Senior Licensed Professional Mental Health Counselor

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.
• Education Hold 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. Additional information may be obtained from http://www.cacrep.org/directory/. NOTE: Traditional Rehabilitation counseling programs do not meet the LPMHC qualification standards as Traditional Rehabilitation counseling differs from Clinical Rehabilitation counseling.
• Licensure: Persons hired or reassigned to LPMHC positions in the GS-0101 series in VHA must hold a full, current, and unrestricted license to independently practice as a Licensed Professional Mental Health Counselor, which includes diagnosis and treatment.
• English Language Proficiency: LPMHCs must be proficient in spoken and written English in accordance with VA Handbook 5005, Part II, chapter 3, section A, paragraph 3j

Grade Determinations:

Senior Licensed Professional Mental Health Counselor, GS-12

Experience, Education, and Licensure. In addition to the basic requirements, candidates must have at least one year of progressively complex LPMHC experience equivalent to the GS-11 grade level. Senior LPMHCs must have five years of post-licensed experience that demonstrates possession of advanced practice skills and judgment, demonstrating progressive professional competency and expertise and be licensed to provide clinical supervision to trainees or unlicensed LPMHCs.

Demonstrated Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities. In addition to meeting the KSAs for the GS-11 grade level, the candidate must demonstrate all of the KSAs below:

1. Advanced knowledge of and mastery of theories and modalities used in the specialized treatment of complex mental illness. Ability to incorporate 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. Ability to determine priority of services needed and provide specialized treatment.
2. Advanced and expert skill in a range of specialized interventions and treatment modalities for Veterans with complex needs. This includes individual, group, and/or family counseling, or psychotherapy and advanced level psychosocial, and/or case management interventions used in the treatment of Veterans.
3. Ability to coordinate the delivery of specialized psychosocial services and programs. Ability to design system changes based on data.
4. Ability to provide subject matter consultation to colleagues and trainees on the psychosocial treatment of patients, rendering professional opinions based on experience, expertise and role modeling effective clinical skills.
5. Ability to teach, mentor staff and trainees, and provide supervision for licensure or for specialty certifications.
6. Ability to engage in written and oral communication with leadership/staff and community stakeholders regarding policies, procedures, practice guidelines, and issues pertaining to the practice of the profession.

References: VA Handbook 4004 Part II Appendix G43

Physical Requirements: The work is primarily sedentary, although the stress involved in dealing continually with persons in emotional distress and who may be uncooperative makes this work notably more demanding than most sedentary jobs.