Social Services Assistant

Description:

This position is located within the Department of Veterans Affairs (YA), Veterans Health Administration (VHA), VA Mid-Atlantic Health Care Network (VISN 6), Hampton Veterans Affairs Medical Center (HVAMC), under the Social Work Service Line. This position is aligned with the Mental Health Residential Rehabilitation Treatment Program.

Requirements:

To qualify for this position, applicants must meet all requirements by the closing date of this announcement, 06/30/2024.

Time-In-Grade Requirement: Applicants who are current Federal employees and have held a GS grade any time in the past 52 weeks must also meet time-in-grade requirements by the closing date of this announcement. For a GS-05 position you must have served 52 weeks at the GS-06. The grade may have been in any occupation, but must have been held in the Federal service. An SF-50 that shows your time-in-grade eligibility must be submitted with your application materials. If the most recent SF-50 has an effective date within the past year, it may not clearly demonstrate you possess one-year time-in-grade, as required by the announcement. In this instance, you must provide an additional SF-50 that clearly demonstrates one-year time-in-grade.

You may qualify based on your experience and/or education as described below: Specialized Experience: You must have one year of specialized experience equivalent to at least the next lower grade GS-05 serving as a Social services assistant performing social service functions, performs administrative duties and provides practical guidance support to patients with complex medical, psychiatric, alcohol and drug abuse and homelessness problems covering a wide range in ages and levels of function. Incumbent is required to exercise considerable discretion in applying necessary guidelines to enable them to resolve problem situations, and crisis events, enforcing social work program regulations. You will be rated on the following Competencies for this position:


Experience refers to paid and unpaid experience, including volunteer work done through National Service programs (e.g., Peace Corps, AmeriCorps) and other organizations (e.g., professional; philanthropic; religions; spiritual; community; student; social). Volunteer work helps build critical competencies, knowledge, and skills and can provide valuable training and experience that translates directly to paid employment. You will receive credit for all qualifying experience, including volunteer experience.

Note: A full year of work is considered to be 35-40 hours of work per week. Part-time experience will be credited on the basis of time actually spent in appropriate activities. Applicants wishing to receive credit for such experience must indicate clearly the nature of their duties and responsibilities in each position and the number of hours a week spent in such employment.

Physical Requirements: Work is generally sedentary and requires sitting, walking, standing, bending, and/or carrying light items.

For more information on these qualification standards, please visit the United States Office of Personnel Management's website at https://www.opm.gov/policy-data-oversight/classification-qualifications/general-schedule-qualification-standards/.