Senior Social Worker Psychosocial Rehabilitation Recovery Center (PRRC)

VA Careers - Licensed Clinical Social Worker: Rewards of a Allied Health Professional

Duties include but are not limited to:

• Provides a full range of psychosocial assessment services and psychiatric diagnoses of mental disorders particularly for complex or unusually difficult patients in a variety of treatment settings including tele-mental health.
• Provides education to patients family members and significant others.
• Provides comprehensive evidence-based psychotherapeutic interventions including individual family and group psychotherapy; in addition can also conduct advanced level psychosocial and/or case management.
• Provides clinical supervision to interns and post-doctoral fellows in areas related to behavioral health and social services provision to attain goals and objectives of recovery programs as well as role modeling effective social work practice skills.
• Develops implements and documents the psychotherapeutic treatment plan for an assigned caseload of patients including prompt completion of clinical reminders. Implements 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.
• Functions independently at the VA Medical Center at Memphis and assumes complete professional responsibility for his/her clinical assessment findings patient care decisions and documentation.
• Interviews Veterans and their family members/significant others to establish facts about the Veterans situation presenting problems and their causes and the impact of such problems on the veterans functioning and health as part of a comprehensive psychosocial assessment. Interprets and explains VAs treatment and benefit programs.
• Reviews all data subjective and objective and makes a clinical assessment identifying needs and strengths. Effectively uses professional skill objectivity and insight. Uses advanced clinical training insight and experience to interpret data and to identify viable treatment options. Assess high risk factors acuity and need for services.
• Has the ability to serve veterans who tend to have serious frequent and severe crises lack family or an adequate community support network be poor at self-monitoring frequently fail to comply with instructions and treatment have significant deficits in coping skills and require continuing professional psychological support.
• Facilitates liaisons with other medical center programs (e.g. Homeless Program Veterans Justice Outreach) in order to effectively coordinate services.
• Has the 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.
• Provides teaching on selected mental health topics to community organizations provides leadership direction orientation coaching in-service training staff development and continuing education programs for assigned 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 or Section Chief of Mental Health.

Conditions of employment

• 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.
• Must pass pre-employment physical examination.
• 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: Non-citizens may only be appointed when it is not possible to recruit qualified citizens in accordance with VA Policy.
• English Language Proficiency: Candidates must be proficient in spoken and written English to be appointed as authorized by 38 U.S.C. 7403(f).
• Experience/Education. You must possess 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.

• Licensure/Certification. 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 masters degree level. Current state requirements may be found by going to Determinations: Senior Social Worker GS-12
  • Specialized experience: You must possess 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/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.
  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).
  
  Reference: For more information on this qualification standard please visit full performance level of this vacancy is GS-12.
  
  Physical Requirements: See VA Directive and Handbook 5019 Employee Occupational Health Services.

  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: 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:

  Additional information

  Receiving Service Credit for Earning Annual (Vacation) Leave: Federal Employees earn annual leave at a rate (4 6 or 8 hours per pay period) which is based on the number of years they have served as a Federal employee. Selected applicants may qualify for credit toward annual leave accrual based on prior work experience or military service experience. This credited service can be used in determining the rate at which they earn annual leave. Such credit must be requested and approved prior to the appointment date and is not guaranteed.
  
  During the application process you may have an option to opt-in to make your resume available to hiring managers in the agency who have similar positions. Opting in does not impact your application for this announcement nor does it guarantee further consideration for additional positions.
  
  This job opportunity announcement may be used to fill additional vacancies.
  
  This position is in the Excepted Service and does not confer competitive status.
  
  VA encourages persons with disabilities to apply. The health-related positions in VA are covered by Title 38 and are not covered by the Schedule A excepted appointment authority.
  
  If you are unable to apply online or need an alternate method to submit documents please reach out to the Agency Contact listed in this Job Opportunity Announcement.
  
  Under the Fair Chance to Compete Act the Department of Veterans Affairs prohibits requesting an applicants criminal history prior to accepting a tentative job offer. For more information about the Act and the complaint process visit Human Resources and Administration/Operations Security and Preparedness (HRA/OSP) at The Fair Chance Act.

  Candidates should be committed to improving the efficiency of the Federal government passionate about the ideals of our American republic and committed to upholding the rule of law and the United States Constitution.

  A career with the U.S. government provides employees with a comprehensive benefits package. As a federal employee you and your family will have access to a range of benefits that are designed to make your federal career very rewarding. Opens in a new windowLearn more about federal benefits.

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  Eligibility for benefits depends on the type of position you hold and whether your position is full-time part-time or intermittent. Contact the hiring agency for more information on the specific benefits offered.