mental health technician

registered mental health nurse

registered nurse

nursing assistant

intake coordinator

Carolina Dunes Behavioral Health

I have worked at Carolina Dunes for 2 years and I have never been happier working in behavioral health. I have been in this field for a very long time and have worked in a lot of different types of facilities. Never have I worked at a more ethical  company that cares more deeply about its patients and employees. Patients are carefully screened in an effort to identify for admission only those patients we think we can help. Patients who are not a good fit for the program are NOT admitted just to fill beds. Occasionally there are challenging cases but the leadership works hard to prevent them from impacting the treatment of the other patients. The entire team is fully committed to patient safety and all suggestions for improving safety and patient care are welcomed by administration. Leadership has increased salaries and shift differentials to help reward and retain those direct care employees who are the heartbeat of the organization. The facility has a lot of performance improvement initiatives and has made incredible strides during my time here. Our patients and staff are safe. Our patients are able to get to the root of what brought them into treatment, while thriving in a safe environment. Even though most patients did not voluntarily seek out our help, the majority rate us above 4 stars upon discharge. Being able to help people who don't all want help is tremendously rewarding, and knowing I can be a part of making a difference in the rest of their lives keeps me coming back for more. I love it here and I hope you will love it too. Don't be dissuaded by negative reviews by people who didn't have what it took to do the job. It's a difficult job at times and requires a special person. I hope that you find you are one of those and join us on our journey!

The direct staff and management here are great. However, this place is very unorganized which causes most of the job stress, which I blame the higher ups/CEO for. Most people only last 1-3 months here, due to the unsafety and chaotic nature of the job. From what I noticed, mainly older folks were able to stay for such a long time due to having thicker skin than us young ones. You will be responsible for restraining patients and breaking up fights if you work here, meaning you risk getting spit on, accidentally (or intentionally) hit, and getting cursed out by the kids. Fights and aggressiveness from the kids here are common more days than not. A pro is that the company tries to not leave new staff on the hall by themselves once they're done with training, but sometimes it does happen due to being so short staffed. Con is the pay is not worth the job stress at all. Management and BHA's are never all on the same page. There seems to be hundreds of rules that you will be required to remember but they only tell you by word of mouth rather than writing it down or giving you a list to go by in orientation. Each hall can have up to 18 teens, and they're all mingling with each other/able to leave their room whenever they want which causes most of the fights in my opinion. Patients with severe mental illnesses like these need to be separated. This is not the type of psych facility that you see on tv where the patients are locked in their own room.

What is the best part of working at the company?
Being one of the few acute, inpatient behavioral health facilities for adolescents in this area, we're able to make an important impact on this population. It's hard work, but fulfilling and the direct care teams work hard to support you and help you feel appreciated. The company pays well and offers weekly engagement events to take the pressure off the day-to-day work (lunches, parties, raffles, etc.)   

What is the most stressful part about working at the company?
Working with psychiatric patients is inherently stressful, their behaviors can be unpredictable at times. But you know this going into this kind of work. The fulfillment tends to outweigh the stress on most days  

What is the work environment and culture like at the company?
It's a hospital setting and feels like it. It's sterile and feels safe. It's a big facility with several different units and spaces for staff to take a break from the patients. The company is growing and there is excitement for being able to help more people. The admin office works to celebrate staff milestones and birthdays, providing opportunities to come together in fun ways - we had a chili cook off for the Superbowl party.

Carolina Dunes Behavioral Health Hospital is an extremely fast-growing company and a wonderful place to work! The CEO truly cares about each individual, welcomes creativity, and leads by example. The culture at CDBH is the best I've ever worked for and everyone is authentic and loves what they do. Working in mental health is a fragile industry but very rewarding since we are helping those who struggle with mental health concerns daily. Training processes are great and really help people to feel comfortable in each position. We have an open door policy, meaning if you have questions you are welcomed to ask for what you need to be successful. The managers are always willing to help and will take time out of their day to dedicate to helping you if needed. CDBH is under the parent company, Summit Behavioral, which offers the opportunity for growth throughout the nation. This job can be stressful due to the nature of our field but this is why it is imperative you are passionate about this field and the work you are doing! 

What is the best part of working at the company?
There are some very amazing people who have been committed to patient care despite the company’s rapid decline and dangerous reputation.

What is the most stressful part about working at the company?
Dealing with violent patients without the proper tools and support to maintain a safe workplace. Injuries and workplace violence are common occurrences and ignored by management.

What is the work environment and culture like at the company?
Toxic, stressful, dangerous for all staff who interact with patients. Culture is one of ignoring real issues that effect staff and patients, rather a focus on meaningless metrics and processing patients as money not human beings.

What is a typical day like for you at the company?
Managing any ratio or patients depending on staffing-usually lack thereof. Dealing with day to day issues management ignores and expects staff to resolve.

This job is absolutely horrible. Management pretends to care, but once you deny their requests to work extra shifts, because theyre perpetually understaffed, they discard you. The nurses do not go to the children when called. If they do go, their attitude is nasty which triggers the children and leads to behavioral issues. While the nurses are trained to restrain, they think they're too good to do so. Thus, never helping the MHTs with restraints and leading to an unsafe work environment. The nurses complain about the amount of paperwork they have to do, but yet have time to clock how many times the MHTs need to use the bathroom, how long they use the bathroom for, and how many times they need to get coffee.
The job is toxic and straining because of the nurses. And nothing will change because the CEO used to be a nurse and sees nothing wrong with their disgusting behavior.

Workdays are long. You have lazy staff, gossiping staff and managers that don’t help and always overstep their boundaries. Some days you have a strong team and most days you have one strong person and the rest that are just there. It’s very easy to get hurt especially when you have staff just standing by not wanting to help with restraints. Higher management doesn’t help as they have no real insight of what’s going on. You have bhas trying to help situations and then you have leadership coming in and talking down to the kids making things worse. The pay can be good but it means working extra hours and days just to make a check stretch. Turn over rate is high and it’s hard keep good staff because you have bad teams that overstep or talk down to other employees. This place is very unorganized nobody knows what is what, you have different answers from different people about things around the facility. Definitely need tough skin to work here. 

Overall I enjoyed my time there. Most of the staff genuinely cares about the patients. Staff that is. Admin, nope, only money and telling state inspectors what they want to hear, even being far from truth.  CEO does not care about employees, and it shows.  Often understaffed, which then causes safety issues, for staff and patients.  Many policies and procedures conflict each other, making it difficult to properly do your job. They will hold one person responsible for an entire unit, even if others are on it. They tell you to be therapeutic , but when you are, you're probably doing something wrong. Also, whenever investigating anything, they almost never get everyone's story that was involved. You will be cannon fodder and/ or a scapegoat if you work directly with patients. 

I felt my overall rapport with the staff and management was excellent. We all worked together very well and supervisors were supportive and gave high value to job education, held on-site with pay.

Problems were drastically apparent with the patient decline due to Covid19. Clients were suddenly being accepted to a mild mental illness/Alzheimer's program for adults who were more ill and actually dangerous for our staff to care for and work with. This shift was not indicated to be temporary.

I felt the job had become dangerous for me and others agreed with this assessment. 

The biggest issue that needs to be addressed with this facility is the ridiculous lack of consistency. Management is never on the same page. The enforcement of policies and rules is so incredibly inconsistent across staff members, across hallways, and across the managers assigned to each shift. Constantly understaffed and out of ratio. Favoritism by management, lack of communication between staff, and a lack of compensation for doing your job well is just more fuel to add to the fire. While it is very rewarding to establish therapeutic relationships with the clients and watch them evolve into better versions of themselves, these other issues make that process way more stressful than it should be.

Top Job Titles	Average Salary
Mental health technician 13 salaries reported	$15.38 per hour
Registered mental health nurse 10 salaries reported	$39.90 per hour
Registered nurse 3 salaries reported	$41.33 per hour
Nursing assistant 6 salaries reported	$18.25 per hour
Intake coordinator 2 salaries reported	$10.00 per hour

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