Social Services Assistant

Social Services Assistant

Department: Department of Veterans Affairs

Location(s): Phoenix, Arizona

Salary Range: $47029 - $61136 Per Year

Job Summary: Social Service Assistant for Health Care for Homeless Veterans within Social Work Service of the Phoenix VA. The goal is to move Veterans and their families out of homelessness by providing health care, outreach and case management services to improve Veteran's physical, mental health and enhance their ability to remain stable with recovery. They will also provide guidance, suggestions and encouragement to empower Veterans and thereby promoting independence.

Major Duties:

• Duties include, but are not limited to : Perform a variety of roles that include welcoming Veterans into the local system, orienting them to the Health Care for Homeless Veterans (HCHV) Program concepts, coordinating and connecting Veterans to resources and programs based on preferences, assisting Veterans in articulating their goals for health and well-being, learning and practicing new self-care skills, helping them monitor their progress, supporting them in advocating for themselves to obtain effective services, and providing tools and resources to assist in navigating the HCHV System. Have knowledge of internal and external resources to support the Veteran journey through the HCHV system and connects Veterans to the best options to support their health and well-being and obtain permanent housing, while establishing an ongoing relationship. Coordinate and perform a wide range of tasks to assist Veterans with social services/resources who are struggling with issues of homelessness and striving for independent community living. Assignments are primarily of an advisory and technical nature and involves screening, triaging, advising, and assisting veterans and their significant others who present to the Carl T. Hayden VA Medical Center Health Care for homeless services. The HCHV Program is based out of the Community Resource and Referral Center (CRRC). Supports the professional staff by serving as the initial contact for veterans and families who are seeking treatment, experiencing problems and requesting housing assistance information. Provide assistance to staff in all Homeless Programs and supports them in completing referrals for Veterans to access housing. Greet veterans requesting assistance; puts them at ease by listening to their requests; determines the nature of Veteran's care needs, questions, or complaints. Answer questions, provides information, gives guidance, and initiates action, as appropriate based on the identified barriers to obtaining and sustaining permanent housing. Provide assistance at the CRRC front desk and operates the program shuttle, as appropriate. Receives phone calls from veterans and family members regarding program availability and eligibility, as well as calls from care providers, and resolves problems. Reviews housing placement progress and provides direct assistance to Veterans regarding housing-related issues. Receive SSI/SSDI Outreach Access and Recovery (SOAR) training and functions as the Homeless Program SOAR point of contact. SOAR is designed to increase access to Supplemental Security Income/Social Security Disability Insurance (SSI/SSDI) benefits for eligible adults who are homeless or at risk of homelessness and have a mental illness, medical impairment, and/or a co-occurring substance use disorder. Assist Veterans to complete SSI/SSDI applications and ensures that the application is accurate and complete. Work independently and in consultation with a social worker to provide social services which support the agreed upon housing and treatment plan. Keep updated progress records; documents interventions and interdisciplinary interactions in the Veteran's electronic medical record. Work Schedule: Monday - Friday, 7:30am - 4:00pm Telework: Not Available Position Description/PD#: Social Services Assistant/PD12729A Relocation/Recruitment Incentives: Not Authorized Critical Skills Incentive (CSI): Not Authorized Permanent Change of Station (PCS): Not Authorized PCS Appraised Value Offer (AVO): Not Authorized

Qualifications: To qualify for this position, applicants must meet all requirements by the closing date of this announcement, 11/26/2025. 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-06 position you must have served 52 weeks at the GS-05. 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. Note: Time-In-Grade requirements also apply to former Federal employees applying for reinstatement as well as current employees applying for Veterans Employment Opportunities Act of 1998 (VEOA) appointment. You may qualify based on your experience as described below: Specialized Experience: You must have one year of specialized experience equivalent to at least the next lower grade GS-05 in the normal line of progression for the occupation in the organization. Examples of specialized experience would typically include, but are not limited to: Group leader in community or residential recreation or training programs. Counselor in a youth summer camp. Instructor in a training program for the development of job skills. Work that demonstrated the ability to be responsible for and to lead and train members of a job crew. Group activities leader in the Armed Services. Unit leader-monitor-proctor for a dormitory group in a boarding school or other residential facility. Aid or assistant to professional or specialist staff in such fields as personnel (private or government), employment guidance in a vocational or academic institution, social service, or manpower development. Aid or assistant to professional or associate staff engaged in work of a social services nature in private, public welfare, government program, or community organizations, or in voluntary activities. Aid or assistant to professional or specialist staff working with individuals who are addicted to or abuse alcohol and/or drugs. You will be rated on the following Competencies for this position: Clerical Customer Service (Clerical/Technical) Patient Care 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. Preferred Experience: Knowledge of pertinent laws, regulations, policies and precedents of all facets of benefits for the homeless Veteran program available through the Medical Center and outside agencies, such as Social Security, HUD, SNAP and various utilities providers. Knowledge to determine the impact on the housing recovery goals and plans and related support resources to assist Veterans in getting additional support or care when required, as well as navigate the personalized health inventory, personalized health planning, in the community to support their personal health plans. Knowledge of VA rules and regulations regarding eligibility, enrollment, income assessment, and insurance for veterans' medical care in order to provide educational guidance to the Veteran. Knowledge of VA inpatient and outpatient programs and operations, admissions, scheduling, sharing agreements, and travel as well as knowledge of laws and regulations relating to the protection of the privacy of medical information. Must be familiar with the mission, organization and programs of the Department of Veterans Affairs, the Phoenix VA Health Care System (PVAHCS), and the Health Care for Homeless Veterans (HCHV) Program, and related community agencies. General knowledge of the problems faced by Veterans who are homeless or are faced with pending homelessness in order to arrange appropriate, situationally based housing and interventions, often on an emergency basis. Skill in the use of computer equipment and program equivalent to Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, etc. as well as VA proprietary programs such as VISTA and CPRS, etc, to input and obtain data, prepare reports, spreadsheets, and correspondence; enter and store workload statistics to accomplish program analysis. Ability to interpret, select and apply verbal and written instructions, guidelines, policy memorandums, etc., as well as the ability to gather, organize and compile factual material. Must be able to compile and summarize information and data, identify inaccuracies or anomalies in the information, and make written recommendations to resolve discrepancies based on interpretation of applicable regulations and procedures. Must have adequate typing skills to facilitate sufficient timely and efficient entry and retrieval of system data and documentation in the medical record. Must have knowledge of medical/psychiatric terminology, grammar, spelling, punctuation, and required formats to prepare correspondence and reports. Must have working knowledge of laws governing release of information activities, Privacy and Freedom of Information Acts, and HIPAA. Possess communication skills, both verbally and in writing, sufficient to converse and correspond with individuals and groups of varying cultural backgrounds, experiences, educational levels, in order to interview ad advocate for homeless Veterans. Ability to independently plan, coordinator, organize, prioritize and implement assigned tasks under strict deadlines and multiple changing priorities. Physical Requirements: This is primarily a sedentary position, but the work requires some walking, bending, stooping, standing, stretching, and the carrying of moderately heavy objects. There will be regular, daily driving between the CRRC, VA Medical Center, CBOC's, and community agencies. Concentration and sustained performance under prolonged stress is required because of the time factors involved in completion of work assignments within deadlines. This position also requires frequent use of the hand-held telephone while accessing different computer systems or while writing. 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/.

How to Apply: All applicants are encouraged to apply online. To apply for this position, you must complete the questionnaire and submit the documentation specified in the Required Documents section below. The complete application package must be submitted by 11:59 PM (ET) on 11/26/2025 to receive consideration. To preview the questionnaire click https://apply.usastaffing.gov/ViewQuestionnaire/12836695. To begin, click Apply Online to create a USA JOBS account or log in to your existing account. Follow the prompts to select your USA JOBS resume and/or other supporting documents and complete the occupational questionnaire. Click Submit My Answers to submit your application package. NOTE: It is your responsibility to ensure your responses and appropriate documentation is submitted prior to the closing date. Beginning September 27, 2025, Federal agencies will only accept resumes up to two pages in length to comply with the Merit Hiring Plan. Resumes longer than two pages will result in ineligibility for further consideration for the position. USAJOBS will not allow you to upload or build resumes longer than two pages, and you will need to update the resumes in your profile before applying for a job. Resumes should include information relevant to the knowledge, skills, abilities, and competencies of the position to which you are applying. VA is unable to make assumptions about qualifications if not clearly listed. Resumes must be legible so they can be reviewed for eligibility, minimum qualifications and other position requirements listed in the job announcement. If initial application submission is updated and resubmitted with a new resume, only the most current resume will be reviewed for consideration. Your resume must be 5MB or less. We recommend saving and uploading your resume as a PDF to maintain formatting and number of pages. We also accept GIF, JPG, JPEG, PNG, RTF, TXT, PDF, ODT or Word (DOC or DOCX). We do not accept PDF portfolio files. We recommend using a sans-serif font size like Lato, if available. Other widely available options are Calibri, Helvetica, Arial, Verdana, Open San Source Sans Pro, Roboto or Noro Sans. Make your page margins 0.5 inches. Consider using 14-point size font for titles and 10-point for the main text in your resume. The resume builder can help you create a resume using these recommendations and uses the information in your USAJOBS profile to help you get started. Helpful Hints for Creating a Two-Page Resume: Prioritize most relevant and recent experience Use concise, results focused language Align language from the job announcement Focus on demonstrating skills and competencies Remove outdated or unrelated experience Use the USAJOBS resume builder Additional guidance on this new requirement and resume building tools can be found at: https://help.usajobs.gov/faq/application/documents/resume/page-limit https://www.opm.gov/policy-data-oversight/hiring-information/merit-hiring-plan-resources/applicant-guidance-on-the-two-page-resume-limit/ The Interagency Career Transition Assistance Plan (ICTAP) and Career Transition Assistance Plan (CTAP) provide eligible displaced Federal/VA competitive service employees with selection priority over other candidates for competitive service vacancies. To be qualified you must submit appropriate documentation (a copy of the agency notice, your most recent performance rating, and your most recent SF-50 noting current position, grade level, and duty location) and be found well-qualified for this vacancy. To be well-qualified: applicants must possess experience that exceeds the minimum qualifications of the position including all selective factors, and who are proficient in most of the required competencies of the job. Information about ICTAP and CTAP eligibility is on OPM's Career Transition Resources website at http://www.opm.gov/policy-data-oversight/workforce-restructuring/employee-guide-to-career-transition/. During the application process you may have an option to opt-in to make your resume available to hiring managers in the agency who have similar positions. Opting in does not impact your application for this announcement, nor does it guarantee further consideration for additional positions.

Application Deadline: 2025-11-26