social worker

enrollment manager

learning and development coordinator

engagement specialist

quality specialist

Illinois Action for Children

Pros:
1. Health insurance and benefits.
The company provides excellent benefit package for you and your family. The cost of a very good insurance (including dental and vision) is relatively low and you do feel secured when it comes to hospitals and doctors. You also have a choice between different plans. In case you die while employed there, your family will get $50.000 and you don't pay a penny to be part of this program. You can buy extra life insurance if you want to. There are also optional 401K and a discounted Ventra card.
2. Exceptional PTO.
PTO is also something you can highly appreciate. For those who work there for less than a year, you get 7.08 hours earned every two weeks and you can start using your PTO after 30 days of working (the paid two week training period counts). If you survive there for more than a year, you will yearn 8.62 respectively. Moreover, if you stay there for more than two years, get 10.77 hours for every two weeks. Getting approved for a day off is usually pretty easy. There are some tricky things though that you can't transfer more than 2 weeks of your gained PTO to the next year and better use it before it expires or goes to a strange medical PTO bank.
3. Parking situation and commuting.
The company has a big parking lot (Damen and Chatham locations) which is free and it is never an issue to find a spot. The Damen location of the company is close to the highway.
4. Other minor pluses.
Once a year (on Thanksgiving) the company gives a $25 Target gift card. There also could be a bonus (whichever is better for you: either 3% of your annual income or $1200) but it could be just a one-time gift that doesn't occur yearly. Perhaps, it depends on the director's decision or available funding. There is also a food truck that sometimes comes to the building for those who don't have stuff to eat (of course, overpriced). Also, there is some sort of program that you can sign up for and get discounted food delivery. Generally speaking you may also meet new people and possibly make friends; some people there are very nice and kind and could turn into friends.

Cons:
1. Low pay.
The salary is a couple dollars more than you get working in a fast food restaurant. Nothing to add. Really. This alone could be enough to say no to this place. Just for your information.

If you are a professional with good work ethics you do not want to work for this company. The company is not honest and consistently change things at the last minute. For example ,they will tell you a location you are hired to work then suddenly the first day of work the location  changes.( This can be inconvenient because of time and location as well as if you have children to take care of). They are not honest and have a high turn over rate especially within the hr department. For example during orientation they indicate how much time (pto) you receive, and it increase yearly, however they never state that that time is taken for holidays. This mean that you will never have time , if you take time off more than likely you wont be getting paid that day. This is only the beginning, The Ford heights location is horrible. At this location  have to use the same bathroom as the children or leave out the building to go across the street to a home which the company has  acquired. The director has poor communication skills, shows favoritism, has a short memory, is incompetent, not professional,  is shady act as if they control you. Overall This is the same attitude a the company. The work load is overwhelming but they treat you like your going to do it if you want to get paid. The directors at act if they are your masters wiping you in shape. The aura is as if you are in the masters place picking cotton. Well you might as well be because this is how you are treated. Staff  come to work with not intentions to work, and bring personal problems with them. The sad part about it is that you can tell these thing to the director and the director will act as if something will be done but nothing ever changes. I would never recommend working for this company especially this sight.

A typical day at Illinois Action was full. When I say full I mean it was non-stop moving and that I appreciated. It kept the pace of the day to manage time. We made the room inviting for the children to want to come to school to learn. This position helped me grow my skills by being interactive with the students and classroom teacher. I learned so much in this position like tone usage. The teacher assistant which was my role was treated equally to the classroom teacher allowing us to pitch ideas and access the children inner abilities learning what they liked and how to adjust the lessons accordingly so that the child stays engaged. It allowed me to be free to help more in honing my skills to aspire to become a classroom lead teacher. This made my job enjoyable we were a team.  Enjoyed being a team player it made the time pass. The hardest part of the job was getting children to come to school on time so they did not miss the instructional period.

Working here definitely has some benefits, but overall, there is very little care for employees, which is why they have to train 50 new employees every other month. When people are constantly quitting, it’s clear that there is a problem with the work culture. Yet, very few changes are made, even though it would take much less money and effort to treat current employees well rather than hiring new ones every few seconds. It seems that nothing employees do is considered good enough (as noted in another review), and there are constant complaints about small mistakes which is funny because meanwhile, employees are expected to be understanding when the heat or air conditioning isn’t working in the building (which happens frequently), when policies are changed at the last minute, or when a huge mistake is made on a mass email. There is so much potential with this company, and if they could abandon outdated ideals and policies, they might be able to retain employees. 

There is no work/life balance here.  It is extremely different from public school.  You are expected to handle enrollments, teach children and adults in daycares all about the PFA program without much help from supervisors.  You are on your own.  You are supposed to work as a team with your staff at your center.  It is hard because the staff is not trained and you are their trainer.  It makes it hard when they don't agree with the program standards.  It causes much stress and then you bring that stress home with you on top of the loads of paperwork you are expected to do.  The agency continues to add more paperwork during the year.  There are some raises but with the expectations for teachers there should be extra compensation.  You have to find your own trainings to keep up with your CPDUs and they usually don't compensate for those if there is a cost.  You are also expected to have a Gateway account and keep up with those trainings along with the state trainings.  It's just too much stress!

This company sucks on so many levels. The employees are over worked and underpaid. I have been there for over 6years and my salary has only changed by $2.80, while the CEO's salary doubled from 2001 to 2009, from 179000 to 343000, all while telling her employees there is no money for raises. They expect you to be empathetic to clients while spitting in employees faces. We are micro managed, by supervisors that are not competent to lead. Most supervisors will not admit to being wrong, they don't want us to use common sense when reviewing cases. We feel like robots trapped in prison. I encourage anyone who applies for this job, please use it as a stepping stone, something that looks nice on a resume. They like to nit pick, oh I forgot to mention, when you are taking customer service calls, they want you to notify the supervisor if you need to use the bathroom, it's a four hour phone shift by the way. No matter what you do you are not appreciated, they say thank you but their actions say just do what I say.

What is the best part of working at the company?
The schedule is at a decent time. Teachers aren’t required to come in too early or stay too late. 

What is the most stressful part about working at the company?
Managing a classroom of 20 children and half of them need education services for delays but not being equipped with special education certifications and tools to teach them, the mountains of around the clock paperwork, the implemented schedule within the classroom is overwhelming to keep up with, parents can drop off at any point in the day, communication amongst administration down to remaining staff is off, lunch breaks aren’t long enough for hourly staff

What is the work environment and culture like at the company?
Stressful, often times messy and toxic, not fun, we aren’t allowed time to really connect and communicate with other staff. 

What is a typical day like for you at the company?
Stressful, busy, I’m always on go. Never really having time to sit down.

When you first start they train you to process applications and answer phones. You will begin in the call center and take calls from clients and providers. This is usually the hardest area to deal with as there is no real backing of staff when we deal with disrespectful and rude calls. Management do not seem to care about anyone outside of their pods and lack leadership. Processing department handles the application and paperwork but makes the same amount as the call center. There is more work and they are not compensated for it. Management is not clear on how they review staff and it changes based on who is reviewing. The company has a great mission but definitely needs better leadership, training and structure. 

Illinois Action for Children was an great place to work. As a Head Start Recruiter, I was given the opportunity to provide crucial educational training and information to parents. Many of these parents were in low-income brackets and were very grateful to find quality child care services.

I chose to move on from the agency due to low compensation, no benefits because the Head Start Recruiter position went from full time temporary to part time temporary. Consequently, there was very little job security or advancement.

My Typical day at work is normally quiet Answering Switchboard 3 days out of a week, Scanning paper work 2 days a week, Pulling paperwork Per Specialist Request, logging information in system.

  I've learned so much at my Job on the importance of helping Children/ Families get the help they need for childcare so that they will be able to work knowing there child/children are in good hands with a reliable Provider to care or them.

I have one of the Best Supervisors and Managers in this Business.

Co-workers are Great 

The hardest part of my Job is not being able to help Families. 

The most Enjoyable part of my job Learning new Projects Daily.

Top Job Titles	Average Salary
Social worker 6 salaries reported	$17.17 per hour
Enrollment manager 3 salaries reported	$50,467 per year
Learning and development coordinator 1 salary reported	$43,800 per year
Engagement specialist 3 salaries reported	$45,717 per year
Quality specialist 4 salaries reported	$48,200 per year

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