Clinical Social Worker Lead

Join the transformative team at City of Hope, where we're changing lives and making a real difference in the fight against cancer, diabetes, and other life-threatening illnesses. City of Hope’s growing national system includes its Los Angeles campus, a network of clinical care locations across Southern California, a new cancer center in Orange County, California, and treatment facilities in Atlanta, Chicago and Phoenix. Our dedicated and compassionate employees are driven by a common mission: To deliver the cures of tomorrow to the people who need them today. 

This position carries a team lead function for the Women’s Cancers disease team, and supports physicians and others in the care of patients and families across inpatient and outpatient settings.   

The Lead Clinical Social Worker (Lead CSW) holds a Master’s Degree in Social Work (MSW), maintains active licensure as a Licensed Clinical Social Worker through the California Board of Behavioral Sciences, and delivers comprehensive medical social work services. This role emphasizes a patient-centered model of care, offering supportive counseling, psychosocial assessments, therapeutic interventions, education, and referrals to community resources for patients and their caregivers.

The Lead CSW provides clinical supervision to MSWs, BSW/MSW students, and may facilitate support groups. In collaboration with social work leadership, the Lead CSW mentors staff and plays an active leadership role in multidisciplinary program planning, evaluation, and treatment approaches. Responsibilities also include participating in emergency/crisis response and serving on the on-call rotation.

This role involves driving performance improvement initiatives, whether through committee work or by leading improvement efforts directly. The Lead CSW contributes to education and training programs, policy development, and may participate in research and program design.

Operationally, the Lead CSW oversees daily workflows, coordinates staff assignments, and reviews time-off requests to ensure adequate staffing and continuity of care. They support the Director with employee engagement strategies, recruitment, and onboarding of new team members. As a mentor and role model, the Lead CSW fosters teamwork, promotes collaboration, and is recognized for their leadership and commitment to excellence within the division.

As a successful candidate, you will: 

• Addresses daily issues relating to division/team workflow, including assignment of personnel work duties, as directed by the Director of Clinical Social Work.
• Reviews time off requests and insures adequate staffing for the competing demands of the team.
• Provides timely, appropriate, reliable, and respectful social work services to patients and families.
• Demonstrates competence appropriate to his/her role and function.
• Delivers quality of care consistent with professional and City of Hope standards.
• Uses effective decision-making, evaluation and problem-solving skills in managing patient care, hospital, and administrative needs.
• Demonstrates strong verbal and written communication skills; excellent documentation skills of all activities/decisions related to patient care in compliance with State, National and Joint Commission standards/regulations.   
• Provides skilled psychosocial support and crisis management for patients throughout the continuum of care:  diagnosis, living with cancer, recurrence, end-of-life, and survivorship.  
• Acts as an effective liaison for appropriate referrals to other services within the Department of Supportive Care Medicine, including:  psychiatry; psychology; supportive and palliative care; pain management; spiritual care; patient navigation; and patient, family & community education.
• Must demonstrate proficient team-building skills, effectively negotiating and willing to compromise as needed, to resolve issues and respectfully reach a consensus.
• Participates in interdisciplinary rounds and serves on institutional committees as appointed.
• Has post-licensure certifications or specialization; continues active pursuit of opportunities for further development of clinical skills and professional growth.
• Acts as a skilled educator as demonstrated by professional presentations, student training, research and mentorship.  
• Participates in recruitment and interviewing of social work candidates.    

Your qualifications should include: 

• Master’s Degree in Social Work (MSW) from an approved California Accredited School of Social Work
• Five years medical social work experience. 
• Two or more years post licensure experience
• Registration as a Licensed Clinical Social Worker with the California Board of Behavioral Sciences

City of Hope employees pay is based on the following criteria: work experience, qualifications, and work location.

City of Hope is an equal opportunity employer.

To learn more about our Comprehensive Benefits, please CLICK HERE.