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Recreation Therapist
Veterans Health Administration · Posted 1 days ago
On-site Atlanta, GA $79K – $103K Apply by Sep 24, 2026 Recreation/Creative Arts Therapist ISFP Healthcare
Apply for this job → About the Role
The Therapist is assigned to the Mental Health at the Atlanta VAHCS. The incumbent provides clinical interventions through the application of established modalities, incorporating assessment, treatment planning, intervention, and evaluation of outcomes. Clinical duties are performed independently with responsibility for applying a range of recreation/creative arts therapy treatment models to support Veteran recovery, rehabilitation, and wellness across mental health and related care settings.
What You'll Do
- →Duties and responsibilities include, but are not limited to: Clinical Functions: Assessment: Independently conducts comprehensive recreation/ creative arts therapy assessments to evaluate functional strengths and limitations across cognitive, physical, sensory, affective, social, and leisure domains.
- →Reviews consults, clinical histories, and interdisciplinary notes to determine therapeutic needs and inform clinical decision-making.
- →Utilizes standardized and non-standardized assessment tools as appropriate to the complexity of psychiatric presentations.
- →Treatment Planning: Develops individualized, measurable treatment goals that promote recovery, meaningful leisure engagement, improved coping, increased motivation, social skill development, and symptom management.
- →Collaborates with interdisciplinary team members to ensure treatment goals align with the Veteran's overall plan of care.
- →Intervention: Plans, organizes, and leads structured recreation/ creative arts therapy groups and 1:1 sessions that address treatment goals identified in the assessment.
- →Implements evidence-based and best-practice techniques to reduce anxiety, improve emotional regulation, promote behavioral activation, foster constructive self-expression, increase frustration tolerance, enhance social functioning, and build healthy leisure routines.
- →Interventions may include leisure education, activity-based therapy, cooperative games, creative recreation, relaxation-based activities, sensory modulation, and skill-building leisure tasks.
- →Therapeutic Engagement & Participation Support: Identifies barriers to participation and applies motivational, behavioral, and adaptive strategies to engage Veterans experiencing acute psychiatric symptoms or functional limitations.
- →Safety & Risk Management: Applies all health and safety regulations during therapeutic activities to minimize clinical risk and ensure environmental safety, including monitoring patient behavior, selecting appropriate materials, and adjusting activities for individual needs and safety precautions.
- →Documentation: Completes timely and accurate documentation of assessments, treatment plans, progress notes, encounters, incidents, and discharge recommendations in CPRS in accordance with VHA, MHSL, and Medical Center requirements.
- →Communication & Coordination: Communicates clinical observations, functional changes, safety concerns, participation levels, and patient-expressed needs to other interdisciplinary team members.
- →Provides recommendations regarding leisure needs, behavioral/clinical observations, discharge considerations, and community reintegration supports.
- →Program Delivery & Adaptation: Posts and maintains, in collaboration with other team members, an ongoing schedule of recreation/ creative arts therapy and other activities and groups that reflects patient needs, therapeutic goals, and Veteran interests.
Requirements
- ✓You must be a U.S.
- ✓Citizen to apply for this job.
- ✓Selective Service Registration is required for males born after 12/31/1959.
- ✓Must be proficient in written and spoken English.
- ✓Subject to background/security investigation.
- ✓Selected applicants will be required to complete an online onboarding process.
- ✓Acceptable form(s) of identification will be required to complete pre-employment requirements (https://www.uscis.gov/i-9-central/form-i-9-acceptable-documents).
- ✓Effective May 7, 2025, driver's licenses or state-issued identification cards that are not REAL ID compliant cannot be utilized as an acceptable form of identification for employment.
- ✓Participation in the seasonal influenza vaccination program is a requirement for all Department of Veterans Affairs Health Care Personnel (HCP).
- ✓Complete all application requirements detailed in the "Required Documents" section of this announcement.
- ✓As a condition of employment for accepting this position, you will be required to serve a 1 or 2-year trial period during which we will evaluate your fitness and whether your continued employment advances the public interest.
- ✓In determining if your employment advances the public interest, we may consider: your performance and conduct; the needs and interests of the agency; whether your continued employment would advance organizational goals of the agency or the Government; and whether your continued employment would advance the efficiency of the Federal service.
- ✓Upon completion of your trial period, your employment will be terminated unless you receive certification, in writing, that your continued employment advances the public interest.
- ✓Note: Only education or degrees recognized by the U.S.
Personality Fit
This role is commonly a great fit for these MBTI types:
Job ID: b31e3d49-a52e-4b88-bdcb-d58e130f84fd
Posted via USAJobs