Veterans Outreach Program Specialist

Veterans Outreach Program Specialist

Department: Department of Veterans Affairs

Location(s): Cincinnati, Ohio

Salary Range: $52039 - $82748 Per Year

Job Summary: The Veterans Outreach Program Specialist Position is located at the Cincinnati, OH VAMC in the Social Work Service. *Please note the position will be filled at the GS-7 level with promotion potential to the GS-9 level*

Major Duties:

• The Cincinnati VA Medical Center (CVAMC) is a two-division campus located in Cincinnati, OH and Fort Thomas, KY serving 15 counties in Southwest OH, Northern Kentucky, and Southeast Indiana with 6 Community Based Outpatient Clinics located in Bellevue, KY; Florence, KY; Lawrenceburg, IN; Hamilton, OH; Clermont County, OH, and Georgetown, OH. The CVAMC also supports two off main campus locations in the Cincinnati area via an Eye Center and Mental Health Outreach Community Division. Duties: Advises Veterans and their next-of kin (NOK) of burial benefits. Helps Veterans and NOK prearrange burial, interment, cremation, as desired by Veteran. Advises surviving relatives about burial benefits and other potential benefits provided by VA. Reviews eligibility and entitlement of burial and death allowances and advises on the process for applying for those benefits. Refers surviving relatives with specific benefit inquiries to a VBA point of contact, not the toll-free telephone number. Incumbent assists and makes recommendations for local program policies and procedures to ensure that quality provisions are planned, developed, and implemented to identify, prevent, and correct unsatisfactory conditions and elements which influence the correctness and responsiveness of transactions and services. Provides guidance on local policy guidelines, support materials, and information to facilitate participation with program initiatives. Incumbent maintains an updated supply of all necessary forms, to include blank death certificates, for the functioning of decedent affairs program. Incumbent maintains an Active Death File on all Veterans who die at the VA Medical Center. Incumbent verifies system information such as, date and time of death, the pronouncing medical provider or the person responsible for the death certificate. Completes active death file (autopsy request and approval paperwork is included as necessary), and stores information for record keeping and management. Informs Veteran, caregiver, and NOK of available supportive services within the medical facility, such as Chaplaincy and Social Work, to provide support at end of life and immediately following death. Reviews daily death notifications. Submits completed death certificates to designated Funeral Home and County Registrar's Office. In situations where the deceased Veteran does not have identified family, the position serves as a de facto family member, in coordinating a dignified burial to honor the service of the Veteran, including, but not limited to VA payment and viewing of the body and/or remains. The position collaborates with Fiscal office to financially support SAMS operations. Assesses past budget requirements, projects future budget needs, submits budget requests and manages program budget. Manages and analyzes several databases for programmatic and administrative purposes. Analyzes local, regional, and national databases to provide information and statistics to support the administration of the Veterans Outreach Decedent Affairs Program. Utilizes software to gather specific data related to projects. Data management will be related to compliance with performance measures, clinical services and outcomes, and operational efficiency. Promotion Potential: The selectee may be promoted to the full performance level without further competition when all regulatory, qualification, and performance requirements are met. Selection at a lower grade level does not guarantee promotion to the full performance level. Work Schedule: Monday - Friday, 8:00am - 4:30pm Virtual: This is not a virtual position. Position Description/PD#: Veterans Outreach Program Specialist/PD91675S

Qualifications: To qualify for this position, applicants must meet all requirements by the closing date of this announcement, 12/11/2025. 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-7 position you must have served 52 weeks at the GS-5. 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. GS-07 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: Basic knowledge of the SAMS program principles, concepts, policies, and objectives, ability to respond to inquiries, prepare reports, and communicate effectively; knowledge of standard operating procedures to assist in evaluating program efficiency; skilled in operating standard office equipment and programs; ability to gather, analyze, and input data into various systems. OR, Education: Applicants may substitute education for the required experience. To qualify based on education for this grade level you must have one (1) full year of graduate level education in an accredited college or university. Such education must demonstrate the knowledge, skills and abilities necessary to do the work of the Program Specialist. NOTE: A transcript or course listing must be submitted if you are basing all or part of your qualifications on education. Unofficial transcripts required. Applications submitted without this information will not be considered. OR, Superior Academic Achievement. OR, Combination: Applicants may also combine education and experience to qualify at this level. You must have an combination of specialized experience and successfully completed post-high school education to meet total qualification requirements for the grade level GS-07. WHEN DESCRIBING YOUR EXPERIENCE, PLEASE BE CLEAR AND SPECIFIC. WE WILL NOT MAKE ASSUMPTIONS REGARDING YOUR EXPERIENCE. Verbiage displayed on your resume or application must contain your own words. You may refer to the specialized experience located within the vacancy announcement, to assist with describing work experiences; however, resumes or applications received that copied verbatim from the announcement will be evaluated and may be reviewed as falsifying your experience or application. 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: The work is primarily sedentary, although some slight physical effort may be required. Routinely views the body and/or remains of deceased Veterans at funeral homes using an authorized vehicle. 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 12/11/2025 to receive consideration. To preview the questionnaire click https://apply.usastaffing.gov/ViewQuestionnaire/12846903. 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/ 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: 2025-12-11