registered nurse

service coordinator

practice nurse

nurse practitioner

human resources generalist

La Rabida Childrens Hospital

As a clinical screener you will work about 60-80 hours. No matter how hard you work you will never get ahead. Its essentially a rat race. You will have to constantly advocate for breaks and mealtimes on your field days as you don't make your own schedule. 
You spend most of your time writing and receive the bare minimum training on how to write the report. Training is shadowing for a week or two if lucky. If you are hired during a busy time your training is less. And you could very well be on your own after shadowing one case. Because turnover is so high you shadow other new screeners who are still learning themselves. 
Management is extremely inconsistent with training, feedback, and expectations so it is very difficult to rely on coworkers for guidance and support. 
You will be exposed to a lot of trauma but depending on your supervisor it will depend on the quality of reflective supervision you will receive. Some focus more on writing and deadlines than processing cases with you or supporting you. 
You don't have much flexibility in your writing, recommendations, or impressions as management likes things worded a certain way. Your clinical opinion doesn't matter as your manager has the final say in what ends up in your court report, even though you would be the person testifying. Management lightens up with time but the assumption is new screeners despite having a clinical license and years experience are incapable of having a solid clinical opinion in this program. If you are someone that feels strongly about your opinion, impressions, and recommendations than this program would not be right for you. 
The contract with DCFS doesn't allow raises or overtime so there is very little incentive to go over and beyond, not that you will have much time anyways. Given that working 40 hours a week or less in IA is a rare luxury it can feel exploitive at times because it becomes painfully clear that DCFS takes advantage of screeners and La Rabida allows it. DCFS is well aware of the nature of the program and expenses involved which is why they contract it out. If they had state union employees in this position they would need 3x times the screeners they allow to contractors and would still have to pay out a ridiculous amount of overtime yearly. Because it is definitely not a 40 hour a week job, no where near as close. Since screeners aren't state union employees DCFS could care less and management at La Rabida will not advocate for better work conditions or support for their staff. Considering that La Rabida had this contract longer than any other agency in the state, you would think they would try to speak up to avoid burning out their staff and retaining more screeners. La Rabida could attempt to negotiate raises or bonuses for high performers in the program but they choose not too. They could also advocate for more screeners to balance the workload but they also choose not too. La Rabida is perfectly fine with allowing DCFS to take advantage of and exploit their employees, which is why the position is always posted. The program isn't expanding as the ad says, people are quitting because of burn out or emotional breakdowns. That is how stressful and difficult this position is. 
Even though you are home based work life balance is difficult to impossible. You use your personal phone so nothing can stop a case worker or state employee from calling you off hours or on vacation. 
Your caseloads can be ridiculous, you receive 1 case a week and if on vacation they assign extra cases to you as a set up, knowing full well you cannot meet your deadline, but the expectation and pressure remains. When you return, no one is supportive of the fact you were assigned extra cases on vacation.

La Rabida has a contract with DCFS to conduct IA screenings. When I was with the program, the contract stipulated an annual salary with no raises or cost of living increases. If there was money left in the budget at the end of the fiscal year, you might get a bonus, but that was rare.
Training was okay; consisting mostly of shadowing experienced screeners, but due to the fact that the cases varied in complexity and each screener does things a little differently, you may not get exposed to the kinds of scenarios that you'll encounter when your on your own. 
There can be a fair amount of travel involved. Even though La Rabida's territory is Cook County, a child taken into custody could be placed with a relative who lives way outside of Cook County.
Working with DCFS and Contract agency caseworkers can be dicey. Many DCFS caseworkers resent screeners because they would like to be screeners. DCFS contracts the program out because it would be very expensive to have DCFS union staff doing the job. So watch your back, they could make things difficult for you.
Assessments have to be completed within strict deadlines as mandated by law, so you have to bust your butt to meet deadlines. It is a work from home position, but you'll consistently work 60-70 hours a week if not more depending on your caseload. 
There is generous paid time off, which is essential because the job is very stressful between handling the deadlines and being exposed to the trauma of children taken into custody. When you're on vacation, you're still assigned cases, which age while you're out, so you return to work behind the eight ball.
Coworkers are very supportive, but you primarily work alone, so there is minimal team interactive. Management functions primarily to keep you on task. You do get support, but I've never seen a supervisor jump in and take a case when our caseloads are off the charts, despite the fact that most supervisors were promoted from screeners. 
Overall, if you enjoy working independently, can be flexible and manage stress well, this could be a good career move. But with what's going on with the state budget now, the work environment has to be exponentially more stressful.

I work for La Rabida as a Clinical Screener for their IA program. It is a wonderful program; however, bound within the constraints of the DCFS/Child Welfare field. The best part of this job (besides the competitive pay/benefits/vacation time) is that the majority of it is done remotely. No office to show up at every day. You interview clients typically in their homes or possibly an agency office, and you write your reports from home - or the Bahamas, wherever you choose! New screeners can quickly be frightened off by the amount of extra hours it takes to get the reports done when you first start, and the expectation that you will do what is necessary to meet those deadlines - but hang in there, there is a learning curve and the management is working hard to increase the "life" part of work-life balance, particularly for new screeners. It can be crazy busy at times, and at others you are enjoying a day at home (with pay) because there is no immediate work. After the first year you start getting more proficient and things get manageable. My experience was a supportive supervisor during the tough times. They get in the trenches with you. You MUST meet your deadlines, but you have good support and the latitude to set your schedule any way you prefer it. Supervisors strongly encourage self-care and collaboration, and some in-house CEU trainings are provided, but you have a significant training budget so take advantage of that! But the bottom line is this is a contract position, and management demands that we meet our contract responsibilities - no matter what!

I had various responsibilities as a Consumer Advocate.  One that I enjoyed the most was co-facilitating a support group made up of the caregivers of children and youth who had faced at least one trauma in their lives.  Another was co-facilitating a multi- family intervention where we used games and story telling as part of the process of showing families where their strength lies.  There were the clerical components where I would design flyers announcing events that we planned.  Then there were the mailings that had to go out and follow-up phone calls.  I did research to find resources such as food pantries or low cost medical that I could refer caregivers to.  I attended and spoke at meetings and conferences on the topic of trauma and violence for instance.  In this position I learned a lot about my self, my own strengths like public speaking and my ability to plan an event and carry out the steps necessary to make it happen.  My co-workers were mostly social workers and psychologist who worked very diligently with children who had difficult lives.  My co-workers were friendly and sociable people who treated me and each other with respect.  I had supervisors who trusted me and respected me.

After working there for 10 years with nothing less then excellent service reviews, they decide to restructure our dept. False - they just wanted to fire people with high salaries. I even submitted for the entry that won them the health care most wired award in the lobby.
The nurses run the show and most of the service departments are treated poorly in my experience. I felt like ever since the Past President of the hospital left, the environment suffered drastically. Shameful really. They let three of us go at once. All Caucasian and all middle aged all from Indiana too. I took my severance and went on my way but overall it was a slap in the face. I really loved fellow staff even most of the management. It is just the upper management that needs to be "restructured". The doctors are top notch however. They do amazing work Pharmacy and Radiology as well. IT Dept has two great workers in lower positions. That is about it. Overall I would recommend working there as a stepping stone and move on. No future long term.

The Clinical Screener job is really hard work. The hours can be long when it's busy but when it's slow, you can have the flexibility that makes this job so great. The cases are very difficult and emotionally it's a tough job. But you learn so much from the cases and clients. I get supervision each week for at least an hour by someone who was a screener too so that's really nice. There are limits such as what we can say or do in the report because it goes to court but the program and reports are so respected by the court that it feels good to make that difference.  The deadlines are horrible but not all the time. And your supervisor will help you meet them or give you a new deadline when it's busy.  It's not the job for everyone since it's  a lot of writing and you work from home. But the other screeners and supervisors are so committed and talented,  it makes it all worth it. I have never learned this much at a job or even grad school before.

A typical day at work involved coordinating a home visit with up to three therapists to evaluate a child 0-3 with suspected developmental delays.
I learned how to identify developmental delays such as Occupational, Speech, Physical, Developmental.
Management was supportive providing social emotional support due to some of the heart moving medical or social conditions of families.
My co workers were very knowledgeable and helpful; during a crunch of home visits some co workers would exchange home visits to accommodate schedules.
The hardest part of the job was scheduling therapists and receiving 6 month evaluations and timely reports.  Separating from children/families who aged out of program.
The most enjoyable part of the job was taking the children books to read, DVD's for parents as children transitioned to head start to learn about the next development stage.

What is the best part of working at the company?
I Enjoyed helping the children also family life setting the closeness people shared in the work environment 

What is the most stressful part about working at the company?
When getting called for code blue in some cases losing the chid 

What is the work environment and culture like at the company?
They asked for people to be civil toward one another like good morning when passing in the hall.   

What is a typical day like for you at the company?
A typical day was punching in going to my radiology room wiping down everything warming up the x-ray machine and then going upstairs to the patient's room to draw blood and after I come downstairs go on my break.   I also called  down patients from the floor to do the x-rays and also we had to take care of the emergency room patients there that needed x-rays call them down or either do portables.  Also we would take the patient back to the ER or back to their room when we're finished their  x-rays.   It was a great experience I worked there for 15 years

The patients and families that are served at La Ra almost make it worth dealing with all the other stuff. They offer lots of PTO and decent pay. You will be forced to work a lot outside of your scheduled hours due to poor management and organization, insufficient staffing, and unrealistic expectations. Nearly everyone genuinely cares about the patients and families but rarely towards fellow coworkers. Some people who have earned management positions did so because of their aggressive personalities which cultivates a culture of competition, vindictiveness, gossip, judgment, and passive aggression.

This place is overall a good place to work. Upper management in my department doesn't always seem to be available, dramatic, and can be unfair at times. The supervisor is awesome....always professional and willing to work with employees. He does very well even being micro managed by director. The establishment is in a public park so crowds can get overwhelming during evening hours. The starting pay is real good for position and parking is always available. The hospital has only two levels so pretty easy to do rounds and checks. Part time/casual employees has no PTO accrual benefits or receive annual pay raises.

Top Job Titles	Average Salary
Registered nurse 7 salaries reported	$36.57 per hour
Service coordinator 3 salaries reported	$48,217 per year
Practice nurse 3 salaries reported	$78,000 per year
Nurse practitioner 2 salaries reported	$98,894 per year
Human resources generalist 1 salary reported	$28.35 per hour

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