Senior Social Worker

This Senior Social Worker practices in the Spinal Cord Injury (SCI) outpatient clinic, inpatient, long-term care units, and home care program for the San Diego VA Healthcare system and serves a patient population with highly complex health and mental health problems. They are assigned to administrative responsibility for clinical program development and are accountable for clinical program effectiveness and modification of service patterns.

Responsibilities include performing specialized treatment of complex physical and mental illness for patients in the Spinal Cord Injury outpatient primary care and homecare program. They 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. Tasks may include case management for both outpatient and inpatient; home visits, evaluations, safety checks, attendant care issues; psychosocial assessment, treatment planning, and intervention; interdisciplinary team planning; activities to ensure Commission on Accreditation of Rehabilitation Facilities (CARF) compliance.

The Social Worker provides services on an inpatient and outpatient basis, including community agencies and patient homes. They develop and implement methods for measuring effectiveness of social work practice and services in the spinal cord injury specialty area, utilizing outcome evaluations to improve treatment services. Additionally, they provide consultations 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. They demonstrate the ability to teach and mentor staff and students in the special area of practice and to provide supervision for licensure or specialty certifications.

Work Schedule: 20 hours per week.

Salary shown in announcement is based on full-time employment and would be pro-rated to the actual hours worked.

Requirements include being a U.S. Citizen, proficiency in written and spoken English, and passing a pre-employment physical examination. Participation in the seasonal influenza vaccination program is a requirement for all Department of Veterans Affairs Health Care Personnel.

Qualifications include basic requirements for employment as a VHA social worker, such as a master's degree in social work from a school of social work fully accredited by the Council on Social Work Education (CSWE), licensure by a state to independently practice social work at the master's degree level, and physical requirements including walking, reading, listening, observing, evaluating, speaking, writing, use of office equipment, driving, and performing CPR.