Clarification from the agency

NOTE: The 2-page Resume requirement does not apply to this position. For more information, refer to Required Documents below. This position is open to current permanent Department of VHA employees.

Total Rewards of a Allied Health Professional

• Receives and completes consults from interdisciplinary teams and other social workers on complex, difficult cases, using advanced practice skills and expertise. Incumbent also provides consultation to referral sources and is responsible for developing and maintaining professional standards of practice and educating others regarding such.
• Documents independently in the medical record utilizing paper and/or electronic formats, including psychosocial assessments, diagnostics, treatment, progress notes, follow up and referrals.
• Completes psychosocial assessments; interviews veteran and family members and/or significant others to establish facts about the veteran's unique situation; identifies presenting problems and their causes, and the impact of such problems on the veteran's functioning and health as a part of a comprehensive psychosocial assessment; assesses high risk factors, acuity and need for services.
• Interprets and explains VA treatment and benefit programs.
• Develops an assessment of the veteran in collaboration with the interdisciplinary treatment teams, the veteran, family members and significant others, whenever possible.
• Develops psychosocial treatment plans in collaboration with the HBPC interdisciplinary team, including goals for psychosocial clinical treatment.
• Uses known available resources and the initial assessment of the veteran's likelihood to accept differing types of assistance to make initial and continuing decisions regarding use of VA and non-VA services and referrals.
• Provides independent consultation and makes recommendations to the interdisciplinary team regarding the course of treatment.
• Provides the patient, caregivers, and/or family members with ongoing supportive counseling.
• Assists patients and/or caregivers in coping and dealing with the loss and grief experienced in chronic illness, terminal illness and death.
• Participates in discharge planning with other disciplines and will be responsible for ensuring that discharge plans are executed in a manner that is timely and appropriate.
• Provides individual, family and group counseling as appropriate.
• Provides consultation/education to veterans and families on community resources, advance directives and VA benefits.
• Acts as a consultant to other team/staff members.
• Provides consultation/education to medical residents on social work practice and VA policy and procedure.
• Acts as liaison between VA and community resources, to include marketing and public relation duties as needed.
• Provides case management to veterans and families, as needed, throughout the continuum of care.
• Provides a full range of social work services within commonly accepted standards of social work practice which includes case work, individual, family and group counseling, discharge planning, case management and other services as appropriate.
• Addresses Advance Directives and Goals of Care Conversations in accordance with the standards of their work area.
• Provides wellness/prevention education and facilitate Patient/family support groups as appropriate.
• Supervises the practice of social work students, or a less experienced social worker as appropriate.
• Coordinates treatment and communicate with the care lines to facilitate continuity of care for veterans.
• Assists patients and their significant others with coping and dealing with the loss and grief experiences in disability, terminal illness and death.

Work Schedule: Monday - Friday; 7:00 am - 4:30 pm
Recruitment Incentive (Sign-on Bonus): Not Authorized
Permanent Change of Station (Relocation Assistance): Not Authorized
Pay: Competitive salary and regular salary increases When setting pay, a higher step rate of the appropriate grade may be determined after consideration of higher or unique qualifications or special needs of the VA (Above Minimum Rate of the Grade).
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)
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: Ad-hoc
Virtual: This is not a virtual position.
Functional Statement #: 59360A
Permanent Change of Station (PCS): Not Authorized

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 (https://www.uscis.gov/i-9-central/form-i-9-acceptable-documents). Effective May 7, 2025, driver's 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.

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

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/.

English Language Proficiency
Candidates must be proficient in spoken and written English to be appointed as authorized by 38 U.S.C. § 7403(f).

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.

Reference: For more information on this qualification standard, please visit https://www.va.gov/ohrm/QualificationStandards/.

Physical Requirements: See VA Directive and Handbook 501.

How you will be evaluated

You will be evaluated for this job based on how well you meet the qualifications above.

IN DESCRIBING YOUR EXPERIENCE, PLEASE BE CLEAR AND SPECIFIC. WE MAY NOT MAKE ASSUMPTIONS REGARDING YOUR EXPERIENCE. Your application, resume, C.V., and/or supporting documentation will be verified. Please follow all instructions carefully. Errors or omissions may affect consideration for employment.

Experience refers to paid and unpaid experience, including volunteer work done through National Service programs (e.g., Peace Corps, AmeriCorps) and other organizations (e.g., professional; philanthropic; religions; spiritual; community; student; social). Volunteer work helps build critical competencies, knowledge, and skills and can provide valuable training and experience that translates directly to paid employment. You will receive credit for all qualifying experience, including volunteer experience.

The Department of Veterans Affairs performs pre-employment reference checks as an assessment method used in the hiring process to verify information provided by a candidate (e.g., on resume or during interview or hiring process); gain additional knowledge regarding a candidate's abilities; and assist a hiring manager with making a final selection for a position.

It is the policy of the VA to not deny employment to those that have faced financial hardships or periods of unemployment.

Veterans and Transitioning Service Members: Please visit the VA for Vets site for career-search tools for Veterans seeking employment at VA, career development services for our existing Veterans, and coaching and reintegration support for military service members.

To apply for this position, you must provide a complete Application Package which includes:

• License
• Resume
• SF-50/ Notification of Personnel Action

Special Note for Applications: To complete your application, please use the following link https://vacareers.va.gov/wp-content/uploads/sites/5/Resume.docx to download the standard Clinical Resume Document. This one-page document does not need to be modified and must be uploaded into the two-page restricted 'Resume' document upload field.

Your full resume/CV may be uploaded without page limitation into the 'Other' document upload field.

The following documents are accepted, and may be required if applicable to your eligibility and/or qualifications for this position. Please ensure you have included all documents required for your application, such as a copy of your transcript (if using education to qualify), SF-50's (current/former Federal employees), etc.

• Cover Letter
• DD-214/ Statement of Service
• Disability Letter (VA)
• License
• Other (1)
• Resume
• SF-15
• SF-50/ Notification of Personnel Action
• Transcript

Next steps