Program Information *This placement is for MSW Concentration year students and requires 24 hours per week.
*Possible stipend for students.
The Patient Aligned Care Team (PACT) is a comprehensive multi-disciplinary team that works collaboratively to deliver primary care to veteran patients in a longitudinal rather than episodic fashion and focuses on: prevention, health promotion, coordination, and chronic disease management. The social worker functions as a PACT team member with a panel of veterans to ensure that health care meets their needs, as defined by the veteran.
Social Workers in PACT commonly perform the following functions and duties:
- Work independently with veterans and their families who are experiencing a wide range of complicated medical, psychiatric, emotional, behavioral, and psychosocial problems.
- Establish and maintain effective therapeutic relationships with, and assess and treat the complicated psychosocial problems of, veterans and their families.
- Provide psychosocial care of medically complex patients and offer consultation to colleagues and students on the psychosocial treatment and care coordination of complex patients.
- Participate in the formulation and implementation of treatment plans identifying the patients' problems, strengths, weaknesses, coping skills, and any assistance needed.
- Receive referrals from any member of the interdisciplinary team, from veterans and/or their families who call or walk-in for assistance, and from community professionals.
- Conduct assessments to determine psychosocial problems that cause distress, often impacting the health condition and creating barriers to care needs for veterans and family members.
- Provide consultation and education to veterans and their families regarding community resources, VA benefits and specialty programs, and advance directives.
- Provide wellness/prevention education and stress management, which includes knowledge in Whole Health, facilitate patient/family support groups.
- Provide case management interventions for veterans to meet the agreed upon goals for veterans' needs.
- Facilitate community placements through collaboration with veterans and their families as well as interdisciplinary treatment team members.
Students will have the opportunity to shadow multiple VA Social Work programs such as Housing, Mental Health, Home Based Primary Care, Addiction Recovery Treatment Services (ARTS), Sprinal Cord Injury, Traumatic Brain Injury, etc.
*Placement with Primary Care is primarily in Redding with possibility of a day in Chico.
Homeless Veteran Care - If you are a Veteran who is homeless or at risk of becoming homeless due to financial hardship, unemployment, addiction, depression, or transition from jail, VA Northern California health care can help you.
- Immediate food and shelter, including both transitional and permanent housing
- Job training, life skills development, and education
- Support with justice system navigation and community re-entry from jail
- Financial support to prevent homelessness
- Treatment for addiction and depression
- Health and dental care
Placement with the Homeless HUD-VASH program is primarily in Chico.