therapist

case worker

case manager

family therapist

family support worker

Ireland Home Based Services

Ireland Home Based Services is a company with some potential. However, there are many things that need to change to relieve the high turnover rate. There are reasons why most employees last less than a year. 

The company offers many services to the community, but is mostly involved with the supervision of children and families. In Indiana, there is a high demand for social workers, and a heavy caseload burden on the entire state. This inherently effects the company, and all social workers involved. Case loads are heavy,and because of this stress trickles down from upper management to the workers. 
Instead of quality services, workers begin to focus on numbers, and billable hours, and how many cases they can squeeze into the day. 
Workers feel the pressure to constantly take over more than they are required. When they do, they get bonus pay that is nice... But be warned, it is easy to burn yourself out very quickly. If you are a college graduate, with no children and other responsibilities outside of work, this seems more okay. But it is very difficult to have a family and work at IHBS.

Workers are offered medical, vision, dental. But be warned, the insurance is VERY expensive. For a family, medical would have been 600$ plus a month! What social worker can afford this !? Once again, if one is paying insurance for a single person, then it is "okay", but still very, very expensive for the most part.

A lot of time is spent driving! While driving, you are not making your hours, but you use to get mileage reimbursement. I know the company is changing its policy in this area, but be warned. Some days, you are driving over 4 hours, sometimes more. This is very harsh on the human body, and you may find yourself gaining weight, suffering back aches, and feeling lethargic. It is a challenge to find time between driving, doing paperwork, and supervising visits to find exercise. 

While the company definitely has negative aspects, it is also filled with like-minds, many warm and caring social workers that want to help others, and be the difference in this world. As a workers here, you also get to form relationships with wonderful people and make a difference in the lives of children and their families. You are able to gain an understanding of many aspects of life, and certainly grow in many ways as an individual in the social work field....

However, SAY GOODBYE TO YOUR PERSONAL LIFE. 

 If the company can find a way to show appreciation to the foot soldiers of the company, and help promote more work/life balance (Not burning out the workers) then maybe this company has a surviving chance...

If it continues on the current path, people will continue to leave quickly and IHBS will NEVER have a solid, consistent workforce.

The best thing about this job is the professional experiences one gains which can be taken to a variety of other fields from research to further client service professions.

Compensation is not outstanding but the overtime bonus pay is quite generous if you can manage the added stress and paperwork associated. There are always opportunities for taking on more hours if you need to and it's pretty easy to get overtime as often as you want.

While this could be a good thing for some people, because there is always a need for workers to take on additional hours, it got to the point where I almost felt pressured to take on more than I could handle at times. Supervisors, management, and the referrals department tend to harass the clinical staff to take coverage, which, even though it's part of their job, becomes stressful and make it difficult to maintain healthy work/personal life boundaries and contributes to the company's extremely high voluntary turnover rate.

This contributed to my feeling that management seems to put company image above employee wellbeing. They spoke during group meetings about their desire to avoid employee burn out, yet don't offer the most generous PTO I've experience, particularly for the stress level of the job. And when people did call in, they would ask for justification for taking the personal time and required the employee to submit paperwork for each of their cases before allowing the employee to take off.

Additionally, I often had the feeling that management and my supervisors didn't really have my back. A couple of them were good, but I often felt micromanaged and judged from my primary supervisor. If there were an issue with a client, she told me to change the way I handled situations and seemed to assume I didn't handle things in the best possible way. She would report to her supervisor that she had counseled me rather than offering actual moral support, which is really what I would have benefited from. The stress from feeling pressured by my supervisor and generally without support from management eventually led to my making some errors due to stress and I eventually had to quit because I just felt burned out.

That said, I did learn a lot of skills and had a variety of experiences that look great on a resume. While this job wasn't something I ever wanted to do long term, it did look great on a resume.

What is the best part of working at the company?
If your full-time you get a company car to use and the pay is decent.

What is the most stressful part about working at the company?
Everything is about meeting numbers. You are required to work a required amount of hours a week and month so if you have a client cancel on you or no show, then you have to find a way to work extra to make up those hours missed that you had no control over. This includes being forced to pick up late visits that are hours away to make up time and working a 12+ hour day total, but only part of your day counts towards the required time. If you aren't with a client, your time doesn't count so you will be expected to work very long days to barely meet the required hours or you will be terminated. They also did not keep their word on bonuses/incentive pay or other promises. 

What is the work environment and culture like at the company?
You are expected to be available any time between 8a to 8p 7 days a week to do your required hours, fill in or pick-up additional clients due to demand, work on your "days off", and make up missed hours due to client's non-compliance. That time does not include notes, treatment plans, weekly check-ins with DCS workers, monthly reports, mileage reports, and trainings. You are expected to meet numbers above all other things because work is required to come before family, any obligation you have,  missing hours due to required company training (you will work late to make up those hours also because they don't count), sickness, etc. Family and self-care are preached, but the company expects you to give up your family and time to remain available for their needs or you face termination. In the handbook it states that after you do not meet hours, you will be terminated after a couple incidents. It's all about the numbers and covering every case, but not truly caring for employees. 

What is a typical day like for you at the company?
Start working in the morning, drive to numerous different cities/counties all over Indiana, have client no show you, work late to make up lost time due to client's non-compliance, and being up until midnight or later doing notes, treatment plans, reports, etc since you drive all day and can't complete everything while you drive or pick up extra work to barely get by.

The job itself was great for my first social work experience. I learned so much with how to help clients, treatment plans, and case management. My supervisors in region 15 were amazing. They were always there for support and helped me learn. My co-workers were like family to me and I still talk to some of them. I gained so much knowledge here in almost three years and I'm very grateful for that. However my personal life was being ignored. I barely had time to do the things I used to do and every time I went home I was so exhausted I would shut my own husband out. My health started to take a toll and I found myself canceling on clients almost every week which wasn't fair to them. I finally decided I needed to go to a less demanding job. 
You get a company car, a cell phone, and a computer which is great and now everything is wireless. I used to have to do a lot of paperwork. Paperwork is still demanding but when they made everything wireless it defintely helped. The downside is I was expected to do paperwork with clients and that was very hard with visits. In the end I loved the experience and I loved seeing my clients do better but my mental health and personal life matter too so I had to move on. It is great for gaining experience if you can make it over 2 years. The first year is rough but it gets manageable.

I learned a lot during my time at Ireland and grew as a therapist.  It was a rewarding job when I saw progress with families and saw growth within my staff.  I think this is a difficult job to do long-term, and it could get frustrating.  It's a difficult population to work with; many clients don't actually want the help since this is forced on them.  You will sometimes see DCS make decisions we are not in agreement with and just have to accept it after advocating for what we think is right.  Work-life balance is hard to maintain.  You need to make so many face-to-face hours, but with no shows and cancellations, you are sometimes working all day or have to work on your days off despite putting in effort during a working day.  You can easily get burnt out.  Supervisors and directors are great, but top management is not.  It's a stressful job and sometimes people just want to be heard even if nothing can be done about it.  Top management doesn't listen well. 
 Sometimes they completely miss your point or get defensive and try to provide solutions which can feel invalidating to staff's emotions.  They've also said and done things that have made other staff and me feel unappreciated and undervalued.   

Overall this company is people focused.  They truly do care about their employees.  This is a generally positive and somewhat fulfilling environment to work in.   That being said,  some of the work/life/“extras” expected can be unrealistic.  They work a good horse to death out of necessity.  There is high turnover due to many just not being able to handle Social Work in general.  The nature of the work is extremely heart warming and can be extremely heart wrenching.

  This is the only company I have ever worked for that management really does try to help their staff through set backs and hardship.  Most do not last for more than 2 years on the job.  That isn’t so much a reflection on the company, but the work itself.  

There are some fantastic perks that come with the job.  Pay is comparable, but Ireland pulls ahead with the company car perk.  

No matter my tenure with this company I do see why they are the leader in service providers in all of Southern Indiana.  We are great at what we do.  There are some incredible people from the too to the bottom of the company.  It’s not for everyone, but there is a family culture at Ireland, and those who can handle the job experience it.

The one-star rating I am required to give this company is honestly too much. This place will burn you out in no time and then continue to push you. You don’t get days off. The cell phone the company provides is expected to be with you at all times and clients, supervisors, and DCS caseworkers will call you whatever day and time they please without consideration of your own personal time. Management was poor and would pretend to care about your well-being but actually only cared about you meeting your billable hours. The hours are inconsistent and if clients cancel, it comes back on you. I was asked several times why I allowed clients to cancel on me. The management from the supervisors all the way up to the top only care about the money being brought in. The training is poor and doesn’t prepare you for what you’re going to deal with. It is not surprising, though, considering how out of touch the supervisors, directors, and managers are from working in the field. I wanted to help people, but this place made me only worry about my hours and meeting the weekly requirement. My clients weren’t getting the best me possible because of the pressure coming from management. During my time at IHBS I kept hoping it would get better as they worked new policies out, but instead it got worse and worse. My advice: Don’t do it.

This has been a great spot to grow in case management as a beginner in the field. I love the families I serve - they are the highlight of the job, and being able to meet them in such intimate circumstances is deeply rewarding and meaningful. The work-life balance has been a weighing issue for me since I first started. Training was structured with set start and end times, but once I got into the field, my supervisor gave me cases that had me driving from 8am until 7, 8, or 9pm each evening. I was hitting 40 hours by Friday, and they still encouraged I take cases Saturday when mine would cancel that day. When I said I didn’t think it was needed since I’d already hit well over 40 hours, they said it isn’t about the hours, it is about the needs of the clients. When I asked to please be done by 7 latest in the evenings, my supervisor then disregarded it two weeks later and tried to add a case that would have me home past that. I’ve learned I really have to advocate for my personal needs. There are wonderful people on the company to meet with who will advocate for you, and I’m so thankful for the opportunity to grow and serve here. The lengthy drives and late hours however very quickly informed me this wouldn’t be a job I could keep long-term. It’s a good place to be for now.

This is the best company I have ever had the pleasure of working for.  They are caring, compassionate, and understanding.  

The work can be challenging.  You will be meeting people at some of the lowest points in life.   You will work with children that have been neglected and abused.  You will work with parents that are incarcerated, in active substance use, fighting anger issues, etc.  You will see filthy homes that will make your stomach turn.  On the flip side, when you help a parent overcome their obstacles and grow and reunite with their children, it is the greatest feeling ever.  When you see a kid with behavioral issues using skills you taught them and getting better reports from school, it makes all the challenges worth it.

Be mindful of your own mental health.  The slow burn of the stress of dealing with other people's struggles can sneak up on you.  The only reason I left this company was for that very reason.

Your experience at IHBS depends on your position and your supervisor. My QI supervisor is great, and the work/life balance is good. But if you are a caseworker (everyone starts as a caseworker or therapist), you have to be available to see clients 8a-8p. If you don't get enough face to face with clients on your normal days (for instance, if a client cancels), you have to work on your off days to make up hours. If you don't make monthly hours, regardless of why, you get written up. Pay is not competitive. No parental leave. Mediocre insurance that is expensive. Middle management is good. Some upper management can be difficult to deal with. The work can be rewarding, and I guess it is a decent place to get some experience, but turnover is high for the reasons above. The one positive that keeps people from leaving is you can qualify for a company car; that makes up a little for the low salary and has kept me at Ireland longer than I would have stayed otherwise.

Top Job Titles	Average Salary
Therapist 7 salaries reported	$59,014 per year
Case worker 14 salaries reported	$51,643 per year
Case manager 24 salaries reported	$46,633 per year
Family therapist 4 salaries reported	$58,136 per year
Family support worker 1 salary reported	$35,419 per year

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