registered nurse

mental health technician

substance abuse counselor

mental health therapist

director of clinical services

Prairie St. Johns

Like another reviewer stated, I wanted to be a PSJ employee for a long time. However, as time progressed, I found it difficult to look forward to going to work daily due to lack of support from management. I loved my team and the population I served, but when advocating for patients, I was shut down or had to jump through a myriad of hoops. Management also will not help with any concerns you may have and instead will say something to placate you before sending you on your way without any follow through.

As for the actual therapy, I loved the population and my team (nurses, social workers, teachers, psych techs). However, at times my team was cut due to numbers being low even if acuity ran high with the patients (think violence against staff members and other patients). There was no guidance for these times other than "call for help" which would lead to an early discharge of patients due to behaviors. This doesn't help the patients receive the care they need. Training was non existent. PSJ touts that they use the ACT model, but does not provide training on how to properly treat using that therapy model. Personally, I bought my own book and studied myself. Any CEUs that you need for licensure are paid for by yourself. 

While you get paid well as an entry level therapist, after CEUs, supervision (mine was never paid for), and trainings, you don't end up with much. Also, therapists do not get the same benefits as other employees such as nurses. Nurses get a sign on bonus and $400-$500 a month for student loans. Great for nurses, but not so much for other employees who work just as hard and have a master's degree as well.

Work-life balance
Depending on the position you apply for, some supervisors are understanding while other preference to go on vacation and ignore responsibility. If you are on limited restrictions due to medical, they will still make you do beyond your limitations.

Pay & benefits
Anytime you miss work they use your PTO. If you run out of PTO and get sick due to the pandemic they do not pay you for it. They will lay off due to census and fill the position with someone else complaining of needing more hours.

Job security and advancement
You are your own security. If you get attacked by a patient then whoever your coworker on floors with you is all the security you have. There is no room for advancement.

Management
The CEO seems to be the only management person who cares about the wellbeing of his staff members.

Culture
Its better to not say anything to any staff member. Everyone talks behind each others backs and will use things against you.

Overall
If applying for this job, you will realize afterwards short time that everyone is there for their own support. You will be taken advantage of. If you are kind you will be taken for granted. You are your own security so if you are on limited restrictions, you better find a different job. Most supervisors do not look out for the wellbeing or safety of the staff and do not work with you. This is a "fend for yourself" type of job. Many people complain about the work and other staff behind closed doors. It is not a good facility to work in.

Working at Prairie, for me, has sucked away the entirety of my social life. If I'm not scheduled to work, I am either picking up more shifts to avoid being mandated (forced to stay an entire shift longer due to not having staff to replace you), or preparing to work a sixteen hour shift the next time I clock in. I believe techs are paid unfairly, and all nursing staff are being overworked. During my interview, mandates were said to be extremely rare and that they would do everything they could to avoid it - my reality is that it happens every single day to one or more members of the staff. 

The working conditions are often unsafe, but that's not even the worst part of the job. The management crew are extremely condescending and calling out sick, with or without a doctor's note, is almost impossible. You are told you must make up that shift relatively quickly or else you will be terminated, along with hours upon hours of online education every few months that has to be done or you are without a job.

I have been mandated during the academic school year multiple times and had to even complete finals in a few of those with having to go back to work that next evening with zero hours of sleep - there is apparently no way to work around that. 

If you have no life outside of working, this job would be great for you. The nursing staff are pretty great, but anyone higher up does not care for your well-being. If you still plan on going through with applying, best of luck to you.

I wanted to be a PSJ lifer as I strongly believe in the services offered there and enjoyed working at the levels of care it offered. Unfortunately, the pace and workload coupled with lack of support from admin leads quickly to burnout. There is no electronic health record, so documentation is excessive as is the time that goes into writing and filing notes for every contact you make. Additionally, there is a ridiculous amount of redundant paperwork between RNs, therapists, and physicians which frustrates both patients and staff.

Admin seems more interested in reducing costs and making corporate happy rather than truly supporting their workers. The benefits are poor given there are no preferred providers in the area since PSJ is the only UHS facility around. There is poor recognition of employees' need for work/life balance here, which is one of many reasons for very high turnover of staff. While I am grateful for the clinical experiences here, it is definitely not set up nor supported to be a long term workplace for therapists/counselors.

Working at Prairie was like pulling teeth. Management fought against me every step of the way. When I had a Dr's note for a medical issue, it took them four reminders to recognize my accommodation. When I needed a schedule change it took weeks of hounding to get any sort of information. 

Additionally, because they treat their employees terribly, get ready to train new hires every other week. It feels like nobody knows what to do, and they never have enough people to fill shifts, which as a result, leads to the same four employees getting mandated into longer shifts all the time. Be fully aware, if you sign up for an 8 hr shift, you are likely going to work 12-16. Management truly did not care how much you were working, or what else you have going on in your life.

When you're on the floor, its typically one or two nurses with one technician. For anywhere from 12-18 patients. Though, its disingenuous to mention the low end, since there was almost never a time that we were below capacity in my time there. Get ready to work with 15 or more patients, often by yourself.

One more thing I want to mention is calling out sick. If you call out, you have to make up your shift on a later day. This makes it near impossible to actually recover from illnesses, and makes it so easy for things to spread throughout the whole hospital.

Prairie St. John's has a good reputation and is providing care to a very under served group of people. I enjoyed most of my coworkers and the leadership team at the hospital.  For the majority of my time here I had a good boss and good work-life balance and was quite content even with below market pay. Toward the end of my time I got a new boss who lacked professional boundaries and was a micro manager. 

They are owned but UHS so you get the standard corporate nonsense of a CEO and C-Suite people who get paid millions while techs, and nurses are getting paid nothing to do the actual work.  They value profit above all else and love to sell at as "we need to keep our doors open and pay our employees" but of course they need to pay their C-Suite and shareholders. Along with this there are random mega-corporation things like people who periodically visit and tell you to change everything and then disappear, a training program I was apart of to internally promote talent that was very poorly organized, slow moving everything, and the worst health insurance I have ever experienced. 

I loved that job with all my heart. Getting to see people who are struggling start to get better was the most rewarding part of the job. Management on the other hand was basically pointing out everybody’s mistakes and did nothing to help their team work together. I understand that I made mistakes cause who doesn’t but there was never one time where management tried to help me fix those mistakes or stop new ones from happening. They bark orders at you and you have to follow them even though you are already watching over 12+ patients on the unit. For a place of hope and healing, management is hopeless when it comes to their employees. Oh...and during the pandemic we got jack for any compensation for literally risking our lives to keep people safe. It’s kind of hard to keep six feet apart when there are 8 people restraining somebody, but the workers obviously don’t need any form of compensation for that...right? The employees do not get paid nearly as much as they should...especially during COVID. 

There is no typical day here. If you’re the type to get bored easily, I promise this is the perfect job for you. You also feel a great sense of purpose because being a tech is one of the most important roles here. The only thing I don’t like is some of the rules and task’s corporate has us do. They add work but not pay. And the things they want techs to do are clearly made by someone who has never teched before. Techs are constantly scrutinized by corporate, even when we are understaffed and overworked. No free meals, and you could get paid more working at McDonalds. I feel like this company would benefit so much just by asking what changes they should make. However, on lower levels, the people who work here are amazing! Some of the best people you will ever meet, including patients. Just be aware that patients can and will get verbally/physically aggressive, and nothing will happen about it legally. 

I worked here for two years and over time the quality of care for patients and treatment of staff severely decreased. Prairie does not have a safe staff to patient ratio regardless of the census or patient acuity. You as a staff member are not protected against violence from patients, you will be blamed regardless of the situation. This has something to do with them wanting excellent patient satisfaction scores but most patients in inpatient mental health facilities are not there willingly and management will put unreasonable and unrealistic expectations on you to meet their goals. If you want to make a difference and actually help people this is not the company for you, this is a business and they run it like one. Overall I would not recommend working here they will run you into the ground and ethically there are some questionable things going on throughout the facility. 

I can't say enough about how great this place has become over the past year.  The management is always there, are positive and available.  They have an open-door policy.  You can walk into any of the Director's offices to discuss concerns at any time of the day -including the CEO.   There is almost always someone from HR, IT or nursing to help at any given time.   The physicians and directors treat staff like equals. Everyone is positive and there to help.   Pay, sign-on bonuses and compensation are far above average for the Fargo area.  There are a few negative Nelly's in nursing but for the most part, PSJ has some of the best and most positive co-workers I've ever worked with.    They truly are there to offer hope and healing and care about helping those who are struggling with mental illness or substance abuse issues.  

Top Job Titles	Average Salary
Registered nurse 11 salaries reported	$55.83 per hour
Mental health technician 3 salaries reported	$18.00 per hour
Substance abuse counselor 18 salaries reported	$28.50 per hour
Mental health therapist 14 salaries reported	$36.50 per hour
Director of clinical services 7 salaries reported	$105,000 per year

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