therapist

case planner

social worker

youth counselor

case manager

JCCA

This was the most stressful job I have had in over 20 years of employment. Co-workers are the only positive aspect of the job. Turnover rate - at least for the BSFT program - is appallingly high, with good reason. Overall: there is a problematic attempt to merge Child Welfare with a one-size-fits-all, trendy, evidence-based treatment called Brief Strategic Family Therapy. The treatment modality is not appropriate for the majority of the population JCCA works with in NYC, as the research backing it up is not based on work with this population, and one is trying to serve two masters - ACS (the Administration for Children's Services) and BSFT, based at the University of Miami - with the result of pleasing neither. Also, workers are expected to complete paperwork on evenings and weekends for no pay, because the 35 paid hours during the week aren't nearly enough to put a dent in the expected workload. The pay isn't high enough to compensate for this, as it is starvation wages for NYC. The work is stressful: in-home family therapy (commuting all over Brooklyn, in itself, is exhausting and chaotic) for families who are usually forced - either court-mandated, or strong-armed by ACS - into having family therapy. They don't want the therapy and they don't want the therapist to be in their homes. With that said, the families I worked with were extremely gracious toward me as they tolerated having a service pressed on them that often clashed with their cultural values and appeared to make them feel condescended to. Some made good progress as they tolerated the family therapy and were able to do some work to improve their dynamics. Other families I essentially had to chase down via phone calls, texts, and drop-in visits for up to 5 months, even after they said "No" to our services. This was in order to fulfill ACS and BSFT requirements which often do not take the needs of particular families into consideration but are pushing an agenda, attentive to issues of liability over anything else. The worst part of this job, though, was dealing with the management. My clinical supervisor did not have a Master's degree (which in itself is fine, but not if you have a Master's and require a licensed clinician to supervise you) and spoke to me in an insulting, verbally abusive manner, even laughing at me during supervision sessions. She aggressively micromanaged - via emails, calls to my home before I had to be at work, etc. - and rarely if ever said a supportive, non-critical word. She made it clear that I needed to take work home, even over holiday weekends, even though I am a parent, and reprimanded me if I didn't. I felt harrassed and woke in the middle of the night worried about overdue progress notes, etc. This was not helped by the fact that the individual notes are more like graduate-level papers (mine were usually 2-3 pages in length for each session I conducted, and were returned to me full of crossouts and corrections more appropriate to third-grade homework) and that's not to mention massive, recurrent ACS paperwork. I tried speaking to my supervisor more than once about what I expected and needed from supervision, how a little encouragement was perhaps necessary to keep me functioning productively. Any attempt to improve our working relationship met with silence and more criticism. When I spoke to my supervisor's boss, she basically told me to suck it up.

My main critique of this job is that the work environment is inhumane. There is a pressing need in this field for clinicians to be able to engage in self-care (i.e., NOT working during their time off, nor stressing out to the point of tears during a typical day at work) in order to effectively perform the work they do, and JCCA does not hold this value for its workers. In case it appears that this review is just sour grapes from a bad worker, I will add that my BSFT supervisor - the one who actually viewed videos of my work with families - gave my clinical work high marks. JCCA is unfortunately driving away good clinicians and will continue to do so unless they make serious changes to management and perhaps rethink partnerships with evidence-based models - or at least, hire enough staff to tackle the resulting doubled workload, rather than expecting staff to work themselves into a nervous breakdown.

This organization has managed to delay the conversion to Managed Care billing for about 7 years now. This has been good, because they have been able to pay Social Workers closer to what they deserve. 
Unfortunately, JCCA has been subdued by the state and will be completing the conversion to Managed Care by Jan 1st, 2019. The trajectory is that half the staff will have had resigned by that time.  What does this mean to an experienced Social Worker? Salaries for a Masters level employee will be dropping to roughly $45,000 or less, because those slots will now be designated for bachelor's level employees.

The organization generates enough to maintain a well-kept fortress of a building. Unfortunately, the technology and means of processing data are outdated.  This is inefficient when it comes to collaboration between departments. The different departments are very siloed, which hinders flowing communication. Quite often if you need assistance from any available staff, you will be diverted back to your immediate supervisor, who may not available.  That's just the culture here.

If you are outgoing and comfortable in your own skin, watch your back, because they don't like it when you don't stay in your lane.  I can't speak to the executive level, but I did manage  to observe the supervisory level; they're like a little sorority of paper professionals. 
 They have minimal practical knowledge, with a big disconnect from the client base.  It was all about the metrics.  This place is essentially a social Enterprise.

Despite having a jealous supervisor, I must say I did meet some interesting individuals for this particular work assignment. There were truly dedicated workers there that wanted to help children and their families.  I cannot speak to the entire organization, for I was boxed into one particular program.  Within that program, I was not pleased with my experience and how things were managed.
I found the communication was not always clear, and the help was not communal.  
This review is for those of you that are committed to your profession. If you are just getting your feet wet, then by all means jump on board and be the best that you can be.  Just don't allow yourself to become a bird in a cage.

-There's a fine line between perception and Truth.

A typical day would be lots of follow-up phone calls and paperwork in the office, and then home visits in the evenings to families/clients.

I learned about the foster care system.  Also, trainings were provided about issues like foster care, family therapy, substance abuse, which was helpful and appreciated.

Higher-level management seemed professional and civil, which is rare for social service!
However, mid-level management wasn't too impressive.
Some managers seemed threatened by supervising smart workers and were then vindictive toward them.  Unpleasant to say the least.

Coworkers were very nice, if not the most intellectually stimulating group of people.  But decent, capable average human beings,  and bright enough.  But don't look to learn a lot about social work or family therapy from your coworkers, it's a somewhat mediocre, if good-natured bunch.

An interesting aspect is that the office is overwhelmingly women.  It would be like 38 female workers and 2 men.  This affected the dynamics of the workplace.  To be honest, I don't think an all-female (or mostly female) workplace is the best environment.  It could get catty and gossipy at times.  This was a minus.

The hardest part of the job was that the home visits were almost all done in the evenings, as the families were working families.  Yet we were expected to be at work during the day as well.  So basically, you're working all day and all evening!
Yes, there was a comp time system, but there was some resistance on the part of management to workers always taking/using their comp time.

So in the end, you are going to feel exploited.
Not to mention that you can't have a life - what with working, morning, noon, and night.
I don't know how parents with children manage this job.
To be honest, no one should have to work these kinds of hours - being out almost every evening on a home visit.
Very unfair.

The medical department was very family oriented. The work could be very hard on an emotional level because I had access to the foster child's history, which mostly involved various types of abuse and neglect. The best part of the job was to see the children overcome their past. This was not always the case for teenagers who have only known 'the system' and did not see themselves ever becoming reunited with their biological family or becoming adopted. These children were not used to stability as the organization's social work team had a very high turnover rate. We had clinicals two times per week with the pediatricians for regular checkups, which for me meant I had to present the client's history as well as the current nursing assessment to the doctor. My caseload was required to come twice a year for labwork related to their various psychotropic meds. A typical day at work involved coordinating follow up medical care referrals we could not provide in the office, which involved making sure the foster parents could make the appointments, and the health care workers at various NYC hospitals were amenable to continued communication as to further follow-up and results, which was often harder than it should have been. At least once or twice a week my team of Social Workers, Occupational Therapists, Psychologists, and Psychiatrists were involved in crisis abatement related to behavioral emergencies. I learned that communication has to be clear for myself to have any positive impact in the overall care of the child when it comes to the multi-disciplinary approach to healthcare, and that follow-up is a must.

A typical day for me at this job entailed a lot of follow up calls to community health providers, updating clients' medical chart, managing client's medical chart in accordance to NYS/NYC regulations, seeing children for clinic-keeping them current medically, participating in family/team conferences (sometimes facilitated by ACS), training foster parents on relative health issues to maintain their qualification to keep their homes certified etc. I learned a lot in this position, mostly mental health studies & diagnosis, how to deal with children & families who have suffered some level of trauma, and being not only a nurse but an advocate for children and their families. Management could definitely have been better coordinated & supportive. My former co workers were the best! We really grew to be a family. We helped & supported each other through some of the toughest days, and encouraged each other. We made our department! The hardest part of the job was, aside from the no raise in over 5 years and the ever changing medical coverage & steadily increasing co payments would be the lack of support on the administration level. The most enjoyable part of the job aside from the awesome co workers I had the pleasure of working with for almost 4 years would have to be the children & the families I had worked with and impacted their lives and/or eased their situations helping anyway I could all the while, maintaining their dignity, at least I felt I did.

This position is easy to get, if you're looking for a job right out of school. Try to stay at least a year. And just don't get too comfortable here. You will experience that most - if not all - of your coworkers are miserable with this company and looking to leave. I gave such a low rating on this position because of the unmanageable workload and unrealistic due dates that are a huge part of the job. This position requires a lot of paperwork, lots of due dates. During my time there, I had witnessed administration often fire new HCIs while they are on probation. There is no job security and they appear to penalize for simple human error and mistakes that HCIs naturally make when they are new, without considering that there is a learning process. Administration chooses not to see the issues in the training process, to change this pattern of so many workers constantly quitting or being fired. Additionally a lot of the time, that should be spent doing the large amount of paperwork - that is expected to be handed in weekly from the HCIs- is spent in meetings or discussing and defending your work, including the typos or small mistakes, to a supervisor. When interviewing, the many packets that go along with the job were not mentioned. Just make sure that you bend over backwards while working here and you surely will not get fired, even if it includes working late nights!  If you do choose to work here, just go in with the mentality that it is just temporary and you can get through this, I did! Best of luck!

Initially as an ICC, I had a very supportive supervisor who was very knowledgeable of the field and social work in general. Said supervisor always tried to support the team, despite agency turmoils and sudden program changes. This changed when the team was left with no supervisor and no type of supervision/support. Current administrative team has little knowledge on program protocols which trickles down to the workers and negatively affects clients and services. 

WSP workers are never available due to shortage of staff, but if WSP team is sanctioned, called out, or if they are audited, the workers magically appear and they are assigned to cases overnight, if possible (to cover themselves). If you are a prospective WSP, please stay away unless you enjoy NOT being paid for your work. 

Parents will often act out physically and verbally aggressively towards coordinators, if WSP services are delayed or not implemented at all, which is the case, in some cases. WSP issues are a main reason for the high ICC turnover rate. 

Agency-wise, the agency is structured and provides generous benefits. In conclusion, the agency will benefit from closer managing of specific programs which are currently cumbling due to administrative staff uncapable of successfully running the program(s).

I enjoyed my experience at JCCA. I answered the phones mainly, so my communication skills were made stronger as a result of that. (Being a shy and quiet person, I had to come out of my shell for this position, because I handled extremely busy phones. Being the Gatekeeper for the whole campus, which was divided into 3 parts, I had to make sure the calls went to the proper place at all times, and keep calls to a minimum. I worked in the evening, most of the time, so it was just me and the supervisors that were in charge for caring for 250 children. I had to be aware of the children and where they were placed on campus, be aware of their Social Worker, Unit Director and Case Manager. I often times welcomed parents and visitors to the campus. When I worked in the mornings, I took care of the Secretarial part of the job(copy, fax, type memos, take minutes, etc) My co-workers were funny, always made me laugh. I was able to train a lot of them with using the phone system. The hardest part of my job was there was no down time. Due to the hours that I had (3-11 pm) I could not have a lunch break, a break period, because there was no one to cover for me. The most enjoyable part of this job was talking to the children.

The Jewish Child Care Association (JCCA) is a nonprofit foster care and adoption agency. I have been employed with JCCA since 2007. Most of my professional growth has taken place in the 6 years that I have worked at JCCA. I believe JCCA is great organization for many reasons. The most important reason is because supervisors provide a great deal of support to their staff such as taking on tasks that are out of the supervisors job description when needed, checking in on staff throughout the day and providing an open door policy that allows staff to give feedback about the work. 
As a youth development coordinator a typical day at JCCA can get very busy because of staff meetings, case conferences for and with clients, facilitating monthly workshops for youth, events in the community, etc. The part of my job that provides me with the most joy is advocating for the youth I work with because the youth that I work with find it difficult to have a voice or are still looking for their voice. I enjoy advocating on their behalf and helping them find their voice.  I also enjoy working within committees with staff on all levels to improve the work. The most difficult part of my job is seeing children in the foster care system with families.   


BSFT Leadership is abusive and toxic and not particularly good at their job. They are clueless in how to treat staff with respect and positive acknowledgment and instead are micro-managing and reprimand staff for not meeting expectations that are completely unnecessary and solely based on looking good to ACS by completing an excessive amount of paperwork. Leadership is focused on their own agenda, which often has nothing to do with the families. Leadership is well aware of their extremely high turnover rate and places the blame on the high turnover rate for child welfare programs in general, instead of looking to how terrible management is the reason for high turnover rate. The only workers who last in the program are those who are willing to completely sacrifice a healthy life-work balance and dedicate 50-70 hours per week to the job's ridiculous level of paperwork.
It is impossible to expect workers to empower families when leadership keeps workers themselves disempowered. (Very much anti-ethics and values of social work profession.)

Top Job Titles	Average Salary
Therapist 8 salaries reported	$62,113 per year
Case planner 11 salaries reported	$29.96 per hour
Social worker 5 salaries reported	$63,454 per year
Youth counselor 10 salaries reported	$20.53 per hour
Case manager 6 salaries reported	$28.15 per hour

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