Social Worker, Mental Health & Consulting, Acuity Team ~ Yale Health
Overview
Yale Health, the multidisciplinary healthcare organization of Yale University serves more than 50,000 members-including students, faculty, staff, and their families. Yale Health has been a trusted provider to the Yale community for over 50 years. Comprehensive care is delivered at its state-of-the-art facility located at 55 Lock Street, where more than 150 providers offer comprehensive services. The 144,000-square-foot medical center has over 90 exam rooms, an Acute Care Department, and a 15-bed inpatient unit full diagnostic imaging suite-offering MRI, CT scans, X-ray, and ultrasound services-as well as a full-service retail pharmacy.
Bridge Care is a high acuity, short term mental health service within the Acuity Team of the Yale University Mental Health & Counseling Center designed to support students experiencing significant emotional distress, safety concerns, and acute functional impairment. The program provides rapid assessment, intensive stabilization, and skills-based interventions while assisting students in transitioning to or from longer term community-based care.
Schedule: Full-Time; 37.5 HRS; Weekdays 8:30-5:00 Flexible Schedule. Early mornings, evenings, weekends, holidays/recess periods may also be required. May include occasional urgent coverage or extended hours based on student needs.
The Social Worker / Therapist in Bridge Care provides clinical assessment, crisis intervention, and DBT informed therapeutic services to high-risk university students. This clinician plays a critical role in suicide risk assessment, safety planning, and short-term stabilization, while collaborating closely with the Bridge Care team, University Mental Health & Counseling staff, campus partners, and external providers to ensure continuity of care.
This position is ideal for a clinician experienced in high acuity mental health work who is skilled at brief treatment models and passionate about supporting students in a university setting.
Clinical Assessment & Crisis Response
- Conduct comprehensive intake, psychosocial, and risk assessments within a high acuity student population
- Perform suicide and self-harm risk assessments and determine appropriate levels of care
- Develop, implement, and revise individualized safety plans in collaboration with students
- Provide crisis intervention and stabilization services consistent with counseling center protocols
- Participate in urgent response and consultation with on-call or multidisciplinary teams as needed
Therapeutic Services
- Provide short term, DBT informed individual therapy focused on stabilization and skill development
- Facilitate DBT informed, skills-based group therapy (e.g., distress tolerance, emotion regulation, mindfulness, interpersonal effectiveness)
- Utilize brief, goal focused interventions aligned with Bridge Care’s bridge to care model
- Maintain timely, accurate, and ethically sound clinical documentation within the counseling center’s electronic health record
Program & Professional Responsibilities
- Participate in clinical consultation, team meetings, supervision, and training activities
- Collaborate with Acuity Team members (Care Managers, psychiatry, Chief of MHC)
- Communicate effectively while maintaining student privacy and adhering to FERPA, HIPAA, and ethical standards
- Contribute to program development, quality improvement, and outcome evaluation for Bridge Care
- Engage in ongoing professional development related to DBT, suicide prevention, and college student mental health
- Provide culturally responsive, trauma informed, and developmentally appropriate care to a diverse student population
Required Skills and Abilities
- Experience conducting suicide risk assessments and safety planning.
- Demonstrated ability to work effectively with high-acuity or crisis-presenting clients.
- Demonstrated sound clinical judgment in high-risk and time-sensitive situations.
- Strong group facilitation and skills-based therapy competence.
- Cultural humility and commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion.
- Excellent communication, organizational, and documentation skills.
Preferred Skills and Abilities
Training or experience in Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) or DBT-informed interventions. Experience in a university counseling center or college student mental health setting. Familiarity with brief therapy models, stepped care, or bridge-to-care frameworks. Experience collaborating with multidisciplinary or campus-based systems of care.
Principal Responsibilities
- Plans, coordinates and implements individual, group, and couples’ therapy for students in University outpatient clinic.
- Conducts patient evaluations and assesses patients’ acceptability for psychotherapy programs and develops initial disposition planning.
- Establishes positive relationships with patients in order to administer the appropriate treatment.
- Manages and provides therapy for complex cases involving patients with significant mental health concerns.
- Provides mental health outreach to Yale community.
- Develops materials for educational programs and seminars for professional staff.
- Provides family meetings as appropriate.
- Maintains patients’ charts and reports.
- Participates in mental health 24-hour emergency coverage.
- Provides educational and consultation services to undergraduate residential colleges and professional schools.
- Interacts with internal contacts such as patients, patients’ families, clinicians, medical staff, and administrators regarding treatment of individual patients and implementation of clinical programs.
- Interacts with external contacts such as clinicians in private practice, mental health institutions, university deans, hospital psychiatrists and clinicians and hospital administrators.
- Provides clinical supervision to trainees as well as staff members.
- Performs administrative duties as directed by the Chief of Mental health and Counseling.
- May perform other duties as assigned.
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