 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.