Senior Social Worker Acute MedicineSurgery

The Senior Social Worker is primarily responsible for providing psychosocial and mental health assessment diagnosis treatment planning/execution care management case management crisis intervention and evidence-based psychotherapy services to Veterans their family members and caregivers in within Acute Medicine-Surgery units.

Duties for this position include but are not limited to:

• Receives referrals from a variety of sources to include triage consults walk-in visits phone calls and warm hand-offs from internal/external stakeholders. The Senior Social Worker is required to utilize available data sources to proactively identify patients for screening/triage assessment treatment planning case management and care coordination.
• Provides crisis intervention services seeking to address the cause as well as presenting complaint coordinates family conferences and serves as a liaison to family members/caregivers. The Senior Social Worker has working knowledge and experience in use of medical and mental health diagnoses disabilities and treatment procedures. This includes acute chronic and traumatic illnesses/injuries mental health conditions and common medical terminology.
• Independently conducts psychosocial and behavioral health/mental health assessments can provide accurate diagnosis using most current version of the DSM.
• Measures outcomes of interventions to improve treatment services. The Senior Social Worker designs changes based on empirical/measurement-based care and other findings.
• Utilizes clinical knowledge in the social work profession and writes policies standard operating procedures and/or practice guidelines pertaining to the service delivery area.
• Proactively addresses advance directive education and facilitates completion and proper documentation and record scanning to ensure clear and accurate information regarding the Veterans wishes are available in the electronic health record.
• Serves as a subject matter expert for clinical social work practice/processes within the Acute Medicine-Surgery units.
• Provides 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.
• Provides orientation and training for new clinical social work staff.
• Provides licensure supervision for unlicensed staff to become licensed in accordance with State laws and VA policy/standard operating procedures.
• Teaches mentors and coaches MSW students in specialty area and provides supervision for licensure and participates in the MSW student training program.
• Uses advanced practice knowledge and experience to assist with training front line staff as well as providing clinical supervision for unlicensed Social Workers.
• Required to travel on a regular basis to other locations of care within the North Florida / South Georgia Veterans Health System to carry out job duties/assignments as well as required to drive and/or travel using personal or government vehicle to other sites of care between the 2 main hospitals in Gainesville and Lake City or to community partners as necessary. Travel will be for long periods of time up to three hours each way with traffic and expected at least 25% of work week.
• This position may include weekends and evening hours and requires the ability to make decisions and complete work assignments within the program area with very limited or no direct supervision.

Work Schedule: Friday to Monday 7:30am - 6:00pm (weekend shift - 4 10 hour shifts)
Recruitment Incentive (Sign-on Bonus): Not authorized
Telework: Not available
Virtual: This is not a virtual position
Functional Statement #: 51920F

Additional Benefits
Child Care Subsidy: After 60 days of employment full time employees with a total family income below $144000 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)
Pay: Competitive salary and regular salary increases
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)
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.


Total Rewards of a Allied Health Professional

• 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 identification cards that are not REAL ID compliant cannot be utilized as an acceptable form of identification for employment.
• Must pass pre-employment physical evaluation/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.

As a condition of employment for accepting this position you will be required to serve a 1 or 2-year trial period during which we will evaluate your fitness and whether your continued employment advances the public determining if your employment advances the public interest we may consider:

• 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.

Upon completion of your trial period your employment will be terminated unless you receive certification in writing that your continued employment advances the public interest.

Applicants must meet the requirements by the closing date of this announcement. 09/10/2026

Basic Requirements:

• United States Citizenship: Must be US Citizen. 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).
• 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.
• 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 masters degree level. Current state requirements may be found by going to 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:
In addition to meeting the basic requirements stated above the following qualifications criteria must be met in determining the appropriate grade assignment of candidates.

GS-12 Senior Social Workercandidates must have the following:

• Experience/Education: Must have at least two (2) years of experience POST advanced practice clinical licensure and should be in a specialized area of social work practice of which one (1) 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.

AND

• 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. Advanced License must be submitted with application.

While we no longer require essay-style responses to our Knowledges Skills Abilities and Other Characteristics (KSAOs) you must be able to demonstrate that you possess the (below) competencies which are necessary to perform the work of the position. Please ensure your resume/CV/application contains sufficient information to support the level of experience/education/training; otherwise we will not be able to award you credit for the experience/education/training you claim. If selected you may be required to submit narrative responses then. These are the KSAs for this subject position and grade level:

• 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.

Preferred Experience:

• Preferred experience working in acute medicine/surgery and providing short and long term case management and discharge planning.
• Candidate must have experience working with interdisciplinary teams and navigating large health systems.

References: VA Regulations specifically VA Handbook 5005/120 Part II Appendix G39 Senior Social Worker Qualification Standard dated 9/10/19. For more information on this qualification standard please visit full performance level of this vacancy is GS-12.

Physical Requirements: Able to meet the physical demands of the position reasonable accommodations may be made to enable qualified individuals with disabilities to perform the essential functions. They must have good manual dexterity. Must be able to express or exchange ideas by means of spoken and written word. Must be able to view and read information on computer screens. The job entails walking standing bending traveling among several different stories/floors sitting working on a computer carrying objects. The Senior Social Worker is required to travel on a regular basis to other locations of care within the North Florida/South Georgia Veterans Health System to carry out job duties/assignments. The Senior Social Worker is required to drive and/or travel using personal vehicle or government vehicle to other sites of care within the NF/SG VHS as well as to community partners as necessary. Travel will be for long periods of time up to three hours each way so a valid drivers license is required. Travel is expected at least 25% of work week.