Senior Social Worker

Summary

This position is eligible for the Education Debt Reduction Program (EDRP), a student loan payment reimbursement program. You must meet specific individual eligibility requirements in accordance with VHA policy and submit your EDRP application within four months of appointment. Program Approval, award amount (up to $200,000) and eligibility period (one to five years) are determined by the VHA Education Loan Repayment Services program office after complete review of the EDRP application.

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Duties

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VA Careers - Licensed Clinical Social Worker :

Total Rewards of a Allied Health Professional

• Establishes and maintains effective working relationships and communicates with Veterans, staff, and other parties as appropriate.
• Collaborates with other members of the treatment team in the provision of comprehensive health care services to Veterans to ensure equity of access, service, and benefits and that the care provided is of the highest quality.
• Ensures continuity of care for all Veterans presenting to the ED in mental health crisis by providing intervention and/or facilitating services with other provider(s).
• Assesses patients by phone and provides crisis counseling/intervention, including instructing the patient to present to the EDor follow-up with established providers.
• Contacts local law enforcement for wellness check as deemed necessary.
• Covers all needed emergent crisis intervention anywhere on campus including weekends and holidays.
• Provides education and referrals to veterans for community services, and coordinates these services, as necessary.
• Acts as a liaison between community and VA programs as needed.
• Makes appropriate referrals, as indicated, to reporting agencies such as Department of Family Services, Adult Protective Services, police, etc.
• Facilitates transfer and/or discharge from ED with appropriate continuity of care.
• Arrange and facilitate transfer of mental health patients to the SLC VAMC IPU from a variety of community placements, including from other states, which requires ACT SW to be familiar with not only the state laws of Utah but the surrounding states as well. Social workers cannot complete interfacility transfers or discharge.
• Completes the initial assessment, evaluation, treatment, and disposition (including involuntary holds) of Veterans in crisis with an acute and/or chronic mental illness responding to acute mental health crisis situations in the ED and the entire campus of the SLC VAMC.
• Assess the psychosocial functioning and needs of Veterans and family members, identifying the Veteran's strengths, challenges, coping skills, and psychosocial acuity.
• Provides assessment, brief psychotherapeutic interventions, and treatment referrals for veterans presenting with substance use disorders.
• Evaluates options to mitigate potential safety concerns which may include calling police for assistance, providing crisis intervention, mediating conflicts, and/or making referrals to ensure a safe outcome.
• Facilitates admissions (both voluntary and involuntary) to the inpatient psychiatric unit (IPU) and/or collaborates with community facilities for psychiatric resources, to include admission. Social workers cannot admit.
• Provides clinical recommendations to ED physicians regarding appropriateness of psychiatric admissions and/or ED discharge with referral(s) to outpatient services, prioritizing patient safety, and balancing emergent situations arising simultaneously.
• Provides consultation to colleagues regarding emergent/urgent situations.
• Provides education to both Veterans and family members regarding relevant mental health concerns..
• Conduct interventions using evidence-based strategies to a full range of complex psychosocial needs in the ED, including psychiatric emergencies, substance abuse treatment, homelessness, abuse, and geriatric psychiatric emergencies.
• Evaluates patients in the ED for involuntary psychiatric holds and completes appropriate paperwork.
• Serves as a resource for SLC VAMC staff regarding the local laws and regulations regarding involuntary psychiatric holds.
• Determines suicide and homicide risk utilizing current evidence-based research tools.
• Fully assess suicide/homicide risk and protective factors to determine safety of the patients.
• Provide a full range of psycho-diagnostic services including assessment and uses the most appropriate psychotherapeutic techniques in providing quality care.
• Perform evaluations for wide array of patients representing diverse diagnostic entities.
• Completes comprehensive suicide risk evaluations (CSRE), safety planning, and suicide behavior reports, as needed.
• Ensures adherence to facility and national risk management policies for assessment, management, consultation and documentation related to suicide/homicide risk.

Work Schedule : Variable Shifts.

Compressed Schedule: 4 days, 10 hour shifts (this is a 24-hour service)

Recruitment Incentive (Sign-on Bonus): Not Authorized.

Permanent Change of Station (Relocation Assistance): Not Authorized.

EDRP Authorized: Former EDRP participants ineligible to apply for incentive. Contact This position is open to current permanent VA Salt Lake City Health Care System Employees. VA Employees, the EDRP Coordinator for questions/assistance. Learn more

T elework : Ad-hoc maybe be authorized.

Virtual: This is not a virtual position.

Functional Statement # : 57276A.

Permanent Change of Station (PCS): Not Authorized.

Requirements

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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 ( 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

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 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
• 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.
• 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.

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

Physical Requirements: Must be in overall good health, able to sit at a desk working at a computer, engage in light to moderate physical activity including sitting, walking, bending, and carrying supplies. Social Worker must be able to perform primarily light and sedentary duties with occasionally moderate physical demands, exercise patience, and control emotions, with reasonable accommodation, if necessary, without endangering the health and safety of the social worker or others.

This position also requires close visual acuity to perform an activity such as preparing and analyzing data and figures; transcribing; viewing a computer terminal; extensive reading; and repetitive motions of the wrists, hands, and/or fingers.

Education

Note: Only education or degrees recognized by the U.S. Department of Education from accredited colleges, universities, schools, or institutions may be used to qualify for Federal employment. You can verify your education here:

Additional information

During the application process you may have an option to opt-in to make your resume available to hiring managers in the agency who have similar positions. Opting in does not impact your application for this announcement, nor does it guarantee further consideration for additional positions.

This job opportunity announcement may be used to fill additional vacancies.

This position is in the Excepted Service and does not confer competitive status.

VA encourages persons with disabilities to apply. The health-related positions in VA are covered by Title 38, and are not covered by the Schedule A excepted appointment authority.

If you are unable to apply online or need an alternate method to submit documents, please reach out to the Agency Contact listed in this Job Opportunity Announcement.

Under the Fair Chance to Compete Act, the Department of Veterans Affairs prohibits requesting an applicant's criminal history prior to accepting a tentative job offer. For more information about the Act and the complaint process, visit Human Resources and Administration/Operations, Security, and Preparedness (HRA/OSP) at The Fair Chance Act.

Candidates should be committed to improving the efficiency of the Federal government, passionate about the ideals of our American republic, and committed to upholding the rule of law and the United States Constitution.

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A career with the U.S. government provides employees with a comprehensive benefits package. As a federal employee, you and your family will have access to a range of benefits that are designed to make your federal career very rewarding. Opens in a new windowLearn more about federal benefits.

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Eligibility for benefits depends on the type of position you hold and whether your position is full-time, part-time or intermittent. Contact the hiring agency for more information on the specific benefits offered.