Licensed Professional Mental Health Counselor

Incumbent provides comprehensive services through a broad range of interventions in a mental health setting and can make complex and independent clinical judgement. Diagnose mental disorders, conduct psychosocial assessments, treat mental disorders through a variety of modalities and provide adjunctive interventions for treatment of medical disorders. The modalities provided are individual, family, and group psychotherapies, psychoeducation classes, crisis interventions and case management.

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.
• English Language Proficiency: Candidates must be proficient in spoken and written English to be appointed as authorized by 38 U.S.C. 7403(f).
• Education Requirement : You must have a master's or doctoral degree in: Clinical Mental Health Counseling; Clinical Rehabilitation Counseling; Clinical Mental Health Counseling and Clinical Rehabilitation Counseling; or a related field, from a program accredited by the Council on Accreditation of Counseling and Related Educational Programs (CACREP). Examples of related mental health counseling fields include, but are not limited to Addiction Counseling; Community Counseling; Gerontology Counseling; Marital, Couple, and Family Counseling. CACREP defines the date when graduates are considered to have graduated from a CACREP accredited program. Additional information may be obtained from http://www.cacrep.org/directory/.

NOTE: Traditional Rehabilitation counseling programs that are accredited by CACREP do not meet the LPMHC qualification standards as Traditional Rehabilitation counseling differs from Clinical Rehabilitation counseling.

• Licensure: Candidates must hold a full, current, and unrestricted license to independently practice as a Licensed Professional Mental Health Counselor, which includes diagnosis and treatment. NOTE: It is VHA policy that a LPMHC who does not yet have a license that allows independent practice must be supervised by a licensed independent practitioner of the same discipline who is a VA staff member and who has access to the electronic health record.

Loss of Licensure: Once licensed, LPMHCs must maintain a full, valid, and unrestricted license to independently practice mental health counseling, which includes diagnosis and treatment. Loss of licensure will result in removal from the GS- 0101 LPMHC occupation and may result in termination of employment.

Experience - In addition to the basic requirements candidates must have at least one year of progressively complex experience equivalent to the GS-11 grade level. Experience must demonstrate possession of advanced practice skills, judgment, and competency.

Assignments: At this level, LPMHCs administratively supervise their licensed staff and/or graduates and are considered LPMHC subject matter experts and may serve as the discipline lead. LPMHCs may provide treatment to patients. They direct the development and implementation of services and treatment to patients through the administrative supervision, mentoring, and oversight of assigned clinical staff. Their experience must demonstrate practice skills in a specialty area or in administration demonstrating progressively more professional competency and judgment.

In addition to meeting the KSAs for the GS-12 grade level, the candidate must demonstrate all of the KSAs below:
1. Advanced knowledge and mastery of and experience with the disease processes, courses of treatment, medications, and risk factors associated with psychiatric disorders in general, and Serious Mental Illness (SMI) in particular.
2. Ability to determine priority for services and provide specialized treatment services, including coordinating and collaborating with other teams within and outside of the organization for optimal patient benefit.
3. Advanced knowledge of the co-morbidities associated with mental health conditions, in terms of characteristics of those co-occurring conditions, their impact upon patient and family, and their treatment (within scope of practice), with special cognizance of psychiatric disorders.
4. Demonstrated advanced knowledge of and skill in the application of specialized assessment and treatment services to Veterans with SMI and co-occurring conditions.
5. Mastery of and sound judgment and flexibility in the use of a wide range of mental health treatment skills, including the more difficult therapeutic techniques and evidenced-based interventions for Veterans with SMI and co-occurring conditions.
6. Experience in making objective and accurate psychosocial assessments, formulating sound and workable treatment plans, and making appropriate clinical interventions for Veterans with SMI and co-occurring conditions.

Reference: VA Regulations, specifically VA Handbook 5005/106, Part II, Appendix G43 Licensed Professional Mental Health Counselor Standard. This can be found in the local Human Resources Office

Physical Requirements: See VA Directive and Handbook 5019.

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

Responsibilities:

• Provides a full range of psychosocial assessment services and psychiatric diagnoses of mental disorders, particularly for complex or unusually difficult patients in a variety of treatment settings, including tele-mental health.
• Receives and responds to crisis calls and address all urgent mental health needs presented and interventions implemented.
• Completes Suicide Risk Assessments and Suicide Safety Plans for all veterans identified as needing mental health and urgent care services.
• Provides comprehensive, evidence-based psychotherapeutic interventions, including individual, family and group psychotherapy and psychoeducation.
• Provides consultation to professional staff within Robley Rex VA Medical Center and to community providers, concerning clinical assessment findings and appropriate treatment plans for patients.
• Develops, implements, and documents the psychotherapeutic treatment plan for an assigned caseload of patients, including prompt completion of clinical reminders.
• Functions independently and assumes complete professional responsibility for his/her clinical assessment findings, patient care decisions, and documentation.
• Interviews veterans and their family members/significant others to establish facts about the veteran's situation, presenting problems and their causes, and the impact of such problems on the veteran's functioning and health as part of a comprehensive psychosocial assessment. Interprets and explains VA's treatment and benefit programs.
• Reviews all data, subjective and objective, and makes a clinical assessment, identifying needs and strengths.
• Effectively uses professional skill, objectivity, and insight. Uses advanced clinical training, insight, and experience to interpret data and to identify viable treatment options.
• Assess high risk factors, acuity and need for services.
• Independently evaluates the client's situation, including the veteran's reaction to it and ability to deal with it, and arrives at a reasoned conclusion.
• Assess at-risk factors and develops a preliminary disposition plan, involving the veteran, and family or significant others.
• Identify a suitable means of treatment to help veterans and/or significant others cope with stressful situations.
• Independently documents in the computerized medical record.

Salary : $82,830 - $107,680