child welfare specialist

family support specialist ii

service technician ii

senior case manager

senior support specialist

Oklahoma Human Services

The job itself is wonderful and getting to work with/help kids and families is rewarding. The issue here is the overall management and unrealistic expectations of workers. Workers do not receive the correct type of training especially if you are someone who has never worked in a social services setting or similar. Workers are expected to constantly choose work over their mental health, physical health, family, and friends. Prepare to have a very unregulated sleep schedule. Single parents, don’t bother because your kids come last. Be prepared to sleep in the office when there are kids with nowhere to go. Understand that the agency cares more about what their numbers look like each month more than actually helping people. Be prepared to receive emails or be told to take care of yourself, be there for your own children, and take leave often but never actually getting to do any of those things. If/when you do decide to leave do not expect any positive feedback from this employer to your next and struggle to find employment because of that. 

Working for Oklahoma Human Services had both strong positives and negatives. This agency pays fairly and offers an excellent state benefit package. The work hours are consistent if you work in Adult and Family Services (SNAP, Medicaid, etc) but not child welfare. On many days, the job was extremely rewarding as I met many wonderful individuals and families and helped them obtain much-needed assistance with food and healthcare. Conversely, though, as a worker, you are also the person saying "no" and denying individuals' assistance if they don't meet the strict criteria, which can be ethically and emotionally difficult. You have to work within a lot of red tape. 

In addition, the job is chronically lean-staffed, meaning the workload is always high, and you will most likely not be able to give each family enough attention and care. If you are not good at pacing yourself, this job is a high risk for burnout, which is ultimately a major reason I left. In short, this is a great job if you're a really resilient person who is adept at emotionally detaching from your work. If not, then this work can really negatively impact your mental health. 

What is the best part of working at the company?
My direct supervisor was amazing. The pay is good but the insurance is questionable.

What is the most stressful part about working at the company?
The system is old. You have to work in at least 5 programs simultaneously to process one case. And if one goes down you can't do anything. You're on a timer for each case and if you take to long to process it they make sure to let you know at your review. And a lot of the time the length of time it takes to process a case is not in your hands. Because you can't tell the client that you're on a timer and they need to speed up their answers. 

What is the work environment and culture like at the company?
It's stressful to say the least. And upper management couldn't care less about you. They constantly tell you to take care of yourself but when you do they have a problem with it. The turnover rate is through the roof.

What is a typical day like for you at the company?
STRESS with one eye on your case and the other on the timer. And if you don't work enough cases in a day they're quick to let you know.

What is the best part of working at the company?
The benefits. The people who work so hard to make their job happens despite being one of the most difficult jobs, with a 75% attrition rate every year.

What is the most stressful part about working at the company?
Everything. Clients and the supervisors and the judges and the constant writing of court papers. And the documentation and the note taking the long hours. Little overtime pay no mileage.

What is the work environment and culture like at the company?
Everybody suffers together. Everybody suffers equally and you're really not trained until 3 years of working here. 75% of everybody hired quits in the first year.

What is a typical day like for you at the company?
There is no really typical day. Each day is different, each day involves putting a lot of yourself into the job.

As a child welfare specialist, I worked around 50+ hours per week. I had a flexible schedule and as long as my work was done, my supervisor didn’t really micromanage. However, the workload was insane. My caseload hovered between 75-100% of the maximum allowance, but the reality is that it isn’t sustainable. Turnover is high because workers burn out quickly. Traumatic, high-stress situations abound, and policy is only followed when it suits supervisors and makes the numbers look good, often putting vulnerable children in worse positions than they were in prior to state intervention. I can only speak for the child welfare division of OHS, but I would not rate this as a good place to work, because there is little employee support when things go wrong and when stakes are high. 

What is the best part of working at the company?
Helping families in areas of need, to make their family lives more fulfilled amd keeping them together ❤️ 

What is the most stressful part about working at the company?
Being short staffed all the time is requiring employees to carry larger case loads, making you feel as though you cannot do everything needed unless you want to work 70 hours a week. 

What is the work environment and culture like at the company?
It is great, everyone is always great to work with, it's just the load of cases that gets stressful. 

What is a typical day like for you at the company?
It changes, which makes every day go by so quickly. You work at 8am - whenever, we start the day off documenting interviews and cases, to help us not get behind, the rest is hard to say as it changes based on appointments, referrals and emergencies that come up.

OKDHS used to be a fun place to work for. A couple years ago new leadership came in and it’s been a downhill battle every since. Pay is awful compared to other states and while the benefits a great for myself and my family, the rates keep rising every year and we don’t get an adjustment on our stipend. Some workers make less every year due to this. The systems we use are outdated and crash causing us workers to get behind. Not to mention, we’ve lost so many workers due to leadership and case loads that DHS isn’t requiring degrees anymore for the SSS positions. That means someone with less education will make the same as myself and countless others while we won’t even be compensated for it. 

I started with DHS back in 2012 and left in 2016 due to budget cuts. I went back in 2019 and was in the support center until I transferred in 2021 to the county office. Loved my job and everything I did...until upper management decided to make the whole state a call center so I left in 2022 as I wanted to work on cases and not on cases as they called into the call center. I would have stayed and did this as it is an easy job but DHS sucks so bad they can't get workers so in order to be a Social Service Specialist, you no longer have to have a college degree, which I have and they didn't even give us that have a degree a raise and hired newbies in at what we made and that was without a degree. Certainly felt not needed or respected so I kicked rocks and now have a unicorn job. 

I got hired on thinking that this would be a great fit for my degree and boy was I wrong. Not only was this job very difficult to learn (unnecessarily difficult!!), but my supervisor was completely condescending and downright rude. You don't get paid nearly enough for the amount of work you're expected to do and in the time they want it done. If you like going home (or working from home) and feeling depressed and hopeless about your job, then go ahead and apply. I sure didn't like feeling that way, so I got out. Perhaps it was just my rude supervisor that made it even worse for me, though. Good luck if you do apply. 

What is the best part of working at the company?
Insurance benefits and paid time off 

What is the most stressful part about working at the company?
Constant policy changes, staffing issues, unrealistic workload expectations.  Other supervisors micromanage other supervisors 

What is the work environment and culture like at the company?
There are several of those in charge that dont care about the people actually producing the work and how much pressure and stress they are under at all times. 

What is a typical day like for you at the company?
Policy change discussions, solving staffing issues, reviewing cases, staffing cases with workers, putting out little fires every where. Enjoying my staff and the their dedication to their job.

Top Job Titles	Average Salary
Child welfare specialist 374 salaries reported	$39,224 per year
Family support specialist ii 286 salaries reported	$39,342 per year
Service technician ii 5 salaries reported	$38,192 per year
Senior case manager 86 salaries reported	$41,703 per year
Senior support specialist 35 salaries reported	$38,192 per year

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