Description

Senior Social Worker - BSW

Fulltime Day Monday-Friday with evening rotation and weekend call

Purpose:
Provides age sensitive professional medical social work services including psychosocial assessment, information and referral, advocacy and counseling related to patient's illness including bereavement and end of life counseling to patients and families. Provides expertise to the agency in specialty areas. Works independently with minimal supervision.

Responsibilities:

• Demonstrate the ability to identify, assess, counsel and effectively intervene with medically and psychosocially complex patients with the ability to understand complex dynamics related to the clinical situation.
• Takes a leadership role in teaching, training or providing in-service education to both social work and non-social work staff within the organization as well as externally to other organizations or groups.
• Provides accurate, timely and appropriate documentation of all social work interventions in the medical record per regulatory policies and procedures.
• Complete a psychosocial assessment that includes social, economic, cultural, age-related and behavioral factors, history of child, elder or domestic abuse, prior psychiatric or substance abuse treatment, family and social support systems and all other available resources as appropriate to the clinical situation.
• Educate and advocate for patients and families to enhance their ability to make informed decisions regarding medical care, discharge planning, advance directives and end of life care including actively participating in the guardianship process when appropriate.
• Develops population-specific clinical expertise in area of practice.
• Continue to monitor and evaluate the plan of care, options and available services throughout the healthcare setting to effectively meet the patient and family's need. Reassess the plan of care as status changes or at a minimum of every 3 days.
• Demonstrate knowledge of reimbursement systems, the ability to educate patients and families regarding payer requirements / coverage for post-acute care services and the ability to effectively advocate on behalf of the patient to obtain authorizations for continued care as appropriate.
• Provides a high level of clinical expertise, critical thinking and problem solving skills to situations in order to achieve desired outcomes.
• Provides clinical supervision to social work colleagues looking to obtain a clinical social work license.
• Collaborate effectively with the healthcare team, patients and families and relevant community resources to develop and implement and individualized plan of care.
• Represents the discipline of social work on hospital, community or other committees of interest.
• Demonstrates expertise in accessing social systems by providing resource-specific information to patients and families, initiating contact with appropriate resources and facilitating the patient / family's ability to accept referrals.
• Successfully utilize therapeutic counseling methods such as crisis intervention, psychosocial support, brief goal-directed therapy, CISM and/or other appropriate therapeutic methods that may be appropriate to the clinical situation.
• Maintain extensive knowledge of federal, state and local assistance programs and community resources that affect patient needs.
• Acts as a mentor to social work students and/or serves as a field instructor to BSW students.
• Demonstrate appropriate professional practice, maintaining respect for confidentiality and freedom of choice as outlined by the Code of Ethics by the National Association of Social Workers as well as the State Board of Social Workers, Marriage and Family Therapists and Professional Counselors.
• Prior performance appraisal at the Solid, Strong, Good Performer level.

Qualifications

Bachelor's degree from school of social work accredited by the Council on Social Work Education 

Required Three (3) years in social work experience in hospital, outpatient clinic, medical rehabilitation center or mental health program required

Licensure, Certifications, and Clearances:

• Act 34


• UPMC is an Equal Opportunity Employer/Disability/Veteran

Individuals hired into this role must comply with UPMC’s COVID vaccination requirements upon beginning employment with UPMC. Refer to the COVID-19 Vaccination Information section at the top of this page to learn more.  

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