behavioral specialist

therapist

teacher

special education teacher

ambassador

Arrow Child and Family Ministries

I really enjoyed the people I worked with at the office I was at, but the work itself was boring, repetitive, and cumbersome. The upper executive leadership and management were really bad at reaching for feedback from employees, and when feedback was given or requested, they either never actually did something with that feedback to improve the agency's functioning as a whole, or they talked down to the person suggesting viable solutions for a presenting issue, made excuses for why those solutions wouldn't work, insinuated that the person's ideas or requests were unreasonable or not possible (when many of them were), then going ahead with implementing a suggested solution without taking any accountability for their behavior and abysmal treatment of their employees. As a whole, persons on the executive leadership team can come off as prideful, resistant to being held accountable themselves, hostile towards critical/constructive feedback from employees, and apathetic towards their employees as people. The experiences and knowledge of those doing the day-to-day work within the agency were not taken into consideration when policies were changed that directly impacted those at the bottom, and when individuals vocally expressed their concerns, criticisms, or disapproval, they were essentially told "well, too bad, deal with it" by upper leadership. When I expressed my frustrations to my supervisor, I was listened to by her, but I eventually learned that my complaints and concerns never got to the management higher up in the agency, so it became clear to me that this agency does not value the voices of its employees. In fact, I was encouraged to seek employment elsewhere when I expressed how unhappy I was rather than making any efforts to retain them as an employee. I knew little to nothing about the people in executive leadership, who they were as people, what they did within the agency, and I was never encouraged to reach out or connect with them. The people I worked with in my office were great, and I really enjoyed having them to talk to as being able to discuss things with them made the emotional toll and frustrations with the work and agency slightly more tolerable since we were all in the same boat. One of the better aspects of this job is the PTO and how much you can accrue over time, but the healthcare benefits are terrible. In my professional opinion, this agency needs to really look at the kind of company it wants to be in terms of an employer, and make significant steps towards changing things within itself in order to move towards that ideal, otherwise the turnover rate at this agency will stay as ridiculously high as it is and do a disservice to the clients and families this agency aims to serve. 

Arrow is a very warm and inviting place to be employed or do your internship at. I have gained much respect for the people who work within this field because of the long hours and the amount of effort that is put into each individual client/child(ren) and their birth parents. 
Arrow's first and main goal is reunification with the birth parents. When and if this is not possible, you can be sure that the child(ren)'s interests and needs are met to the best of their ability in all aspects which include mental, physical, emotional and psychological.
I feel very lucky to have had the opportunity to have done my internship with Arrow because I was the first person that they accepted as an intern who was only going for my Associates Degree. The lowest educational level that a person can have and work at Arrow is a Bachelors Degree, so I did miss out on the field work that most interns would have had the ability to have obtained. However; I obtained a great deal of knowledge in regards to the inner office workings and became familiar with the guidelines and responsibilities that are required of all employees and I feel that it was a pleasure to have been involved with such caring, selfless people who do more than their share to help the children grow to become productive members of society regardless of some very hard past histories that they can and (mostly) do overcome with the help of this non-profit organization.
Learning to be a professional in this work field is different than being a professional in the business world. Both can be rewarding, but in differing way's. Any person who has the ability to see first hand how a small group of people can help a community with such a large impact by working together as a team would want to work with this organization. 
The supervisor Ashley Saylor was a very understanding and caring person to whom I felt was a very influential person for me on a personal level. She is truly an asset to this organization and helped me realize that it was alright to not know exactly which part of this new field of study that I felt was right for me as the person that I am and my background. She assured me that I will eventually find my place in this field and I believe she is correct.
I personally may want to continue with my education to achieve my Bachelors Degree at some point in the future to enable me to achieve a personal goal, but currently I am looking forward to gaining education at my current level of education and background of experience.

Staff turn around is huge.  Job security is low.  Administration is awful and cares more about the money a student brings to the school than the students themselves.  Many unethical practices take place and when brought to the attention of higher ups, nothing is done.  Administration barely knows the students.  They are dishonest and lay down a lot of rules for staff, which they don't follow themselves.  Staffing is very inconsistent and you never know what room and with what student you may end up working with that day.  They play favorites and the degrees to which an employee is held accountable to those rules is different based on what you can or cannot do for them.  It's a "scratch my back, I'll scratch yours" kind of leadership.  Outside of the amazing children, and they are AMAZING, it's a pretty awful place to work.  Most of the staff are unhappy and wanting to find new employment.  Be prepared to be thrown in and expected to perform with NO training.  You will be made endless promises, which are only said to get you to do what administration wants, yet will not be followed through with.  The behavior and clinical director has created behavior intervention plans, which have caused major regressions in some of the students, in turn causing safety to be an issue for staff.  This individual has also created very similar behavior plans for multiple students in order to meet deadlines, rather than to consider the student's individual needs.  You will be expected to perform duties outside of what you were hired to do, and the expectations will change constantly.  On a good note, the school has an amazing I.E.P. coordinator and some really nice staff members.  My suggestion, look elsewhere, even if the pay isn't as good.  Your happiness and sanity are more important than any benefit you could possibly get from this place.

Working at Arrow was great initially. Caseloads were manageable and training was adequate. However caseloads increased rapidly and workers would quit causing caseloads to double. During my 6 months with the company 3 out of 4 new hires quit within 4 months (leaving just me). They attempted to care about their employees by asking about self care and making sure everyone feels heard. However when it actually comes to helping their employees, supervisors begin to gaslight and show no mercy about the work. At one point, I had a caseload I was unable to manage (scheduling conflicts) and was told by my supervisor that she would help me, but she had her own stuff to do. Which is understandable, but don’t offer to help or ask if you can do anything if you don’t intend on helping. After I put in my notice, my supervisor gaslit me about making sure my work was complete or I wouldn’t be leaving on good terms and would send back notes that were once “awesome”. There is almost no option for work life balance when you have 17 kids to see across west Texas while they also have therapy, school, visitation, and more working against your scheduling. Especially when supervisors will not budge or help with the work load. There’s not a lot of freedom with the work and you have to follow a very specific curriculum in order to be approved for billing. 

PROS: 
-Nice building
-Ability to work from home at times
-Coworkers and supervisors are nice and friendly
-Flexible schedule
-Great foster parents and children
-Wonderful philanthropic work
-Supervisors do not micromanage

CONS:
-Very low salary with little to no chance of raises/bonuses
-Lack of advancement opportunity
-High turnover rate amongst coworkers
-Extreme lack of supervisory/management support
-Very unorganized/unclear job requirements and duties/little to no support in guidance on how to fulfill requirements
-Caseloads can become unmanageably high
-Unequal distribution of caseload amongst employees
-Distribution of homes spread out so much that you spend tons of your workday hours driving, leaving little time to complete your work
-They do not provide you with a work cell phone so you are expected to use your personal cell phone with no compensation
-Management seems to be more concerned with numbers and money than the well being of their employees and foster homes
-Management provides little support to foster homes AND employees
-No work life/personal life boundaries

My experience at this workplace was disappointing due to a lack of professionalism and consistency in leadership. There seemed to be a disconnect between the standards employees were expected to meet and the behavior modeled by management.

Employees were often expected to take on responsibilities they had never been trained for, and these additional duties were not reflected in compensation. Rather than providing adequate guidance or support, there was an expectation that staff would simply figure things out.

Another concern was the inconsistent enforcement of workplace policies. Employees were regularly reminded to follow certain rules, yet those same expectations were not consistently upheld by supervisors and higher-level staff. This created confusion and made it difficult to feel that everyone was being held to the same standards.

Additionally, some of the individuals hired demonstrated behavior that lacked professionalism and, at times, seemed comparable to the level of maturity expected from some of the students rather than employees.

Overall, I would not recommend working here unless there are significant improvements in leadership, employee training, accountability, and workplace culture.

What is the best part of working at the company?
The work is challenging but rewarding and there is never a dull moment. We make a difference in the lives of the children serve!  The Arrow family is awesome and the work culture has evolved over the past 3 years. No work place is perfect but I love that Arrow continues to meet the needs of it’s employees.

What is the most stressful part about working at the company?
Every child in our care has a story. Sometimes there are hard days but having a great team that supports you and understands make you look forward to what tomorrow will bring.

What is the work environment and culture like at the company?
Arrow has dedicated a lot of time in figuring out what works for creating the best work environment given what we do, this has helped to shape a positive experience for staff. Teamwork…transparency….integrity. They have an open door policy to senior leadership and a culture warrior committee that rocks!

What is a typical day like for you at the company?
Depending on which program you’re with your schedule could vary. Some programs are M-F 8:30-4 or if you apply/work for one of the programs that is swing shift it’s 7-3, 3-11, 11-7.

When I was working there they told me that I was going to work with team only for me to be the only person in the department. There was poor compensation and overworked. Poor Ethical and poor work culture and mistreatment of staff and volunteers. When I brought it up to them that they made commitments that they didn’t not keep they got disgruntled and said well think about it after they already made the commitments. They volunteers they would get a strong attitude with them and would make people job harder with always the administration  doing their jobs poorly. Also they refer to inspectors as their enemy. But for me I have never experienced anything like this before in my life. The work conditions were also very poor but they would shrug it off and no fix those conditions putting other employees in danger or causing for our jobs to be more difficult. Like a golf cart roof fell on me and when it happened I called the manger and they just had the maintenance person push it back up and screw it to whatever if could latch on. My I’ve talk experience was very poor to be honest and there was so many things that happened that I don’t even know if all of it was ethical. 

I came Into the job with the belief that i would be making a difference in someone’s life. I was told I would be trained and taught various skills to succeed. The reality for me was not that. I worked overnight and the co workers i had would sleep through the night with the girls as if they weren’t at work. They would record each other sleeping and complain to supervisors and managers about one another. They would talk about the girls living in the facility and their various issues. I’ve seen people make fun of a girl for bad hygiene. Truly sad. Managers have no idea what’s going on because there was not daily check in. They just went off of hear say.  I was not properly trained and therefore learned by example only to find out that what I saw was against policy and incorrect. After many weekends of living in chaos and strife I left the job. I was only there for 6 months but it was truly the most unprofessional environment I’ve been in. I would not work here but if you do just be aware that what is promised and the picture that is painted are lies.

I worked as a therapist for one of this organization's residential centers and it was the worst experience of my career. From the start there is essentially no training and the little information you are given by headquarters is not relevant to your specific position. Direct management was disrespectful, demeaning and would go out of their way to find things to chastise you about. My manager at the time went as far as to ask some of the residents (children in a residential treatment center) too report back to her on the behavior of staff which is completely inappropriate. There was never any support from headquarters when asked. There was no work-life balance. I was on-call 24/7 every other day and was frequently expected to drive to the center at all hours to respond to situations that were not in my scope of practice. I left as soon as I could and d would not recommend this place of employment to anyone. 

Top Job Titles	Average Salary
Behavioral specialist 3 salaries reported	$39,667 per year
Therapist 2 salaries reported	$60,000 per year
Teacher 1 salary reported	$62,500 per year
Special education teacher 1 salary reported	$61,000 per year
Ambassador 1 salary reported	$53,000 per year

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