Role Description

This position is located in the Veteran's Health Administration, Office of Mental Health and Suicide Prevention (OMHSP), Veteran's Crisis Line's (VCL), Clinical Operations. This position oversees a staff of subordinate Social Science Program Specialists who ensure delivery of evidence-based practices in suicide prevention and crisis intervention at the national and international level for Veterans.

• Supervises a team of Social Science Program Specialists.
• Meets regularly with direct reports and program staff to understand and meet changing customer requirements and to establish priorities.
• Exercises the full range of supervisory responsibilities including:
  • Planning and assigning work
  • Approving training requests
  • Setting priorities and deadlines
  • Evaluating progress and outcomes
  • Developing performance standards
  • Evaluating work performance of employees
• Provides advice and instructions on technical and administrative issues, making or approving selections and other personnel actions, hearing and resolving formal and informal complaints and grievances.
• Assesses the daily schedule of staff (inbound call center, text/chat, and email) and identifies any potential gaps or overstaffing.
• Ensures regulatory compliance and service level agreements are met and/or exceeded.
• Handles unique staff/case issues that may arise in a crisis call center environment and initiates and carries out contingency and emergency procedures as needed.
• Collaborates with other program areas such as timekeeping, workforce management, analytics, knowledge management, quality management as needed and as assigned.

Qualifications

• To qualify for this position, applicants must meet all requirements by the closing date of this announcement, 03/24/2026.
• 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.
• Selective Placement Factor: Advanced mastery of crisis risk assessment skills to ensure the provision of emergency crisis interventions to a complex and high-risk population.
• Individual Occupational Requirement: Must possess one of the following:
  • Degree in behavioral or social science; or related disciplines appropriate to the position. (TRANSCRIPTS ARE REQUIRED)
  • Combination of education and experience that provided knowledge of one or more of the behavioral or social sciences equivalent to a major in the field. (TRANSCRIPTS ARE REQUIRED)
  • Four years of appropriate experience that demonstrated knowledge of one or more of the behavioral or social sciences equivalent to a major in the field.

Requirements

• GS-12 Specialized Experience: One year of specialized experience equivalent to at least the next lower grade GS-11 in the normal line of progression for the occupation in the organization. Must meet 5/7 of the following examples of specialized experience:
  • Planned and assigned work, approved training requests, set priorities and deadlines, evaluated progress and outcomes, developed performance standards and evaluated work performance of employees.
  • Provided advice and instructions on technical and administrative issues, made or approved selections and other personnel actions, heard and resolved formal and informal complaints and grievances.
  • Assessed the daily schedule of staff and identified any potential gaps or overstaffing.
  • Ensured regulatory compliance and service level agreements are met and/or exceeded.
  • Handled unique staff/case issues that may arise in a crisis call center environment and initiated and carried out contingency and emergency procedures as needed.
  • Provided crisis risk assessment skills to ensure the provision of emergency crisis interventions to a complex and high-risk population.
  • Collaborated with internal and external partners to carry out evaluations of program operations to identify areas for improvement, development, and implementing and evaluating efficacy of improvement efforts.
• Supervisory Probationary Period: One-year period - Your appointment is subject to completion of a one-year supervisory probationary period.
• Experience refers to paid and unpaid experience, including volunteer work done through National Service programs.
• Physical Requirements: The work is sedentary. There may be some walking, standing, bending, or carrying of light items, but no unusual physical demands.

Benefits

• Remote: This is a remote position.
• Work Schedule: To Be Determined, will work evenings or overnights as well as weekends.
• Compressed/Flexible: Available.
• 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.