mental health therapist

mental health technician

chemical dependency counselor

clinical supervisor

senior administrative assistant

LifeWorks NW

For the cost of living in the Portland metro area, and how housing costs have skyrocketed, student loan debts that it can take to earn a master’s degree—I think they should pay a little more for the therapist roles - they are the backbone, the ones truly doing the work. Ask clients of Lifeworks NW and the therapists about what it’s like for a more accurate portrait of the agency, should you be looking at post-master’s therapy/clinical positions. Due to the mismatch with degree/cost of degree, wages, and caseload sizes (higher caseloads for those deemed more at-need or unable to attend traditional therapy appointments, I.e. those experiencing psychotic symptoms, suicide attempts/self harm, addiction, lack of basic needs) and unrelenting documentation needs, many staff are unsatisfied, drained, dealing with vicarious trauma and burnout, and leave only after having been there for gaining experience or licensure hours. (PS they only help pay a small % of supervision costs and it stops at two years). Sometimes people leave within months, sometimes a year or two. 

Some people really care about the integrity of their work as a developing professional, and to take on 135 clients (many of whom are suicidal or in active addictions and facing food/housing insecurity) really challenges their ability and capacity to do work to their standards and feel as though they are making progress or learning. Thus, this indicates LifeWorks fosters the environment in which a leading cause of burnout is merely inevitable. (Lookup research on burnout and sense of efficacy in therapists who work in community mental health settings— it’s a leading cause/symptom across community mental health agencies as a whole).

It’s structured as entry-level, with poor / NO retention benefits other than increased PTO hours and retirement matching. No raise until licensed.  Most don’t stay when licensed, or will move on to be a supervisor (middle management- also unrealistic expectations of them). Quality of care can become poor in an unethical sense with poor supervision or caseloads of 100-120 folks experiencing addictions, and SEVERE mental illness. They (insurance, agency) require specific documentation at specific times (perhaps the whole structure is at fault) causing a demanding and truly unrelenting and intense workload if you expect to see all the clients they want you to see. They often have therapists do most of the tedious work and sometimes poor oversight and leniency of their “support” staff— my first guess is that this is a sad attempt (to be lenient to an unethical degree) to retain staff at any cost (poor quality of care, and therapist burnout). Short term desperate attempts to keep programs staffed in a field that may be dying off but will always be in demand for those dejected and rejected by society. The clients are on federally funded Medicaid or county grants due ti being under-resourced. 

Therapists are human beings with their own lives, goals, hopes, dreams, why should they endure all of this to potentially give up on the work they thought they’d spend their life doing due to extreme burnout? For what purpose? 

Support staff / associates (high school/GED/associates/bachelors degree) make competitive wages, and don’t hold the same degree of liability and responsibility as the therapist / LMP (but they do to a degree). They make similar wages to the master’s level clinicians— great (for them). That can be worth it, I do recommend LifeWorks NW for gaining experience or longer term employment as associate or support staff— should you be willing to endure or truly enjoy working with highly traumatized people needing help.

Have a special passion for working in community mental health, you will need the extra meaning and purpose because the wages, high staff turnover, intense client needs and demands, or poor/lack of adequate supervision may not be enough to stick around for very long if you care about the integrity of your work, self esteem, sense of efficacy, and client care. 

My hope is they restructure pay, cap caseloads, hire more support staff - which they say they are planning but now we wait. Seems they must, because no one is interested….time for the workforce/employee to regain power. 

I predict not much will change unless the aforementioned points made here are aggressively and publicly addressed and changed. 

Man, lifeworks tries but fails overall. They keep closing locations and laying people of due to a non-renewed and horribly planned grant opportunity they had last year. Some roots to their problem including but not limited to: Having high educational requirements (bachelor's) for patient care coordinators--a job a high school graduate is capable of doing. Also paying near 20$ an hour for said job. Nice for the individual employee, not for the company's sustainability. Also office support make similar wages with no necessary education. 

Oncall workers are exploited. No benefits, but are expected (required)  to take to every shift called upon WHILE having no guaranteed minimum shifts. If you were unable to pick up a shift you would be punished by not being called. This is NOT general practice. Local hospitals and higher standard companies have an absolute minimum offered hours (so you don't have weeks at a time you don't work) and do not require you to work shifts you were not notified in advance of, but still offer them. 

Practice management and office management at the king site is horrendous. Unprofessional, gossipy, and blatant disrespect of mental health clients in the lobby. Many staff voiced concerns about the office manager's inability to empathize with clients, leading to further escalation. 

Theripist have back to back appts with no note taking time included--thus are forced to note concurrently likely leading to much missed material in addition to impacting client rapport.

Patients were lucky to get into see their therapist monthly. Is this kaiser?! No mental health patient no matter how mild is going to benefit from monthly therapy. 

 It's possible to fix lifeworks struggles, but would require an extreme management overhaul immediately.

Lifeworks is not anywhere anyone with morals, values or anyone who identifies as female should work. I was impressed with them when I first began working there, but over the years, the true colors of the Executive Team have come out and it’s not pretty. Not only do they value misogyny and gender biased behavior, but they also value only themselves. They have no concern for client care or clinician care. They do not care how they make money, as long as it’s being made. This would all make sense, if this agency was financial stable, but it isn’t. Over the past two years, since accepting the CCBHC grant, they have made terrible decisions about services that have negatively impacted client care and how they treat clinicians. I am a big believer that if you treat your clinicians badly, client care suffers- clinicians leave constantly, they are unhappy, unsatisfied and unable to give their best professional selves to clients when they are working in abusive conditions. Not only has Upper Mgmt made decisions to implement horrible client care ideas, but they have engaged in abusive behavior to try and make the staff comply- verbal abuse, gas lighting, threats, bullying, manipulation and flat out lying. They are the classic abuser- do whatever to make you comply and then treat you nice when they want something. Run, don't walk, from this awful place.

I rotated which site I started at each day so each day was different depending on what that particular site needed. I had meetings each week with the clinical team of each program, office manager meetings with other office managers once a month. I took care of petty cash, looked at previous day's census reports, made sure billing to insurance companies were accurate. Coordinated with maintenance supervisor to make sure maintenance issues were taken care of, odered supplies and shopped for the residential program when needed. Organzied staff meetings for each site. Would trouble shoot  issues and concerns. Supervised the administrative staff for each of the sites I managed. The management was hands off they did not micro manage the staff. The hardest part of my job was seeing clients relapse, commit suicide or hurt themselves. The most enjoyable part was seeing clients get it and finish the program and not return. Also the family or villiage like atmosphere created by the staff.

I feel incredibly supported by my peers at this job, but management leaves something to be desired. I was not trained for my specific job duties, just general company information. When I have questions, my supervisor is unhelpful so I’ve learned to figure things out on my own (which is a skill, but what’s the point of a supervisor if they can’t help you when you need it?). Turnover here is sky high so it’s impossible to learn from other staff in the same role that have more experience; they all quit, or are at other sites and not accessible. Me and my coworkers have tried to give feedback to management about how things could be improved for employees, but they shoot down every suggestion and blame funders for the rigidity. Productivity metrics are impossible to meet (there are only two employees in the entire agency that are meeting them), but they will put you on probation if you don’t, so everyone I know is on a performance-improvement plan, but it doesn’t help at all.

LWNW's motto is that people get better when they get the support they need.  I don't think executive management actually understands what this means.  The agency does not provide the support and training that its therapists and staff need.  They don't listen to employees even though they promote themselves as being available.  The Crisis Team is currently voting to organize because employees need leverage to have the necessary conversations to improve the work environment.  I sincerely hope the rest of the agency follows suit.  There is a culture of chaos and no consistent messaging or policies and procedures for staff to follow.  Each site just makes up there own rules.  It's very sad that this is a mental health agency that doesn't take care of the mental health of their employees.

This company is horrible to work for. Upper management does not care about its employees and make comments like "if they don't like it, they can find another job" and if you were to give any sort of feedback or push back, you are labeled as a problem and become the target of bullying by upper management. Management just want you to shut up and keep quiet and let the company continue to be run terribly then blame you when things do not run smoothly.  Most management were promoted based on who they know, rather than merit. The ground level employees are amazing but very few management are worth their salt. If you want to work for a company that values money over the lives of clients and employees, then this is the company for you!

Management is awful. There is definite cliques going on between management and favorite employees, and if you are not part of the group then you are gum on a shoe. Manager takes weeks long vacations several times through the year, in addition to working an inconsistent schedule so you have to rely on email to communicate (if your emails even get read or responded to... so almost never). Several staff members are related to each other and get benefits the rest don't. Turnover rate is fairly high, the only people left are the ones stuck with nowhere else to go. Management can't make up their mind about schedules for clients, activities, needs from staff, etc. VERY understaffed, several people working OT and the on-call positions being used as regular staff but paid on-call wages. Company vehicle not up to standards in regards to safely buckling children's seats into it. Very unprofessional and unwelcoming place to work.

This is the absolute worse place and environment I have worked at in my entire life time!!  I was new in a "small town office" setting and Boy-oh-boy was I made known that I was an "outsider". The staff ganged up on me, said things about me to my supervisor which never occurred and when confronted my supervisor was not even open to hearing what I had to say, literally interrupted me and explained I was a liar being the others she "had known forever". Super manipulative and extremely unprofessional staff. Supervisor played favorites to staff and clients, super weird boundary issues going as well between some staff/supervisor and clients. Not a productive place, could not get any help even when I asked multiple times from my supervisor AND my supervisor was even aggressive towards me physically. No Thank-you!! I do appreciate 1 staff member who helped me but it seemed she did so out of pity, thanks.

Lifeworks serves wonderful clients and has a foothold in multiple counties in the area. Although this experience will vary by program, overall there is a very negative culture and the management is generally poor at best - seems to stem from poor training. Many 'clinicians' are young and inexperienced. Often, office talk about clients is negative and offensive. It seems as though many of the management level positions are filled by people who had the appropriate credentials and just stuck with the agency for a while.  Unless you are desperate for work or have minimal education and experience in MH, you are better off going to a different agency. Maybe even try retail or some other survival job until you can find something appropriate.

Top Job Titles	Average Salary
Mental health therapist 49 salaries reported	$73,180 per year
Mental health technician 51 salaries reported	$27.46 per hour
Chemical dependency counselor 7 salaries reported	$29.67 per hour
Clinical supervisor 30 salaries reported	$80,659 per year
Senior administrative assistant 10 salaries reported	$25.12 per hour

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