clinical support specialist

clinical specialist

paraprofessional aide

case manager

staff therapist

CK Family Services

I believe the company has a great mission-statement and good overall atmosphere, but it just does not meet those same values/ standards with the management and support of its employees. 

The mental health program is new and its a difficult transition as they learn effective ways to train staff to help them meet their expectations for productivity. Also the function and specific duties of your job doing "skills-training" is very ambiguous and sort-of left up to you to figure out, which is stressful and hard to understand how to implement. Its my opinion the skills-training curriculum  is outdated and ineffective, which is extremely discouraging when you are "selling" your services to the families, knowing the intervention is not great. Feedback is welcomed and staff seem to be supportive but needed changes are difficult to make, even with many complaints and employees quitting constantly.

The case-load is very difficult to manage with it fluctuating inconsistently and often not having a full caseload, or having way too many. These clients are assigned to you based on your location, but also at the sole discretion of your supervisor. Overall this is a management and a training problem because SO many employees burn out, get frustrated and cannot meet the bench but their caseload may not even have enough clients to practically meet those expectations!

If you are highly experienced and disciplined and willing to work late hours then you may enjoy it. I enjoyed it most of the time, but I saw that ultimately the bottom-line and profits outweighed the need for respecting their staff and the sacrifices they make to get all of the required hours. Perhaps if you go into expecting just another mental healthcare job the reality won't be so hard to swallow.

The QMHP position description does not match the job. The job is very rewarding for the clientele but very challenging. Training focused on meeting state regulations and standards and very little on the actual job activities to be completed.  There  was great potential and a measure of success in the work but an equal lack of knowledge and support from supervision. One is left to figure things out for themselves for how to fill the time and meet requirements for hours logged. The skills curriculum lacks how to fill the required hours weekly with each client.  The driving for the job made the requirements impossible on a 40 hour work week.  The best part of the job was working with the clients. The hardest part of the job was meeting requirements and lack of support as you are dealing with serious cases. It is not a good place if you need training for counseling as there is no counseling allowed and the position is not always in alignment with counseling ethical requirements. It does not provide a counseling experience training but is excellent for training on working with the foster care population. I felt that there were people in positions without adequate knowledge for their position that caused concerns for the population being served.  There is a very high turn over. This would be an excellent position for someone in social work or pursuing work with foster children.

Although the type of work is rewarding, there are a lot of issues with the position that take away from the rewarding aspects of the job. It was so stressful to ensure that you get your monthly units, that you get paperwork turned in before the 48 hour deadline, that it shifts the focus of the job from "making a difference in kids lives" to "I just need to get enough units or else I'm going to lose this job." Oftentimes the expectations just seemed impossible to meet. Plus the amount of prep work you have to do before seeing a client, the driving, the meeting itself, the paperwork afterwards..it definitely puts you over 40 hours a week, easily. Although the job is technically "flexible" you don't make your schedule, the clients do, and a lot of them can only meet in the evenings after school. Also, I can only speak from a QMHP perspective, but there was not enough training at all for what you're actually teaching the kids. They give you a bunch of curriculum and you basically have to teach yourself, come up with your own games/activities, buy materials with your own money, print out your own worksheets and just act like you know what you're doing. It seemed unhelpful in the long run for the kids. The pay does not align with all of the hours you end up putting in

There were no supervisors and the supervisors were upper management who had no idea how to help and then blamed you for not doing things that you were never trained to do or that the supervisor should have done. My supervisor didn't do documentation while I was on PTO and I got blamed for 3 day packets not being done on time when in reality I was on PTO and she should have done it. Also they can't keep CM's or supervisors. Supervisors were leaving fast leaving no leading to upper management being forced to step in. 
I went through 4 supervisors who all had different ways of handeling things and helping. The supervisor I ended up quitting under did not want to help nor let expectations known, therefore things I never knew were on me were being done late because the supervisor would never follow up or check in. Also they say they do supervision monthly, I did not have supervision with anyone except 1 supervisor who was the only one who actually taught me anything. My supervisor, never did any supervision and seemed like she retaliated towards the end and helped me even less after I put in my two weeks. Multiple people complained to higher ups and nothing was ever done.  

All this happened last year — I was super excited and was looking forward to the next step of my career as an LPC-A and even took a drastic pay cut from my previous position for this job. I wanted to work with kids, make a difference, and learn a new set of skills. I was only employed at CK for three months before I was let go without any explanation. When I asked why or what I could do to improve, they advised me to speak to my LPC supervisor for an explanation, only for my supervisor to tell me honestly that they told her that I “did not ask” why I was let go. I was so disheartened and upset as to how they handled both the termination (and even hiring) process that nothing positive came out of my experience with this organization. I almost felt like as soon as they saw me struggle in my role they gave up. Needless to say, I felt I struggled significantly as I did not feel like their training period was long or thorough enough to guide me as a new employee. 

CK keeps their mission in focus and has people that love God and love the children and families they serve. They will tell you the hours are flexible and it’s true that you can see some of your kids in the school and during the summer this job is a dream, but consider what it looks like to work with children after school while battling traffic going house to house. I love my the work I get to do with children and families each day, however it is really easy to feel disconnected from the agency as a whole and from leadership. On the behavioral health side you’re operating independently and it can be lonely often. I think leadership is alright overall but I have not heard directly from any leadership above my supervisor in a long time. It’s a large operation so it’s easy to feel lost in the shuffle and many things go unnoticed.

I love CK. I’ve built my full caseload and have become passionate about my families. The culture is amazing and there are no enemies here. Supervisors and senior leadership are all kind and easy to access. Work-life balance becomes solid once you’ve finished your caseload and get used to compartmentalizing. The only thing is that the pay is low, even as someone hired on the higher end of the starting pay range. There are consistent yearly raises and opportunities for advancement, though. And the reimbursement for gas is basically like another paycheck in itself because they reimburse fairly. Your hourly wage as a QMHP-CS is like a base pay in my opinion, because once you have a full caseload you can acquire extra billables and get overtime, and the reimbursements for expenses and gas are at multiple times the rate of usage.

CK seems to be changing the way they operate and it’s not for the best. CK used to have such a great reputation and they stood by their faith based philosophy. They used to focus on helping their current foster families and maintaining current employees, but that’s no longer the case. For the last year, CK has made it known they’re focusing more on how many families they can license (regardless of quality), how quick they can license families and how many “basic” foster children they can bump to “specialized.” It’s really sad how much they’ve changed. CK says they’re struggling with money coming in, but just recently they created new positions, hired new people who have no foster care experience to fill those positions and gave them a huge salary. Then CK complains they can’t afford to hire more employees. I wonder why? Case managers and case manager supervisors are overworked, way underpaid and unappreciated.

While coworkers and supervisors are kind, there was very little actual support offered in the way of teaching materials, lessons, and guidance for how to help clients who had specific needs (such as being non-verbal). You have a quota to meet monthly, but the clients consistently cancel. This leaves you unable to meet your quota and/or using your off time to meet it. The amount of effort that went into planning lessons, scheduling, documenting and traveling was not supported by the pay of $18.27 an hour. Not only that, but you were expected to use your own funds for some things. Some of which were reimburse-able, but still, a significant amount of your own money was spent on clients. They allow $5 per child, per session. How much do you think you can provide for $5? If you cannot meet your quota, even due to cancellations, they expect you to use your PTO. 

The people who lead the behavioral health department really have your back and want you to success. They do really thorough training when you start and then they're pretty supportive whenever you need help. It's def not one of those jobs where they just throw you out there to sink or swim. I got my clinical license (LCSW) while there and was able to count all my hours toward licensure. They have other opportunities for promotion in the BH department too once you've been there a year. Also, you can get overtime pay by seeing more clients at any time, which really helps.

Top Job Titles	Average Salary
Clinical support specialist 14 salaries reported	$19.11 per hour
Clinical specialist 1 salary reported	$39,000 per year
Paraprofessional aide 41 salaries reported	$15.00 per hour
Case manager 3 salaries reported	$19.47 per hour
Staff therapist 24 salaries reported	$54,000 per year

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