Licensed Clinical Social Worker

Job Title

Provides medical social work services through triage, assessments, crisis intervention, brief counseling, care coordination, and documentation for patients in the OCEMS Community Paramedicine Program across home visits, telehealth, and emergency scenes. Serves as liaison between OCEMS, social service agencies, and healthcare providers while supporting day-to-day operations.

Job Description

• Provides skilled, professional, and compassionate mobile integrated healthcare to Okaloosa County citizens, to include examinations and behavioral health screening for patients; maintains compliance with state and federal laws to include HIPAA.

• Educates departmental staff on the identification and understanding the signs and symptoms of behavioral health disorders with an emphasis on opioid use and the best practices for treatment.

• Supports the Community Paramedicine staff in understanding the effects of the behavioral health issue on parent/caregiver behavior and in navigating behavioral health issue mitigation.

• Provides education to departmental staff and the general public on the use of Medication Assisted Treatment.

• Administers field and office consultations during Post Overdose Support Team visits or an identified behavioral health need is made; demonstrates engagement techniques with the family.

• Partners with the Community Paramedics to provide consultations to assist in identifying danger threats, adult functioning, parental protective capacities (diminished or present), and safety management services

• Collaborates with community service providers and the Florida Department of Health in Okaloosa County to develop contacts, facilitate referrals, and assist staff with engaging clients in recommended services and improving timely access to treatment; maintains contacts of community mental health and substance use providers.

• Track referrals and entry into treatment for parents with behavioral health disorders, especially with a substance misuse disorder.

• Participates in various meetings which assists in the development and expansion of the Community Paramedicine and POST programs.

• Observes and records reactions to drugs, treatments; reports patient's conditions to PCM and other health care providers; maintains reports/forms associated with patient care.

• Demonstrates comprehensive knowledge of principles and processes for providing customer services, including setting and meeting quality standards for services and evaluation of customer satisfaction; ensures required certifications are valid current.

• Attends community meetings and provides community outreach; makes presentations at schools, civic groups, and other public safety agencies; conducts patient education and serves as trained navigator of community resources.

• Supports program operations outside of normal business hours, to include long days, evenings, and weekends; responds to on-call/standby assignments outside of duty hours as needed.

• Participates in the care and maintenance of equipment (i.e., response vehicle, life support, and personal protective equipment).

• Performs other duties as assigned.

Minimum Qualifications

Education, Training and Experience: Requires Master's Degree in Social Work; supplemented by two (2) years of post-graduate experience in medical social work, providing medical social work and care coordination services in a hospital/home care/hospice/health care setting. Preferred experience includes advanced resource attainment skills, trauma-informed practice, and working with older adults and persons with disabilities. Additional background experience with grief support, mental health, and substance use disorders preferred. Bilingual communication in Spanish, French, and/or Creole is preferred. Previous experience as EMT, Paramedic or RN preferred.

Licenses and/or Certifications: Requires a valid driver license. Must be a State of Florida Licensed Clinical Social Worker or Registered Clinical Social Work Intern. Requires an active CPR certification.

Other Requirements

Physical Requirements: Requires the ability to operate office equipment, to include computers, copy/fax machines and related peripherals. Must be able to exert 75 pounds of force occasionally, up to 50 pounds of force frequently, and/or a negligible amount of force constantly to lift, carry, push, pull or otherwise move objects. Requires frequent walking/standing and remaining stationary for extended periods. Must be able to traverse irregular, uneven, and/or erratically moving surfaces frequently. Demonstrates the ability to manage patients in various states typical of an emergency medicine environment. This position requires the use of precise dexterity and coordination to accomplish everyday tasks. This position requires the ability to operate a County assigned vehicle. Must be able to use abdominal and lower back muscles to provide support overtime without fatigue and constant movement and use of limbs. This individual must be able to safely move into and out low positions (i.e., kneeling, squatting, or sitting on ground). Physical demands are in excess of those for sedentary work.

Language Ability: Requires the ability to communicate effectively in English, including the ability to convey, record and exchange information; requires the ability to explain procedures and to give, receive and follow oral and written instructions. Must be able to read and interpret a variety of moderately complex technical data, policy and procedure manuals, codes, professional journals. Requires the ability to prepare forms and reports using prescribed formats, and adhering to all rules of grammar, spelling, diction and punctuation. Must be able to communicate effectively and efficiently in a variety of technical and/or professional languages used within the parameters of the job and with a broad array of individuals from various professional backgrounds.

Intelligence: Requires the ability to apply principles of emergency medicine and logical thinking to carry out detailed and involved written or oral instructions, define problems, collect data, establish facts and draw valid conclusions; to interpret a variety of technical instructions in written, mathematical or diagrammatic form; to learn and understand relatively complex principles and techniques; to make independent judgments in absence of supervision; to acquire knowledge of topics related to primary occupation.

Numerical Aptitude: Must be able to add, subtract, multiply and divide; to determine weight; calculate decimals and percentages; compute discount, profit and loss, ratio and proportion.

Interpersonal Temperament: Requires the ability to deal with people beyond receiving instructions. Must be adaptable to performing under moderate levels of stress, imposed by frequent deadlines, peak workloads, or public contact. Requires the ability to exercise consistent tact and courtesy when in frequent contact with various professionals, county staff, and the general public.