The Senior Social Worker is assigned to the Substance Abuse Treatment Program (SATP) of the VA Texas Valley Coastal Bend Health Care System (VATVCBHCS). This vacancy will remain open until filled. The first cut-off date is 4/16/2021. Additional applications will be referred as needed. Applicants will be referred based on location as vacancies are identified. NOTE: This vacancy is being recruited for as Psychologist and Senior Social Worker. Please see "How You Will Be Evaluated" section for details on all occupations being considered for this recruitment effort. The SATP Social Worker performs specialized treatment of complex physical or mental illness. The SATP Social Worker will provide psycho-therapeutic services with attention to delivering Evidenced-Based Psychotherapy (EBP) to Veterans diagnosed with Substance Use Disorder, PTSD, and/or other comorbid mental health diagnoses. Services may include conducting assessments, delivering psychotherapy (in individual and/or group formats), provision of consultation to staff regarding substance use disorder issues. Additionally, the incumbent incorporates 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. The SATP Social Worker is able to provide individual, group, and family psychotherapy and advanced level case management interventions used in the treatment of Veterans with polytrauma injuries, spinal cord injuries, traumatic brain injuries, visual impairment, posttraumatic stress disorder, addictions, and other serious disorders. The SATP Social Worker conducts case management for Veterans. The SATP Social Worker develops and implements methods for measuring effectiveness of social work practice and services in specialty areas, utilizing outcome evaluations to improve treatment services. Incumbent demonstrates the ability to design changes based on empirical findings. The SATP Social Worker offers consultation to colleagues and students on the psychosocial treatment of patients treated in specialty areas, rendering professional opinions based on experience and expertise and role modeling effective social work practice skills. The SATP Social Worker demonstrates the ability to teach and mentor staff and students in the special area of practice and to provide supervision for licensure or specialty certifications. The SATP Social Worker will use the social work process (psychosocial assessment, diagnosis, and treatment) to conduct an intake assessment or an update assessment for Veterans; utilizes clinical reminders to evaluate the need for health care, behavioral and mental health services; makes appropriate referrals for health care, individual, group, marital or family treatment services. The SATP Social Worker completes suicide risk evaluations utilizing assigned and shared templates in the Computerized Patient Record System (CPRS) on all patients with suicidal ideation and on any patient whose record is flagged "High Risk for Suicide." The SATP Social Worker additionally conducts a psychosocial evaluation on all new Veterans assigned to their clinic within performance measure standards. The SATP Social Worker coordinates mental health care within their clinic (general mental health, trauma related care teams, primary care mental health team members). Work Schedule: Monday - Friday, 8:00am - 4:30pm Financial Disclosure Report: Not required
Providing Health Care for Veterans: The Veterans Health Administration is America’s largest integrated health care system, providing care at 1,255 health care facilities, including 170 medical centers and 1,074 outpatient sites of care of varying complexity (VHA outpatient clinics), serving 9 million enrolled Veterans each year.
