behavioral health professional

therapist

registered nurse

social worker

housekeeper

San Jose Behavioral Health

If you are fresh out of nursing school or just starting out in your medical career, this is definitely a good starting point. It is a very fast paced acute psychiatric care facility so you get a lot of hands on work from the beginning, but the down side to that is that you get very little training but are expected to know everything within your first month. If you enjoy employee recognition, this is not the place for you. If you think having supportive administrators and supervisors are essential, this is definitely not the place for you. The administrators treat your poorly but expect you to work 40+ hours per week with little to no incentive. If you work for the nursing department, the CNO and the supervisors all act like children in high school. They do not support their nursing staff or the BHA staff, but instead will sit in office all day on their phones speaking poorly about their employees. There is no opportunity for growth, only empty promises and you are given more work to complete with no extra compensation.

It’s not entirely management’s fault people call out of work last minute often which lead to short staffing. But apsometimes, there’s no one calling out and just 1 techs on the floor to do everything by themselves. A good number of techs are not very supportive, and will do everything they can to do the easiest tasks and the most minimal amt of work. This leads to quick burnout of other good techs, which lead them to make mistakes or call out for work or outright quit. NOC shift in the adolescent unit are especially are not supportive and WILL work against you and even accuse you of not doing your work when you had a really busy day. All that said though, most people there especially the nurses are pretty nice people and are fun to work with. Your patience, multitasking, compassion, and communication skills are tested to your limits there which either lead to burn out or growth. It’s a valuable opportunity if you’re up for it for sure!

Short staffed but that means possible incentive pay and hiring on the spot or very quickly, and usually all shifts and scheduling (per diem, part time, or full time) available. Staff could be trained more thoroughly (BHA, RN, and LVN alike). Charge RN usually handles codes but I wish supervisor was there to support (help draw up meds, with hands-on, with administering meds, with admission, with documentation, or with taking some of the daily tasks so the charge RN has time to fill out incident reports and do other documentation regarding codes). The organization could be more organized. The priority is heads in beds and revolving door patients, unfortunatley many times that’s to the staff’s hurt bc theyre too busy handling their current patient load that giving them admissions, especially during high acuity times or multiple admissions per shift is burn out and stress inducing. The nurses need more support (help with workload, help when short staffed, help with admissions) otherwise more of them would stay. Recommended for new grads wanting acute inpatient experience, give it a try if you are interested in psych. 

My overall experience so far is average. I worked full time over the summer then changed to part when school started up again. I exclusively worked night shift as if provides a bonus in pay. Job is not that bad for the pay ($23 noc shift), but the job is somewhat unpredictable. You cant predict what a patient will do to the point where a boring shift is the best shift. For coworkers, there will be people you like and dont like, you will be stuck with them for 8 hours if your assigned to them. There will be a lot of opportunities to make extra money with bonus pay for coming in for needed shifts and overtime ( though at the cost of your mental health). You will burn out if you work too much so be careful working full time or risk being very jaded. Overall decent job that pays well that is somewhat unpredictable. Also get used to working under-staff.

At least once day you will hear about someone  getting injured (patient or worker). There are many workplace violations. They don’t have security and it is very dangerous. Very poor training and severely understaffed. They do not care about patient or worker safety. Management is aloof  and HR has some of the worst human beings I’ve ever had the displeasure of meeting. Do not work here. Some of the coworkers are great people some are awful and will leave you in dangerous situations on your own. This place has some of the most disrespectful management I’ve ever interacted with.

What is the best part of working at the company?
The environment it pleasant and everyone employed there work as a team.

What is the most stressful part about working at the company?
The most stressful is restraints not used on highly assaultive patients. Restraints are very effective when monitored on assaultive patients.

What is the work environment and culture like at the company?
Everyone works as a team in order to get the work accomplised.

What is a typical day like for you at the company?
Full patient load and very busy. I believe more nurses are needed on one unit because two nurses on a unit with 23 patients is dangerous.

I did my internship with the Activities Therapy team in San Jose Behavioral Health. Though I cannot provide much insight into general operations/ management of the entire hospital. I can say for a fact that the Activites therapy/ Recreational Therapy team were fantastic to work with. They were an excellent team that welcomed me into their "family" and always challenged me to grow and develop my skills as an aspiring Recreational Therapist. 

The internship, however, was unpaid.

The environment is pleasant and Managment was helpful in training me.. My schedule was good and can request time off without  too much issue. The office is clean and they have been updating the place from when I first started. Generous  and free staff food. Workplace culture was fun and always had some events going on for us. Co workers are mostly nice and overall good experience. 

This company sounds great at beginning…. Then as you train and actually WORK, it’s a mess! No one knows what there doing ( supervisors) when you say something nothing is fixed . They let people “go” for the dumbest reasons and those are actually the ones that LIKE there job, but don’t like management . Favoritism is HUGE here! So hey you get along with “certain” people, you will be just fine! Good luck!

I worked at SJBH for two years and loved the patients and the social services team. There is one drawback, poor management and any good management is slowly weeded out to promote yes men that only care about their own job security and not the betterment of the department.

Top Job Titles	Average Salary
Behavioral health professional 7 salaries reported	$25.63 per hour
Therapist 3 salaries reported	$38.83 per hour
Registered nurse 4 salaries reported	$64.99 per hour
Social worker 2 salaries reported	$42.75 per hour
Housekeeper 12 salaries reported	$23.91 per hour

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