Summary

The incumbent serves as Program Manager for Primary Care Mental Health Integration (PCMHI) and as Primary Care Supervisory Psychologist at the Washington DC VA Medical Center (DC VAMC). They serve as External Program Facilitator for the VHA Office of Mental Health Operations (OMHO) reporting directly to that office leadership, and the DC VAMC Point of Contact for PCMHI reporting directly to the VISN 5 Mental Health Lead.

Duties

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Duties include, but are not limited to:

• Functions as a member of the mental health leadership team collaborating with multiple service lines, disciplines, and frontline clinicians, exercising wide latitude and independent judgement for resource allocation, program design, and quality control.
• Maintains oversight and responsibility for the professional practice of all staff serving within the PCMHI section, including services conducted by trainees, consultants, and paraprofessional staff.
• Development and implementation of policies and procedures to ensure goal attainment, patient tracking, safety assessment, and data storage/security, and use of data for research.
• Manages patient complaints and compliments. Keeps staff, Medicine Service and MHSL leadership informed.
• Direct administrative and professional supervision of all Psychologists within the Primary Care Mental Health Integration Program.
• Direct administrative supervision of subordinate PCMHI social workers, psychiatrists registered nurses and other designated staff.
• Resolves staff conflicts and internal/external customer complaints at the lowest possible levels.
• Consults with and serves as a resource for other professional staff concerning the need for provision and development of integrated services.
• Makes decisions exercising wide latitude and independent judgment regarding resource allocation, program design, and quality control.
• Leads coordination with Primary Care and Nursing leadership to provide specific training, guidance, and mentoring of Primary Care Nurses and others to facilitate effective coaching (i.e., healthy lifestyle coaching to support patient self-management).
• Oversees the PACT Interprofessional Training Program (Psychology, Social Work, Psychiatry) including coordinating selection, supervision of trainees, training assignments, didactics and trainee performance evaluation.
• Develops and/or makes available relevant education and training programs for all Primary Care and other Service Line providers to ensure that culturally competent care is provided.
• Provides a full range of psycho-diagnostic services including psychological assessment.
• Consult with and serve as a resource for behavioral health programs throughout the hospital.
• Performs or supervises other clinical staff or trainees in psychology assessment/interventions, integrated care assessment/interventions or other interventions consistent with assignment.
• Serves on VHA, VISN and Medical Center committees and workgroups as applicable.
• Participates in conferences/meetings with higher-ranking managers, supervisors, and staff from other disciplines or work units, and/or, as needed, with representatives of local public interest groups, congressional district offices, and employees of State and local governments.
• With appropriate institutional review, may advise, consult, plan, conduct, or oversee completion of research, quality improvement efforts, or other endeavors designed to provide information regarding outcomes, strategic planning, resource allocation, treatment approaches, and/or population care needs.
• Present outcome data/research results at local VA and national scientific meetings.

Total Rewards of a Allied Health Professional

Work Schedule: Monday - Friday, 8:00am - 4:30pm

Recruitment/Relocation Incentives (Sign-on Bonus): Not Authorized.

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

Pay: Competitive salary and regular salary increases. When setting pay, a higher step rate of the appropriate grade may be determined after consideration of higher or unique qualifications or special needs of the VA (Above Minimum Rate of the Grade).

Paid Time Off: 37-50 days of annual paid time offer per year (13-26 days of annual leave, 13 days of sick leave, 11 paid Federal holidays per year)

Selected applicants may qualify for credit toward annual leave accrual, based on prior [work experience] or military service experience.

Parental Leave: After 12 months of employment, up to 12 weeks of paid parental leave in connection with the birth, adoption, or foster care placement of a child.

Child Care Subsidy: After 60 days of employment, full time employees with a total family income below $144,000 may be eligible for a childcare subsidy up to 25% of total eligible childcare costs for eligible children up to the monthly maximum of $416.66.

Retirement: Traditional federal pension (5 years vesting) and federal 401K with up to 5% in contributions by VA

Insurance: Federal health/vision/dental/term life/long-term care (many federal insurance programs can be carried into retirement)

Telework: Available. Ad-Hoc as determined by the agency policy.

Virtual: This is not a virtual position.

Functional Statement #: 000000

Requirements

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Conditions of employment

• You must be a U.S. Citizen to apply for this job.
• All applicants tentatively selected for VA employment in a testing designated position are subject to urinalysis to screen for illegal drug use prior to appointment. Applicants who refuse to be tested will be denied employment with VA.
• 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 (https://www.uscis.gov/i-9-central/form-i-9-acceptable-documents). 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:

• Citizenship. Be a citizen of the United States. (Non-citizens may be appointed when it is not possible to recruit qualified citizens in accordance with chapter 3, section A, paragraph 3.g, this part
• Education. You must have a doctoral degree in psychology from a graduate program in psychology accredited by the American Psychological Association (APA), the Psychological Clinical Science Accreditation System (PCSAS), or the Canadian Psychological Association (CPA) at the time the program was completed. The specialty area of the degree must be consistent with the assignment for which the applicant is to be employed. OR Have a doctoral degree in any area of psychology and, in addition, successfully complete a re- specialization program (including documentation of an approved internship completed as part of the re- specialization program) meeting both of the following conditions: 1.) The re-specialization program must be completed in an APA or a CPA accredited doctoral program; and 2.) the specialty in which the applicant is retrained must be consistent with the assignment for which the applicant is to be employed. NOTE: The applicant must provide an official transcript and/or certificate documenting the completion of the re-specialization program, which includes completion of an APA or CPA internship. Psychologists who have successfully completed a re-specialization program as described above and who were employed by the Department of Veterans Affairs prior to the implementation of this standard are considered to have fully met the educational requirements of these qualification standards. OR Have a doctoral degree awarded between 1951 and 1978 from a regionally-accredited institution, with a dissertation primarily psychological in nature. AND
• Internship. Have successfully completed a professional psychology internship training program that was accredited by APA or CPA at the time the program was completed and that is consistent with the assignment for which the applicant is to be employed. OR New VHA psychology internship programs that are in the process of applying for APA accreditation are acceptable in fulfillment of the internship requirement, provided that such programs were sanctioned by the VHA Central Office Program Director for Psychology and the VHA Office of Academic Affiliations at the time that the individual was an intern; OR VHA facilities that offered full-time, one-year pre-doctoral internships prior to PL 96-151 (pre- 1979) are considered to be acceptable in fulfillment of the internship requirement; OR Applicants who completed an internship that was not accredited by APA or CPA at the time the program was completed may be considered eligible for hire only if they are currently board certified by the American Board of Professional Psychology in a specialty area that is consistent with the assignment for which the applicant is to be employed. (NOTE: Once board certified, the employee is required to maintain board certification.) OR Applicants who have a doctoral degree awarded between 1951 and 1978 from a regionally- accredited institution with a dissertation primarily psychological in nature may fulfill this internship requirement by having the equivalent of a one-year supervised internship experience in a site specifically acceptable to the candidate's doctoral program. If the internship experience is not noted on the applicant's official transcript, the applicant must provide a statement from the doctoral program verifying that the equivalent of a one year supervised internship experience was completed in a site acceptable to the doctoral program.

NOTE: Psychologists who meet the requirements of this revision and who were employed by the Department of Veterans Affairs prior to the implementation of this standard are considered to have fully met the requirements of this qualification standard.

• Licensure. Candidates must hold a full, current, and unrestricted license to practice psychology at the doctoral level in a State, Territory or Commonwealth of the United States, or the District of Columbia.
• Board Certification and Loss of Credential.
  
  • Board Certification. Persons hired to psychology positions in the VHA who completed an internship that was not accredited at the time the program was completed must be board certified by the American Board of Professional Psychology in a specialty area that is consistent with the assignment for which the applicant is to be employed. The board certificate must be current and the applicant must abide by the certifying body's requirement for continuing education.
• English Language Proficiency. Must be proficient in spoken and written English in accordance with VA Handbook 5005, Part II, Chapter 3, section A, paragraph 3j.

May qualify based on being covered by the Grandfathering Provision as described in the VA Qualification Standard for this occupation (only applicable to current VHA employees who are in this occupation and meet the criteria).

Grade Determinations:

Psychology Program Manager, GS-14. In addition to the basic requirements for employment, the following criteria must be met when determining the grade of candidates:

Experience. At least three years of experience as a professional psychologist, with at least one year equivalent to the GS-13 grade level*.

*Examples of GS-13 experience: Licensed to practice independently in the provision of psychological services, consulting with peers and supervisors as appropriate. They may be assigned to any VHA program and setting, such as inpatient or outpatient medicine, primary care, surgery, mental health, neurology, rehabilitation medicine, geriatrics, Compensation and Pension, Vet Centers, and the VHA National Center for Organization Development. Psychologists diagnose mental disorders, conduct psychological or neuropsychological assessments, treat mental disorders through a variety of modalities, and provide adjunctive interventions for treatment of medical disorders. Among the modalities provided are individual, family, and group psychotherapies and other interventions such as behavioral health and community interventions. Psychologists consult with medical center staff on a wide variety of patient care issues. Staff psychologists may be involved in program evaluation, teaching, training, and research activities.)

Knowledge, Skills and Abilities (KSAs). In addition to meeting the experience requirements for this grade level, the c