Senior Social Worker

We're Looking for a skilled Senior Social Worker in the Veterans Health Administration based in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Read through the job description to see if it matches your current experience.

The Successful Applicant

BASIC REQUIREMENTS a. Citizenship. Be a citizen of the United States. b. 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. c. Licensure. Persons hired or reassigned to social worker positions in the GS185 series in VHA must be licensed or certified by a state to independently practice social work at the masters degree level. d. English Language Proficiency. Social workers must be proficient in spoken and written English. e. Creditable Experience. (1) Knowledge of Current Professional Social Work Practices. To be creditable the experience must have required the use of knowledge skills abilities and other characteristics associated with current professional social work practice. The experience or education must be postMSW degree. Experience and education satisfying this requirement must be active professional practice which is paid/nonpaid employment as a professional social worker as defined by the appropriate state licensing board. (2) Quality of Experience. Experience is only creditable if it is obtained following graduation with a masters degree in social work and if it includes work as a professional social worker directly related to the position to be filled. Qualifying experience must also be at a level comparable to social work experience at the next lower level. (3) Advanced Practice Level. Advanced Practice Level is defined as the ability to provide independent and expert clinical psychosocial and case management services in a specialized area of practice to veterans who tend to have serious and severe crises may lack any familial and community support may be poor selfmonitors may frequently fail to comply with instructions and treatment or may have major deficits in coping skills and require continuing professional psychological support. The advanced practice or Senior Social Worker has an increased depth and breadth of practice skills has expertise in participating in the professional development of colleagues through mentorship and teaching demonstrates leadership in developing and expanding professional intervention strategies demonstrates leadership in defining and attending to professional practice issues and has the ability to expand the conceptual knowledge of the profession. The advanced practice or Senior Social Worker will make independent professional decisions and recommendations for agency action the consequences to the veteran of these decisions and actions may be quite serious. Work involves intensive social work services requiring the exercise of mature professional judgment and the flexible use of a wide range of complex social work practice skills not typically required in routine social work interventions. The advanced practice or senior social worker has mastered a range of specialized interventions and provides consultation to colleagues renders professional opinions based on experience and expertise develops new models of psychosocial assessment or intervention and incorporates complex multiple causation in differential diagnosis and treatment. The advanced practice or Senior Social Worker utilizes outcome evaluations to further treatment and designs system changes based on empirical findings. f. GS12 Senior Social Worker. (a) Experience Education and Licensure. Senior Social Workers have experience that demonstrates possession of advanced practice skills and judgment. At least two years should be in an area of specialized social work practice. Senior social workers must be licensed or certified by a state at the advanced practice level which included an ASWB 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). Senior social workers may have certification or other postmasters 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. The candidate must also demonstrate the professional KSAs: (b) Demonstrated Knowledge Skills and Abilities 1. Advanced knowledge of and mastery of theories and modalities used in the specialized treatment of complex physical or mental illness. Ability to 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. Ability to determine priority for services and provide specialized treatment services. 2. Advanced and expert 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 interventions used in the treatment of veterans with polytraumatic injuries spinal cord injuries traumatic brain injuries visual impairment posttraumatic stress disorder etc. 3. Advanced knowledge and expert skill 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. Ability to coordinate the delivery of specialized psychosocial services and programs. Ability to design system changes based on empirical findings. 4. Ability to provide subject matter consultation to colleagues and students on the psychosocial treatment of patients treated in the specialty area rendering professional opinions based on experience and expertise and role modeling effective social work practice skills. Ability to teach and mentor staff and students in the specialty area of practice and to provide supervision for licensure or for specialty certifications. 5. Ability to expand clinical knowledge in the profession demonstrating innovation in the creation of new models of psychosocial assessment or intervention to identify and address specialized clinical needs. Ability to write policies procedures and/or practice guidelines pertaining to the specialty population or specialty treatment program. (c) Assignments. Senior Social Workers are licensed or certified to independently practice social work at an advanced level. Senior Social Workers typically practice in a major specialty treatment program area such as a 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 PostTraumatic Stress Disorder or a national Transplant Center or other program areas of equivalent scope and complexity. The Senior Social Worker is assigned administrative responsibility for clinical program development and is accountable for clinical program effectiveness and modification of service patterns. They are also assigned in settings where they have no access to social work supervision such as CBOCs or satellite outpatient clinics. They may be assigned to work with special patient populations with highlycomplex health or mental health problems requiring expert level psychosocial interventions such as VA/DOD liaisons assigned to Military Treatment Facilities as part of seamless transition or social worker case managers in Mental Health Intensive Case Management (MHICM) programs. References: VA HANDBOOK 5005/23 PART II APPENDIX G39 FEBRUARY 13 2009

What’s on Offer

The role offers excellent opportunities for top performers to further develop their competencies as a social worker and improving the lives of people.