Social Worker - LCSW - TMC Oncology

SUMMARY:

Interviews patients and relatives to obtain social history relevant to patient's medical problems and assess bereavement risk relative to anticipatory grief and family members needs post death. 

Assists patients with environmental difficulties that interfere with obtaining maximum benefits from medical care.  Serves as liaison between medical and nursing staffs, patients, relatives, and appropriate outside agencies.  Interprets and assists in resolving social problems that relate to medical condition and/or hospitalization.

ESSENTIAL FUNCTIONS:

Conduct initial and ongoing psychosocial assessments of identified patients and families to obtain information about home environment, family relationships, and health history to ensure coordinated psycho social support with other disciplines and community resources.

Plans, organizes, directs and schedules spiritual programs and services that meet the needs of patients/families, hospital employees, and medical staff.

Assesses bereavement needs of survivors and communicates these to bereavement coordinator.

Consults with hospital staff regarding hospital ministry; collaborates with members of the hospital care team in identifying and resolving problems. 

Provide emotional support to patients and families that may exhibit feelings of anxiety and stress brought on by their illness, hospitalization, or impending death.

Acts as a liaison between patient, family, and hospital staff during periods of crisis, e.g. illness, dying, lengthy or difficult surgery.

Develops and implements the patient’s initial and continuing care plan.

Interprets nature of illness and prescribed course of treatment to patients and families; communicates family issues to other staff members; participates in planning conferences.

Plans for needed care with nurse practitioner, physician, patient, and family. 

Introduces programs designed to meet the needs of the elderly after discharge and make appropriate referrals and arrangements for services.

Acts as liaison between medical/nursing staff, patients, families, and community, arranging for post-discharge care and patient’s transportation.

Maintains current, accurate documentation in the client’s medical record

Adheres to TMC organizational and department-specific safety, confidentiality, values, policies and standards.

Performs related duties as assigned.

Bereavement Program:

Assists in developing and implementing the patient’s/family member care plan. Provides individual and group counseling, follows up on critical incident briefings to doctors, ER and support staff.   Provides home counseling if needed, follow up telephone calls and referrals if needed.  Develops education component for volunteer training and annual hospice foundation teleconference, prepares and implements all logistics for program needs.  Master’s Degree in Counseling, Social Work, Social Services or related field and experience in individual and group counseling.

Medical Neighborhood / TC3:

Works with clients and multidisciplinary team to identify discrepancies and barriers to health, wellness and independence towards health equity.  Assesses and utilizes credible tool to evaluate social determinates of health and develop individualized plan of care for client/family to overcome identified barriers.  Prepares needs assessment and engages team to collaborate services and community resources. Measures identified barriers, records data and coordinates all efforts to improve health and wellbeing.  Improves understanding of access points for medical care resulting in decreased use of emergency resources, decreased hospital admission, re-admission and unnecessary expenditures.  Provides education regarding health promotion and disease prevention or exacerbation.  Acts as navigator and entry point for marginalized community members to essential life enhancing resources.  Works with clients experiencing behavioral health and or substance use/abuse, acting as liaison into BH/SU/SA treatment.  Behavioral health, substance abuse/treatment care setting strongly preferred.

Hospice Social Worker:

The role of the hospice social worker is to advocate for the patient’s end-of-life wishes and help patients and families address the emotional aspects of late-stage illness. Complete a psychosocial assessment to determine the best care to provide in order to increase the quality of life and foster a positive environment. Represent and advocate for the patient and family throughout the dying process. Assist families in identifying other available community services and resources for additional support. Master’s Degree in Social Work and licensure as LCSW by AZ Board of Behavioral Health Examiners required.

MINIMUM QUALIFICATIONS

EDUCATION:  Master’s degree in Social Work from an accredited college or university. Active

license as LCSW through the Arizona Board of Behavioral Health Examiners.

EXPERIENCE:  Two (2) years of post-master’s social work experience in an acute care setting preferred.

LICENSURE OR CERTIFICATION: HeartSaver First Aid/CPR or Basic Life Support (BLS) certification required per department. Valid AZ fingerprint clearance card may be required per department.  Licensed Clinical Social Worker (LCSW) through Arizona Board of Behavioral Health Examiners.

KNOWLEDGE, SKILLS AND ABILITIES: 

• Knowledge of  and skill in interviewing techniques used to garner personal and health information that will assist in developing care plan for the patient.
• Knowledge of human behavior and the social environment
• Knowledge of family dynamics, and skill in managing stressful situations.
• Knowledge of the grief process.
• Knowledge of and skill in various counseling techniques and modalities.
• Skill in assessing socio-economic factors that might hinder a patient from getting care.
• Ability to work respectfully with people of different backgrounds and values.
• Ability to read and comprehend instructions, correspondence, and memos. 
• Excellent oral and written communication skills. 
• Ability to effectively present information in one-on-one and small group situations to customers, clients, and other employees of the organization.
• Ability to add, subtract, multiply, and divide using whole numbers, common fractions, and decimals.
• Ability to define problems, collect data, establish facts, and draw valid conclusions.
• Ability to interpret an extensive variety of technical instructions in mathematical or diagram form and deal with several abstract and concrete variables.