clinician

mental health technician

case manager

clinical therapist

family therapist

New Alternatives, Inc.

Employees were not taken care of. They spoke about employees practicing self care outside of work but that was non existent within the job itself. Admin lacked at making sure that there was enough people working. They overworked employees, low female staff and its ridiculous how there had to be one female staff on the floor at all times while the male staff were allowed to leave the floor when they wanted. The rule should be that there should be one female and one male on the floor at all times. When i started i tried to negotiate the pay and they said they started it at 13.50.. three months later i hear that they hire a male (when we were in need of female staff) and this guy was getting paid a dollar more. Inequality is what it is. Yes breaks were allowed but how is a female supposed to be comfortable in the workplace when she has limited breaks and needs to wait for someone to come cover her when she needs the restroom or needs to get her food. THEY NEED TO HAVE ENOUGH STAFF BOTH FEMALES AND MALE TO ALLOW FOR WORKERS TO TAKE 15 MINUTE BREAKS AND LUNCHES. HOW ARE WORKERS SUPPOSED TO DO THEIR JOB TO THEIR FULLEST POTENTIAL IF THEY ARE NOT TAKEN CARE OF WITHIN THE WORKPLACE. SUCH A DISSAPOINTMENT. People dont leave because of the kids, they leave because admin doesnt do their job.

This is a great job to get experience with mental health work. I created some strong bonds with the team and kids here, and I learned a lot about effective interventions through trial and error. However, I would not recommend this as a long-term job as the work culture is unhealthy and takes a toll on overall morale (i.e. high levels of burnout, gossip, poor work/life boundaries). Turnover is high amongst floor staff and supervisors alike, so the extent and quality of training & coaching can be inconsistent and affects the effectiveness of staff.


If you are a therapist DO NOT WORK HERE. It is the worst place to work at. You know a company is bad when they do not give a direct HR number to talk to. My job was at the foster care facility. Over worked and tell you not to complain, ask for help, or direction with management. Management is too busy to help you and will blame you if you did not ask for help when something went wrong. Most enjoyable is if you have a low number of Clients. People get fired or leave because the culture is very stressful. Worst part is re writing notes take up so time that all therapist come in 1 to 2 hours early to finish re writes almost everyday outside of paid hours. This equated to me working 50 to 60 hours a week and getting paid only for 40 hours a week. Also when I left you were expected to go to hospitals or facilities outside of work hours and they did not pay you or mileage reimbursement. I did not have HR number to ask about mileage reimbursement because staff did not even have it.  Talk about labor violations. This is not a  healthy environment for anyone but management. Also there is a reason why there are constant job post, it is because it is negative place.

Begins by waking up the children and monitoring their medications.  Then my co-workers and I would have to have them shower and getting ready for school.  We then would take them to the cafeteria, monitoring all their behavior (to avoid any kind of negative behavior, that might lead to fights).  Then we would go back to their rooms, clean them up and off to school.  One co-worker would go to each class to continue monitoring their behavior.  If there was an altercation through out the day, we would have to physically restrain them while guiding them to a safety room.  Then we would go back to the cafeteria for lunch.  Then we would have them go back to there rooms to do their homework.  Then they would have free time.  Counseling the children was a constant priority.  My co-workers were excellent.  We would count on each other for the safety of the children and ourselves.  The hardest part of the job was having to restraining a child, even though it was for their own safety.  The most enjoyable part of the job was counseling a child engaging in negative behavior and having the child's behavior changing for the better.

Worked throughout the company for 10+ years. Loved working with the foster youth and at-risk youth population. No HR department which encourages you to keep you complaints and concerns to yourself. You will never meet or see the CEO. Executive directors are rarely ever seen or talked about. How are they to make sound decisions about the departments/organization they oversee if they are never around? They preach trauma informed care yet it is not practiced. Forget an annual review or a raise. Their form of acknowledging your work is a card. The higher ups keep you in the dark and will suppress any opportunity for growth for as long as they can or until you leave. I could not compromise my integrity so I made the decision to leave after many years of service. I do NOT recommend working here. 

The place is run fairly well, the dynamics of each classroom are different depending on the staff in the room.

An employee will need to learn patience and effective communication skills. Also, to be successful an employee will need to take the initiative and attempt to talk to the clients and build rapport.

The management is changed every three years I hear but the program manager could definitely do a much better job.

Hardest part of the job would be to take verbal and physical abuse from the troubled youths, name calling, assault. Work here if you have thick skin. Otherwise you'll go home and cry every night.

the most enjoyable part of the job is interactive P.E, especially dodgeball and wiffle ball. The staff are a pleasure to be around and they will help carry you through the day.

I urge you to apply to other competitors. I regret not doing so myself. You can get stuck here solely because you would start at the bottom somewhere else where they actually promote you eventually and pay more. Managment pretends to care, but in the end you and the clients are simply quotas to hold a struggling non profit together. The bare minimum will be done to take care of the clients. Everything is staff's fault, even though management enforces the policies that staff are left to use. The absolute minimum will be done to keep staff. Female staff aren't able to use the restroom for hours on end because company guidelines require at least 1 female in the cottage at a time, but they never hire more than 1 female per cottage. Do you see the pattern here? Just stay away. I beg you.

The staff and the children are a joy to work with. There are challenging days but you really do become invested in their lives. The major downside of this job is the violence. There are frequent physical altercations and you often have to use your defense training. At times, it felt like being a prison guard. I have been bitten, scratched, spit on, punched, and had broken glass thrown onto me. Management did not have a good understanding of what staff had to deal with on a daily basis and continuously put people in dangerous situations because of this. There are 3 shifts available which are 7am-3pm, 3pm-11pm, and 11pm-7am. These were not flexible at all. If you wanted to change your shift you had to switch with someone. If you are working the graveyard or afternoon shift, you will not have a life outside of work.

This is a company that says all the right things on paper about taking care of clients and employees but it truly does not. Youth will live in unclean and sometimes unsafe apartments to  save on spending. 

The pay for employees is lower than other non-profits. Paychecks are often late with no explanation. Top level management get raises and bonuses every year, but regular staff has to fight to get a dollar every two years.

Favoritism runs rampant throughout the programs and it prevents any true advancement. No human resources means long time senior management can do many negatives things to employees without repercussions. 

New Alternatives needs to lose their contract. The quality of care in the group homes is horrible. The kids are unhappy and New Alternatives is only concerned with money. The owner has a house in La Jolla. (These are millions of dollars). Every year when there is an audit, they will clean the place up and buy new things for the kids. The rest of the year, they don’t care. They don’t care about the kids or staff. I really wish former & current employees would find a way to expose their practices. They bring in over 50 million a year and barely provide for the kids in their care. They don’t pay staff enough, which results in staff being burnt out. All the money goes to the higher ups; they budget to allow bonuses for themselves. It’s really sad and made me lose a lot of faith in nonprofits

Top Job Titles	Average Salary
Clinician 15 salaries reported	$31.85 per hour
Mental health technician 6 salaries reported	$23.92 per hour
Case manager 3 salaries reported	$22.50 per hour
Clinical therapist 1 salary reported	$32.10 per hour
Family therapist 5 salaries reported	$32.10 per hour

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