Soldier and civilian shaking hands
by Rachael Dietkus Miller, LCSW
Veterans Day is an annual celebration to honor America’s veterans for their patriotism, love of country, and willingness to serve and sacrifice for the common good. It is observed each year on November 11, regardless of the day of the week on which it falls. In honor of Veterans Day, I am sharing my top 11 reasons why social workers should consider a career path with the Veterans Health Administration (VHA) within the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA).
A Brief History of VA Social Work
As a system, VHA employs more than 220,000 people across 300 different career fields. With a footprint in all 50 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, and the Philippines, VA is one of the largest health systems in the United States.
On June 16, 1926, Veterans Bureau General Order established the social work program within the Bureau and outlined its organization and function. In its first year, 91 years ago, this initial group of 35 social workers paved the way for the system employing well over 8,000 master’s-prepared social workers today.
When I started working on my MSW nearly 10 years ago, I was determined to take my then-human rights and social justice work to another level. It wasn’t until I was preparing for my field placement that I learned a great deal about the breadth and variety of both macro and clinical options for someone with my experience, interests, and skill sets. The thought of working with women veterans, older and younger veterans, justice-involved veterans, or those who have a history of homelessness really intrigued me. I’ll touch on these areas and more in my 11 Reasons below. Read on!
11 Reasons To Consider VA for Your Social Work Career
1. Innovative Programs
11 Reasons To Consider VA for Your Social Work Career
Since VA is the largest employer of master’s-level social workers in the U.S., it’s only natural that they play a critical role in providing important services for service members, veterans, and their families. When I was preparing for where I wanted to do my field placement in 2009, it was the list of opportunities at VA that really intrigued me. Programs like Veterans Justice Outreach (VJO) and Health Care for Homeless Veterans (HCHV) piqued my curiosity and felt like a good match for macro, clinical, and rights-based work.
Coincidentally, in late 2009, VA announced its ambitious goal to end veteran homelessness. The plan to address this urgent national priority was outlined in 2010’s Opening Doors, the first-ever federal strategic plan to end Veteran homelessness. Utilizing a Housing First model, the HCHV program is by far one of the most fascinating programs VA has to offer its veterans and family members. With its work grounded in an innovative approach to housing veterans and their families, all while working closely with community partners, HCHV teams have successfully and dramatically reduced homelessness among veterans by linking them to safe, affordable housing and a wide array of supportive services. HCHV, along with community programs like Supportive Services for Veteran Families (SSVF), continues to thrive and have an impact on our nation’s communities.
2. Training
As an institution, VA embraces the philosophy that a well-trained staff will result in better patient outcomes for the population being served. From the initial multi-day orientation to the Talent Management System modules that all staff are required to complete, VA also consistently takes continuous learning to a higher level. Much of this is attributed to hospital standards and accreditation, although I truly believe VA saw the value and importance of investing in a strong workforce. As a supervisor, I had training opportunities with peers that challenged my thinking and empowered me to better support my team. I also had opportunities to take part in trainings and attend and present at conferences specific to homeless programming, which often deepened my understanding of the work at hand and positioned me to be a greater advocate.
3. Mobility
The opportunity and ability to move within and from one VA system to another is vast. Within VA, this is often referred to as a change of venue. Want to relocate to a larger city? You will most likely be able to be considered as an internal applicant, because you are already working for VA. Interested in exploring other opportunities for social workers? No problem. A simple word search of “social worker” on USAJOBS.gov will give you a sense of the range of opportunities for social workers within the GS-185 job series.
I think it’s also worth noting that those who come with non-VA experience have an opportunity to really demonstrate their unique perspectives on systems, problems, and being solution-oriented. I entered in the system as a GS-9 and, in less than five years, worked my way up to a GS-13. It was hard, but well worth the effort. In my last four years at VA, I was doing work I absolutely loved. It was a perfect combination of macro thinking, systems redesign, clinical interventions, community outreach, and policy engagement. Your mobility within the system can really be rewarded if you work incredibly hard, continue to grow, and take advantage of opportunities they present.
4. Salary
General Schedule (GS) is the pay scale used for social work positions in the GS-185 series (also known as the Social Work Series). If you want to quickly and easily search for current, open social worker positions, you can do a simple search with key words on USAJOBS.gov. For example, if you’re interested in a social worker position within work therapy programs, search “social worker supportive employment.” GS levels range from grades 1-15 and there are 10 pay steps within each pay grade. A social worker with less than one year of post-MSW experience will start as a GS-9, Step 1. Depending on where you live, this could range from $49,765-$59,760.
And this brings me to locality pay. Locality pay is also something to factor in depending on where you are and where you might want to work. Major cities have a locality pay differential that helps with the cost of living in a more urban area. As an example, GS-9, Step 1 social workers would start at $49,765 if they were in a "rest of U.S." locality pay area. A GS-9, Step 1 social worker in San Francisco would start at $59,760 because of the locality pay difference.
Additionally, for a new social worker, there are advantages to obtaining licensure quickly upon graduation. If you receive a license within your first year (in the state of Illinois, this is the LSW—please check with your state’s social work licensing board for state-specific information), your GS level will go from a 9 to an 11. And if you’re a social worker with multiple years of post-MSW experience, this is taken into consideration for the specific position you are hired for during the boarding process. It’s also possible to start as a GS-11 or GS-12, although many hires at the GS-12 and GS-13 levels tend to happen internally.
5. Benefits
For any position – no matter what or where it is – I would encourage all social workers to look at the benefits that are available when being offered a position. This is an easy thing to overlook when our eyes are often hyper-focused on the salary. Consider benefits as part of an overall package when being offered a position. VA offers a fairly robust package of benefits, which includes professional (paid time off), insurance (health, dental, liability, life, and long-term care), financial (thrift savings plan and flexible spending accounts), and retirement (federal retirement plan, flexible retirement plan, and disability retirement). I was most impressed with the health and dental benefits and the wide range of options for plans for me and my family.
6. Value
I recently told someone that social workers are leaders on innovative programs and services at VA and are often treated like royalty. This might be just a bit of a stretch. But in looking back, social workers were valued for their leadership, for their contributions, and for their ability to maneuver through difficult systems and patient care challenges. Social workers offer a variety of services, including resource navigation, crisis intervention, advocacy, benefit assistance, behavioral health therapies for depression, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, substance use dependence, and homelessness (just to name a few). Social workers also ensure continuity of care through the admission, evaluation, treatment, and follow-up processes, and they provide assessment, crisis intervention, high-risk management, advocacy, and education throughout the continuum of care.
In this complex system, social workers are often the thread that pulls a treatment plan together and the one leading linkage and referral processes with community partners and engaging with Veterans’ groups and organizations on efforts to strengthen services. Social workers’ contributions with these efforts are valued, acknowledged, and necessary.
7. Opportunity
When I started at VA, I had only two months of post-MSW experience under my belt. As I was going through the onboarding process, I was initially a bit taken aback that none – literally none – of my pre-MSW experience (roughly 10 years in the nonprofit and human rights sector) had been taken into consideration for where I would start in terms of salary.
Looking back, though, my previous VA experience positioned me to elevate quickly in this massive, complex system. As mentioned previously, in less than five years, I elevated from a GS-9 to a GS-13. I worked within areas of patient advocacy, systems redesign, and strategic and facility planning, which then led to impactful work on a multi-million-dollar supportive housing construction project and the opportunity to serve in a detail assignment with the Supportive Services for Veteran Housing (SSVF) program under VA’s national homeless program office.
8. Autonomy
Earlier this year, I invited some of my former VA colleagues back to the School of Social Work at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign to talk about their experiences as VA social workers. When asked about some of their favorite aspects of working in such a large system, they all overwhelmingly said that one of the best job perks was having so much autonomy. Once social workers are initially trained in the core functions of the system, there truly is a great deal of opportunity to work autonomously within your program area team. Read more about just some of the things VA social workers do. In many instances, you are working on processes and problem-solving within a team structure and support, but with a great deal of independence and trust.
9. Federal Service
I have worked for more than 20 years in the cause-driven sector. This has been in the nonprofit realm, federal government, and now in higher education at a school of social work. Although I have loved and been quite proud of many of my roles over my past 20+ years of working in and around social work, I have never been prouder of my work and its contributions than when I worked at VA. This work was different and it challenged me to my core. I have several friends and close family members who are or were veterans – many of whom continue to receive care in the system or are buried at the National Cemetery in Danville, Illinois. This personal linkage had an impact on me daily. I wanted to do better and be better because of this. The opportunity to serve veterans as a federal employee left me proud.
10. Reward
On my first day as a federal employee, my first VA colleague said, “The best part about this job is that you’ll never have the same bad day twice.” I have told this story to many an intern over the years and remember it with extreme clarity. Being a patient advocate at VA was and will always be – without a shred of doubt – the hardest job I will ever have in my life. I learned a tremendous amount in this role and witnessed some of the most difficult hardship that veterans and their family members often endure. Every single day was humbling. Yet there was great reward in knowing that I could help someone navigate this massive system, help them with their benefits, troubleshoot and resolve a difficult relationship with their provider, and more often than not, just simply be a listening ear.
11. Veterans
This is obvious, right? In my first two years as a patient advocate, I encountered many people who were well beyond the point of crispy from the system. It might have been burnout or perhaps they never really appreciated or embraced the honor and responsibility of working with and for veterans. I never took this responsibility lightly – even on the days when it was unbelievably challenging. I often thought about my grandparents (from the WWII era and all of whom are buried at the National Cemetery adjacent to the VA facility where I worked), my uncle (a Vietnam Era veteran), and my husband (an OIF/OEF combat veteran).
Personal friend and family associations aside, it was having the opportunity to work alongside veterans and family members of veterans that greatly shifted my perspective. I worked at VA during a time when there were enhanced special hiring authorities to hire veterans. By the time I left in June 2016, 50% of the HCHV team was comprised of veterans. And that percentage probably reached 85% if we included those with close family members who were veterans. They were social workers, peer support specialists, nurses, and administrative members of the team.
Nearly every arm of our team had a veteran voice and perspective. Our team was strengthened by this and, I believe, our collective work in the community was valued and appreciated more because of this. I especially loved working with peer support specialists. We had three on the Health Care for Homeless Veterans team, and we would not have been able to do half of what we did without them.
Rachael Dietkus Miller, LCSW, is the Assistant Dean for Student Affairs at the School of Social Work at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. She earned her MSW at the School of Social Work in 2010 with a macro focus on Advocacy, Leadership, and Social Change and completed her field placement with the Health Care for Homeless Veterans (HCHV) program at VA Iliana Health Care System in her hometown of Danville, Illinois. She had the privilege and honor to work as a Patient Advocate under the Associate Director of Patient Care Services and an Administrative Officer with the Chief Engineer. In her last three years at VA, she was the Program Coordinator with the HCHV program, which is where she had gotten her feet wet as an MSW intern three years prior.