licensed practical nurse

care manager

therapist

registered nurse

behavior technician

Apalachee Center

I worked in residential as a nurse the job wasn't bad the patient are ok, they just feel like they're entitled to everything and management pacify them even when their in the wrong. The pay is low but the good thing about my dept we recieved 8 hrs overtime automatically each pay period that was great.  The nurses I worked with was very petty didn't accept responsibility for their actions and try to place blame on you, thats why you always document to cover yourself.  The program supervisor will butt into nurses business and didn't have one bit of medical training and, wants to talk down on you like she had all the sense.  I really enjoyed my schedule the three day weekends off and not working too many days straight, cause we worked 12 hr shifts. My mha's were awesome if your a new nurse I'll say this would be an ok place to work but please make sure that they work with you if your planning on going back to school cause for me it was impossible.  The nurse couldn't leave the unit for lunch, so you had to have lunch to eat on the unit in the breakroom and thats if you could get the full 30 mins of peace and quiet.  Upper management is for self they make up to 6 figures and will not give you any kind of rise. I'll say this I  enjoy mental health, and I've worked worse places than this this job was just great for me to get supervisory expiernce and learning how to make decisions on my own

To begin, I know typically the negative experiences are the ones that get expressed and often get taken with a grain of salt by the reader.  I have worked in mental health before and while my previous jobs had their aggravating quirks, they still left me with a good impression. I can not say that in this case. The caseload was unmanageable (200 people) and questions you ask one person will be answered differently by someone else. That's not to say you won't get corrected rudely. 
Not all management was bad. Some supervisors were very helpful and easy to talk to but, they were overshadowed by the inconsistent procedures and few with poor interpersonal skills.
I met one person from administration and they seemed to have a pre-rehearsed speech that I was expected to respond to in a certain way (I.e. Repeatedly asking an answered question; or, "Are you going to remember this?" When you are not writing enough of what they say). That also made standing up for myself a difficult but I was at the point where I would prefer to let them hear themselves talk, like they wanted, and leave.

• Assess individuals with severe and persistent mental illness for admission to the hospital in the detox unit and/or mental health unit.
• Coordinate development and documentation of client service plan (i.e. treatment plan).
• Provide case management and social services to current clients including coordinating and linking them to needed community services for continued treatment upon discharge.
• Interact as a part of a treatment team with medical staff including Licensed Practical Nurses, Registered Nurses, and Medical Doctors in order to treat each patient.
• Lead group help sessions to facilitate client improvement and participation in treatment.
• Maintain accurate and up to date records detailing clients’ milestones and progress.
• Educated and trained for CPR, AED, and CPI ( Crisis Prevention )

The hardest part of the job would be the turn around rate, some times I go beyond my expectations to help clients and some clients have levels of recidivism.

The most enjoyable job is helping clients turn their lives around and help them maintain their lives on an outpatient basis and succeed by continuing care by utilizing resources that I provided.

What is the best part of working at the company?
With Apalachee, you have the ability to provide care to underserved populations and those that experience barriers to receiving mental health services. 

What is the most stressful part about working at the company?
The lack of allocated funds from grants being accessible to the populations the grants are received from and below-average salaries to qualified providers. High level of turn around and lack of qualified providers to fill the roles. 

What is the work environment and culture like at the company?
A mixture of personalities provide a potential for a good working environment. Lack of allocation of grant funding to appropriate areas and high turnover creates a high stress environment. 

What is a typical day like for you at the company?
Most of the day involves reaching out to individuals to maintain contact and their participation in the program. High levels of no-show appointments reduce productivity and result in not meeting quotas. Going to individuals' home settings is the highest priority to meet productivity and provide services

Staff is supportive of both clients and staff from the front desk to the Nurse to the Care managers. The agency has gone through difficult changes that have been required by Medicaid but as a person who has worked her for several years I have seen the continued work of the staff to be there for clients and each other. Being a non profit organization is tough in any time or economy but offering the type of services provided here are challenging with expectation of hard work and being non profit not the highest salary. The monies paid are in accordance with the expectations I was hired to do and that I agreed to when hired. My work has been acknowledged and my clients achievements are a higher pay than any paycheck could provide. Like a teacher, the job this agency does is not based on our rate of pay because there is no salary high enough to cover the demands of this job but the non monitory rewards are in the millions. hank you for the opportunity to work here....

The administration doesn't reflect the cultural diversity of the staff, and it shows in how they treat people who are different or "below" them. Social workers are treated like assistants or technicians, and the profession is not respected, even if you have a graduate-level degree.  The turnover rate is due to qualified professionals not getting paid a fair wage, administration looking the other way and creating bizarre management positions, then blaming the staff who leave for pursuing better opportunities rather than staying and being taken advantage of. 

A typical day of work includes:
 Burning yourself out to meet impossible demands, getting humiliated at hospital-wide meetings for not completing endless tasks, and then being disregarded by management who don't even meet the education criteria to manage or supervise you. 

It's great for learning about the problems within community mental health, but not good if you want to develop professionally or as a clinician.

The job can be chaotic. For me, that didn’t come from some clients acting out that got old after a while. It came from working different units. You are “trained” on all units but most training is about your unit. 

So when you go to another one rarely anyone will help you if you’re having trouble understanding something. Also like most jobs there are a few people who make it harder than it needs to be. You may find yourself running circles around others as they sit there(like most jobs) but if you PRN this is a much more tolerable experience. Just will hardly find shifts on your desired unit.

When dealing with clients some times you have to be stern. Though some staff are bit rude to them sometimes often agitating the clients which then leads to unnecessary ETO(shot to help calm down) 

learn to approach clients on their level sometimes it’s impossible though.



A typical day at Apalachee Center is preparing breakfast and lunch for outpatient clients. We go over current events with clients as well as allows them to talk about whatever they wish. We do 2 group sessions per day lasting 1 hour each session according to the facility's curriculum. Clients are allowed 15 minutes for break in which we must pass out cigarettes to clients who wish to smoke. I am not very pleased with passing out cigarettes that will ultimately cause harm to clients health. I feel that I am not fulfilling my 4 year degree to it's fullest potential. I didn't expect to appear as a lunchroom worker with a Bachelor's Degree.

I would say that Apalachee could be a fun and productive place to work. With it being behavioral health, one would have to enjoy the work as well as everything else that may come into play as your being a servasnt to the clients of the community.
A typical day would be to assist clients on the phone, at daytreatment and home visits. I learned about the valuable resources in the are for clients to obtain. Management is always available and helpful for any crisis or questions that may arise. At Apalachee we worked as a team. The hardest part of the job would be a client giving up on themselves or the facility as a whole. The most enjoyable part for me is that my clients know that I am giving them 100% of me.

Although the work and experience with these clients is invaluable to any clinician, the company devalues their employees by offering the lowest wage for an increasingly difficult and stressful workload.  Everyone working in clinical positions are overqualified for the pay they receive (which is comparable to working at a retail store).  Poor management support allows some bad people to overshadow all the good being done here.  If the company really cared about their client base they would pay their clinicians a decent wage a treat them with respect so that they would also care about their jobs and do what is needed for these clients.  Instead they use employees until they are completely burned out.  Disgraceful.

Top Job Titles	Average Salary
Licensed practical nurse 25 salaries reported	$27.74 per hour
Care manager 7 salaries reported	$20.36 per hour
Therapist 10 salaries reported	$25.40 per hour
Registered nurse 11 salaries reported	$35.73 per hour
Behavior technician 5 salaries reported	$20.60 per hour

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