Pros
Very fast-paced environment. Supportive and friendly staff/co-workers. A lot of hands-on experience working with a wide variety of clientele from legally mandated to dual-diagnoses to self-referred. A great place to get a lot of experience, and fast. Recommended for recent CASAC-T, MHC, MSW, Graduate students that are looking to get experience in the field. Personally, I learned a lot about my own ethics and morality working at this facility. There is a lot of creative freedom when conducting group therapy sessions and there is a lot of encouragement with starting new groups, as long as there are enough clients willing to be a part of the group. Overall, a tremendous experience.
Cons
Lack of training. Lack of work space. Lack of communication. As a facility that advocates the emotional and mental health of the clients, they truly struggle to advocate the emotional and mental health of their staff. Instead of having a cap on legally mandated clients and referring them to other facilities that have the availability, they continue to overwork and pressure their existing employees to take on new clients. There are a lot of unrealistic expectations placed on case managers; we were given a quota for individual sessions and group sessions: 7 individual sessions daily and 15 clients in group sessions (and being assigned about 1 group each day). So in their eyes a typical work day looked like: 9am to 10:30am group session, meet with clients from 10:30am to 5pm, within that time find out when to: eat lunch, write notes, outreach clientele, scribe legal correspondence, answer phone calls, and maybe use the bathroom.