Senior Social Worker

U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs; Pittsburgh (Allegheny County); On-site; USD 65,000 - 85,000; Full time

Job summary

The Senior Social Worker position at a leading Veterans Affairs Medical Center involves managing the Medical Foster Home program and ensuring quality care for veterans. This role requires significant expertise in social work, including policy development and directly assisting veterans, making it vital for improving their well-being.

Qualifications

• Two years post licensure experience in social work.
• Ability to provide supervision for licensure.
• Demonstrated advanced practice skills and judgment.

Responsibilities

• Manage daily operation of the Medical Foster Home program.
• Develop policies and procedures for the program.
• Provide direct Veteran-centric services.

Skills

Counseling

Case Management

Policy Development

Diagnosis

Education

Master's degree in social work

Job description

This Senior Social Worker position for the Medical Foster Home is located at the H. John Heinz III Department of Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Pittsburgh, PA. Responsibilities include the daily operation of the program, developing policies and procedures for program operation and preparing reports and statistics for facility, VISN, and national use.
Duties

The Senior Social Worker serves as program coordinator and is administratively responsible for the Medical Foster Home Program. The incumbent manages the daily operation of the program and provides direct Veteran-centric services in the program area.

Requirements

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

Social Worker, GS-0185-12

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:

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: Minimum one year experience in Home Care or Geriatrics preferred.

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

The full performance level of this vacancy is GS-12.