director of social services

clinician

behavioral health counselor

community support specialist

program coordinator

CBH Care

I work for the Partnership Program. A typical day consists of monitoring consumers, observing medications, cooking meals, writing progress notes, documenting behaviors, and transporting consumers into the community. The job is pretty simple, good for your first experience in the field. I enjoy working with such a diverse population of adults with mental illness.

However, I won't stay here much longer... the pay is horrible. Almost everyone here is overworked, picking up multiple shifts per week to pay their bills, and no one gets reimbursed for travel even though many of us live almost an hour away. The company hardly ever gives raises, and because of this, it's rare for employees to stick around much longer than a year. The schedule always has so many open shifts - so there's opportunity for overtime, but you will definitely be asked to work extra every single week. 

None of my supervisors have given me any constructive feedback yet so far. Higher management is usually unsupportive of staff when consumers become violent - it often seems like they are more concerned with keeping a bed filled than their employees' safety. 

The care that we offer to consumers is (in my opinion) severely lacking. Counselors and mental health workers receive such little training for their positions, and they are expected to run 4 group activities per day with limited materials. 


All in all, I'm glad I chose to work here as my first job in the field, but I am looking forward to working somewhere that values its employees, provides better training and feedback, and offers better care for its consumers.

Young, fresh graduates are intentionally placed in the role of Residence Managers because they are gullible and will do what their supervisors tell them to do. These young people do not realize that they are being played like fools. OR if you happen to live next door to the CEO, a job is available for you even though you don't have the experience required for the position. Catch that tea. 

The RMs have a modicum of power, yet seem to think that it makes them better than the counselors, when this is hardly the case. Most of the counselors have second jobs and really could not care less about the RMs and their pipe dreams. The RMs have no supervisory skills whatsoever and would benefit from real training. Many of them are considerably younger than the veteran counselors or mental health workers, and do not know how to talk to them in a respectful or professional manner. 

If you come to an interview, you will be told that the clients are self sufficient and you are simply there to monitor them. LIES. You will be cooking meals from scratch. Some of them do not have control of their bowels so you will have to endure some harsh smells. Some of them are abusive, and management does not have your back when this happens because they don't want to lose the client's money if they client gets arrested or sent back to the hospital. So....the incident will not be properly filed or documented.

A typical day involved getting the office set up before the day clients arrived at 9:00 am.  There were phone messages to review, schedules to be made and filing to be done daily.  I learned how to deal with the public at this company.  Most of the clients were either patients seeing doctors and therapists, or clients in the day care facility for people with mental illness. The management was good and they were very companssionate people.  The hardest part of the job was sometimes not having enough work to do yet trying to stay busy.  I graduated the month before from Eastwick College where I was trained in computer concepts and applications.  I did take the first job that came along since a job was rare to find after i graduated the computer program.  Unfortunately I did not have the opportunity to use any of the computer applications that I learned.  The most enjoyable part of my job was communicating with the clients on a daily basis. They would often visit us in the main office looking for their doctors or therapists and sometimes just to talk.  I learned a whole new level of compassion for the mentally ill and truly enjoyed every moment I spent talking with them.

I worked this job as my first job out of college. I worked nights which ultimately didn't work out for me, but that's my fault, not theirs. It was a good learning experience, but I had an issue with PTO and how the managers would badger you to take on extra shifts.

In order for you to take PTO, you needed to find coverage for the shifts you are not going to be present for. Seeing as they were always understaffed, this was quite the task. You could call out sick, but you would be guilted because you would force a worker from the previous shift to work a double. Also because they were understaffed, Residence Managers would beg every worker to pick up extra shifts. 

On top of all of that, some clients could have been in a different level of care. Some clients could have stepped down to a lower security facility, or needed a higher level of care, but the directors of the program would hold onto clients to make sure the beds were filled. Sure they said that it was hard finding a new placement for them, but when a more difficult client needed a new placement, suddenly 2 more of the "manageable" clients also found placements despite the directors telling workers that "It hard for placements for these clients to open up" for several months.

CBH care was a horrible agency to work for. The consumers were the best part of the job and interacting with them made the days worth it. Management is absolutely horrible and would not promote growth of its employees. Director would promote people that were lap dogs and would go along with her horrible management skills. Harassment was okay in managements eyes and they would make sure to back the managers not doing their job and label workers who had passion for the job as bad people. The turn over rate was extremely high and was blamed on salary, while the salary was not the best most people left because of the horrible management. Workers who were not liked in the Directors eyes would never be praised even if they went above and beyond. Workers were told, she won't let you be recognized because she doesn't like you. Management would not back the clinical decisions of employees but belittle them and tell them they were wrong. Supervision was never given and when an employee made a mistake they were called out in front of the office for it. CBH gives you the entry level experience you need for your resume but once you leave you will see how there are better run mental health agencies out there.

Overall, I would say that if you are looking for something short- term and just want to gain case management skills this is a decent job for you. They do have reasonable health insurance. For an individual who is licensed and the amount of work you do the pay is quite low. This particular job requires you to be on call once a month, so if you struggle with work- home balance I don't think this particular job would workout.  My time here was quite tough and I felt like I wasn't supported  and I felt there was no opportunity for me to gain true clinical experience... which I think was on my part because this isn't really a clinical job. Honestly that is okay.  I felt that the work environment was  overall toxic, which is really unfortunate. The most enjoyable part was assisting clients with needs and some reaching their goals and the toughest part was that there was no support amongst staff. Working here made me honestly lose myself and broke me. If you decide on trying this place out... good luck, maybe it may workout for you. Unfortunately, this particular location struggles with teamwork which is important in the social work field. It's been a while and I hope that things have changed. 

Your typical day comprises of being verbally abused by the clients and more often than not , the program coordinators/assistant program coordinators.  I learned that there is much pettiness in this field. Management before the turnover phase was pretty supportive. However, after awhile after the turnover, The management became caddy, and superficial. Workplace culture. If you are lucky you have great teammates, but more often than not, you don't. Hardest part of the job is knowing that a client could physically harm you and you would be the one that would get blamed or written up for it, because they only care about the money coming in from said client. The only enjoyable part was that I learned alot from the original supervisory team when I first started. When they all left, I lost all enjoyment. Lack of advancement, I applied to become an Resident manager and was turned away. Another applicant with no experience in the field whatsoever was hired instead. The program coordinators and assistant program coordinators only care about their own bonuses to adequately supply staff with any supplies that are needed.

Working for CBH Care at the BA level is glorified daycare work much of the time. The clients are mostly low functioning and get very little out of the day program groups, so while the work is usually easy (tedious, but easy) and the clients pleasant, you rarely feel like you've made a difference. Low-level staff members tend to be supportive and helpful, but management is very disconnected from the ground-level work and often has unrealistic expectations that interfere with the day-to-day operations. Mental health worker shifts are 8 hours long, but there is a 1-hour unpaid lunch that you are not allowed to skip, so you are only actually paid for 35 hours/week. Managers strongly encourage overtime but play favorites when offering shifts. Overall, it isn't a bad job, but you'll want to move onto bigger and better things soon.

When interviewed for the position I was not told of the changes the program I applied for was undergoing. I asked what the maximum caseload would be so I can be prepared; the supervisor also explained that the cases would not be given to me all at once so I felt relieved. Once I began work it felt obvious after a week or two the lack of training there was. In addition, our program was also understaffed. Our supervisor was prepared to add a multitude of cases exceeding the maximum caseload for each staff member to undertrained staff and made it clear staff should not submit their case notes late as it would be “a pain in the a**” to deal with the insurance.

Overall, I also did not feel valued there, I had to take on the exceeded amount of cases I was originally promised as well as offer my multilingual services and micromanage the program’s elderly psychiatrist who refuses to retire. I certainly would have lost my quality of life had I not resigned and I definitely was not compensated adequately.

First job in the field out of college with a BA in Psyc. As full time you get 14 an hour and affordable health ins. The clients are the best part of the job, they are all very unique and you need a lot of patience. There isn't room for growth unfortunately and there can be a lot of pressure since you are dealing with medications. There is a lot of miscommunication about meds, which is scary. You do a lot of admin work and help the consumers achieve their treatment plan goals you set with them. Coworkers can be really catty and you see a lot of ppl that shouldn't work with mentally ill. Don't stay too long, get experience and try to do better.

Top Job Titles	Average Salary
Director of social services 30 salaries reported	$41,580 per year
Clinician 48 salaries reported	$57,458 per year
Behavioral health counselor 38 salaries reported	$42,785 per year
Community support specialist 37 salaries reported	$19.50 per hour
Program coordinator 29 salaries reported	$57,603 per year

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