Behavioral Health Therapist @ Austell

How would you like to work in a place where your contributions and ideas are valued? A place where you can serve with compassion, pursue excellence and honor every voice? At Wellstar, our mission is simple, yet powerful: to enhance the health and well-being of every person we serve. We are proud to have become a shining example of what's possible when the brightest professionals dedicate themselves to making a difference in the healthcare industry, and in people's lives.

Work Shift
Day (United States of America)

Schedule: Full-time/day shift/40 hours

- work week includes Sunday - Saturday (two days off per week)

Job Summary:
Functioning under the leadership of the Nurse Manager or designee, the Therapist-Licensed provides therapeutic services for patients receiving care on the inpatient Behavioral Health Unit. This role delivers evidence-based, trauma-informed, and patient-centered individual, group, and family therapy; completes psychosocial and suicide risk assessments; supports safety planning; and collaborates with the interdisciplinary team to develop, implement, and update individualized treatment plans. The Therapist-Licensed supports safe, high-quality patient care through direct clinical intervention, timely documentation, patient and family education, discharge readiness planning, and coordination with internal and external resources. The role partners with psychiatry, nursing, disposition planning, and other members of the care team to promote continuity of care and clinically appropriate discharge planning, while escalating barriers or patient safety concerns through established leadership channels.

Core Responsibilities and Essential Functions:
Individual and Group Therapy
a. Provides individual therapy to assigned caseload using evidence-based, trauma-informed, and patient-centered interventions aligned with the treatment plan.
b. Participates in the established group therapy schedule and facilitates assigned therapeutic groups in accordance with unit programming and patient needs.
c. Facilitates group therapy sessions focused on coping skills, emotional regulation, relapse prevention, recreational therapy, safety planning, psychoeducation and discharge readiness
d. Conducts family sessions, as appropriate, to support treatment goals, enhance communication, and promote safe discharge planning.
e. Collaborates with the interdisciplinary treatment team to identify therapeutic needs, monitor patient progress, and update individualized treatment plans.
f. Documents individual, group, and family therapy interventions in the electronic medical record in a timely, accurate, and clinically appropriate manner.
g. Provides therapeutic interventions to support crisis stabilization, symptom management, engagement in treatments and continuity of care after discharge.
Patient Assessment
a. Conduct and interpret comprehensive biopsychosocial assessments for the Inpatient Behavioral Health Unit:
Complete Suicide Risk Assessment
Collaborate with collateral/support contacts
b. Collaborates with care team to establish a disposition plan appropriate for the clinical, medical and biopsychosocial presentation and resource needs of the patient.
c. Consult with Psychiatry Team, Nursing staff and other appropriate team members to establish the treatment plan
d. Review the treatment plan with the patient/guardian to ensure comprehension of program services available and provide recommendations.
e. Contributes to development, review, and updates of patient treatment plans in collaboration with the interdisciplinary treatment team and ensures assigned documentation is completed timely.
Documentation
a. Documents initial psychosocial/functional assessment in the electronic medical record.
b. Documents suicide risk assessment in the electronic medical record.
c. Documents ongoing reassessments, individual and group sessions, and safety plan in the electronic medical record.
d. Documents each patient contact.
e. Assists with legal documentation as appropriate (i.e., 1013, 1014, 1015, 1021)
f. Documents all contact with collateral contacts, support systems and resource referrals in a timely and accurate manner.
g. Ensures daily reports are completed to ensure continuity of patient care from shift to shift.
Professional Development and Initiative
a. Adheres to ethical business practices by striving to perform in a manner that conforms to the highest standards of ethical behavior, integrity and honesty.
b. Maintains confidentiality of all patient information.
c. Maintains attendance/punctuality in accordance with system policy and procedure.
d. Demonstrates initiative by managing assigned caseload responsibilities, prioritizing patient needs, communicating barriers, and requesting guidance or escalation through appropriate leadership channels when needed.
e. Provides hand-offs to enhance continuity of care, mitigate gaps in services, and escalate barriers in service delivery.
f. Attends and participates in staff meetings, required in-services, process improvement activities, and other meetings as requested.
g. Completes all initial and ongoing professional competency assessments, required mandatory education and population specific education.
Discharge Planning/Patient Resources
a. Coordinates with the care team to develop an appropriate disposition plan
b. Identifies and documents barriers to timely disposition.
c. Obtains collateral from patients family/identified supports to plan for continued care
d. Provides education/counseling to patient/family to assist in understanding, accepting and following medical recommendations of his/her conditions.
e. Develops a Safety Plan with all patients.
f. Allows for any cultural or religious beliefs in providing services and continuity of care.
Performs other duties as assigned
Complies with all Wellstar Health System policies, standards of work, and code of conduct.

Required Minimum Education:

- Masters Social Work or Masters Counseling

Required Minimum License(s) and Certification(s):
All certifications are required upon hire unless otherwise stated.

- LCSW - Lic Clinical Social Worker GA or LPC - Lic Professional Counselor or MFT - Marriage & Family Therapist
- BLS - Basic Life Support or ARC-BLS - Amer Red Cross Basic Life Support or BLS-I - Basic Life Support - Instructor
- AVADE (Wellstar) - De-Escalation or AVADE-P (Wellstar) - De-Escalation - Provisional (30 Days) within 30 Days

Required Minimum Experience:
Minimum 3 years experience in a health related field, mental health, behavioral health, counseling or social services agency. Required

Required Minimum Skills:
Possesses emotional maturity. Demonstrates ability to work with patients with a life limiting illness.
Demonstrates ability to work as a member of an interdisciplinary team.
Possesses individual counseling skills, group therapy, family therapy, discharge planning, assess bereavement risk and interviewing skills.
Possesses knowledge of developmental characteristics (physical, psychosocial, intellectual) of people of all ages, economic backgrounds and cultural backgrounds.
Demonstrate basic use of computer: Windows, Outlook and Microsoft Office.

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