Senior Social Worker

The Cincinnati VA Medical Center (CVAMC) is a two-division campus located in Cincinnati, OH and Fort Thomas, KY serving 15 counties in Southwest OH, Northern Kentucky, and Southeast Indiana with 6 Community Based Outpatient Clinics located in Bellevue, KY; Florence, KY; Lawrenceburg, IN; Hamilton, OH; Clermont County, OH, and Georgetown, OH. The CVAMC also supports two off main campus locations in the Cincinnati area via an Eye Center and Mental Health Outreach Community Division.



Duties:

• Responsibilities include the management, coordination, discharge planning, advocacy, high quality case management, clinical treatment, linkage to VA or community resources and agencies as needed by the client, and provision of social work and supportive services to Veterans and/or their families.
• Performs the responsibilities as the admissions coordinator for the CLC. In this role, the employee is a member of the referral screening team, participates in the evaluation and decision ­making process of accepting and/or denying CLC referrals.
• Records and tracks all referral and admission data for quality performance and improvement measuring purposes.
• Participates in interdisciplinary treatment team meetings, cultural transformation, and resident centered care planning.
• Conducts psychosocial assessments as appropriate for treatment planning. Assessment is to highlight the Veteran's strengths, limitations, internal and external supports, and service needs in order to optimize functional status.
• Identifies the psychosocial complications that can be caused due to a sudden onset of an acute or chronic illness.
• Provides treatment intervention in collaboration with the Veteran and family, interdisciplinary treatment team, and community members.
• Possesses knowledge and ability to implement treatment modalities including motivational interviewing (Ml) to provide supportive counseling for individuals, families, and groups.
• Participates as a member of the interdisciplinary treatment team and actively participates through collaboration with Veterans, families, and interdisciplinary treatment team members in the development and implementation of a resident centered treatment plan.
• Provides consultation and education to Veterans and their families regarding community resources, VA benefits and services, specialty programs, entitlements, and education and completion of Advance Directives and Living Wills.
• Facilitates discharge planning through collaboration with Veterans and their families as well as interdisciplinary treatment team members to ensure that appropriate discharge plans are executed in a timely manner.
• Provides crisis intervention services if needed, seeking to address cause, as well as the presenting complaint, coordinates family conferences, and serves as liaison to family members. Formulates a plan with goals, objectives, barriers, and needs for ongoing follow up and case management.
• Possesses a high level of skill and expertise to establish and maintain effective therapeutic relationships with Veterans in the Community Living Center and/or their families.
• Understands the range of treatment and skills for all adult patients related to illness or chronic medical conditions, psychological needs, and age-associated conditions.
• Possesses a working knowledge and experience in use of medical and mental health diagnoses, disabilities, and treatment procedures, including acute, chronic, and traumatic illnesses, common medications and their effects/side effects, and medical terminology.
• Provides consultation to other treatment team and staff members regarding psychosocial needs of Veterans and/or their families and the impact of the identified psychosocial problems on the Veteran's health care planning, compliance with treatment, and discharge planning.

Work Schedule: Monday - Friday, 7:30am-4:00pm
Recruitment Incentive (Sign-on Bonus): Not Authorized
Permanent Change of Station (Relocation Assistance): Not Authorized

Selected applicants may qualify for credit toward annual leave accrual, based on prior [work experience] or military service experience.
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.
Child Care Subsidy: After 60 days of employment, full time employees with a total family income below $144,000 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).

Telework: Not Available
Virtual: This is not a virtual position.
Functional Statement #: 92629-A
Permanent Change of Station (PCS): Not Authorized.

Conditions of employment

• You must be a U.S. Citizen to apply for this job.
• All applicants tentatively selected for VA employment in a testing designated position are subject to urinalysis to screen for illegal drug use prior to appointment. Applicants who refuse to be tested will be denied employment with VA.
• 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, driver's licenses or state-issued identification 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.

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 interest. In 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.

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.
• Education. Have a master's 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 master's degree in social work. Verification of the degree can be made by going to http://www.cswe.org/Accreditation 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 master's degree level. Current state requirements may be found by going to http://vaww.va.gov/OHRM/T38Hybrid/.
• Failure to Obtain License or Certification. In all cases, social workers must actively pursue meeting state prerequisites for licensure or certification starting from the date of their appointment. Failure to become licensed or certified within the prescribed amount of time will result in removal from the GS-0185 social worker series and may result in termination of employment.
• English Language Proficiency. Candidates must be proficient in spoken and written English to be appointed as authorized by 38 U.S.C. § 7403(f).

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).

Grade Determinations:
Senior Social Worker, GS-12

• Experience/Education. The candidate 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. 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.
• 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:
• (a) 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.
• (b) Ability to incorporate complex multiple causation in differential diagnosis and treatment within approved clinical privileges or scope of practice.
• (c) 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.
• (d) 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.
• (e) 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.

Assignments. For all assignments above the full performance level, the higher-level duties must consist of significant scope, complexity (difficulty), and variety and be performed by the incumbent at least 25% of the time. Senior social workers are licensed or certified to independently practice social work at an advanced level. Senior social workers typically practice in a major program area such as but not limited to: Polytrauma Rehabilitation Center or Polytrauma Network Site; a Spinal Cord Injury Rehabilitation Center, or a national VHA referral center, such as a national Center for Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder or a national Transplant Center, or other program areas of equivalent scope and complexity. The senior social worker may be assigned administrative responsibility for clinical program development and is accountable for clinical program effectiveness and modification of service patterns. Assignments include clinical settings where they have limited access to onsite supervision such as CBOCs or satellite outpatient clinics. The senior social worker collaborates with the other members of the treatment team in the provision of comprehensive health care services to Veterans, ensures equity of access, service, and benefits to this population, ensures the care provided is of the highest quality. The senior social worker provides leadership, direction, orientation, coaching, in-service training, staff development, and continuing education programs for assigned social work 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, Social Work Executive or Chief of Social Work Services. This assignment is to be relatively few in number based on the size of the facility/service and applying sound position management. This assignment must represent substantial additional responsibility over and above that required at the full performance grade level and cannot be used as the full performance level of this occupation.

Preferred Experience: Nursing home and/or discharge planning experience.

Reference: For more information on this qualification standard, please visit .

The full performance level of this vacancy is 12.

Physical Requirements: See VA Directive and Handbook 5019, Employee Occupational Health Services.