mental health technician

registered nurse

rehabilitation specialist

therapist

educational assistant

Sheppard Pratt

There are pros and cons to every job... lots of cons to this one, but I'll start with the pros 

At my location and with my manager (for me) she is very flexible and appears to have my back/support me, when you meet good coworkers they are so wonderful, great experience, you learn so much patience and tolerance, can get a lot of hours if you are interested. 

Cons? So much... Other managers don't appear to be as concerned with their employees bullying patients or fellow employees- if you bring it up to them they will just tell them and it just makes it so much worse for you. If you speak up about something, you have a target on your back. If you do your job well and raise the standard, everyone is mad at you for actually doing your job. Many people in the job are lazy and do the bare minimum and to be honest are just mean to the patients. The pay is so little for the amount of work and stress you have to deal with, I have decent experience and a degree and I still make less than someone that works at Home Goods (they make $15 an hour). They even took away our Christmas bonuses this year because they "will raise everyone's pay" etc... no one to my knowledge has seen that money. To make matters even worse, if you work at the Ellicott City location be prepared to be exposed to some of the worst working conditions you have ever seen. The building is falling apart; it is dirty, unsafe, constantly running out of supplies and we are consistently understaffed. If we want supplies, be prepared for it to take a month because it "has to go through Towson." You will often hear the phrase "We aren't Towson, we can't do that." Sheppard will say how it cares about inclusivity and LGBTQIA+ rights but the employees can't even learn how to call people by their proper pronouns. Nurses don't care about their patients half the time and the patients can tell. Training is a joke. No one teaches you anything, you have to really figure it out on your own unless you have someone who is nice who will actually show you the ropes. Be prepared to learn on the fly. 

With all of the cons, I honestly do like my job because at the end of the day I see the people I know I have helped. Patients come up and tell me the difference I have made to them and that makes it kinda worth it. If it paid more and had more suitable conditions, I would likely never leave. Due to all of the conditions, horrible staffing, pay, and bullying from employees, I am consistently looking for other jobs. Is it worth it? Sometimes... its good experience but not a job for more than a year or two.

Greet patients, schedule follow-up appointments, gather demographics and insurance data, faxing, filing, speaking with pharmacies, assist the Dr.s and therapist,typing memos

There are many courses that you are required to take that are beneficial to your job responsibilities as well courses that you are made to take that do not even pertain to your job position and not at all of any assistance to helping you advance. When you sign up for any of the courses, which are required to be taken during your work hours, your immediate supervisor/manager won't adjust your schedule accordingly and therefore make it impossible to attend your required courses. Of which you will be reprimanded by your Supervisor/Managers Supervisor for signing up for the course and not attending. And of course your supervisor/manager denies not adjusting your schedule or allowing you to have back up during your time at the courses.
The hardest part of the job wasn't the responsibilities at all,  nor interacting with patients, the hardest part is trying to deal with the favoritism, constant inconsistency, double standards, unreasonable reasons for getting written up. How can 2 employees make the exact same error and only 1 of them be written up for it? Back to the favoritism...
I have learned that you can NOT resolve issues with HR as they say they have an open door policy and confidentiality. When speaking with HR there isn't ANY confidentiality and you can rest assured everyone else in the company is knowledgeable of what you have discussed with HR. I have also learned that it isn't a good idea for your supervisor to hire one of their friends just to have that friend advance without any required skills for the position they are given. Back to the favoritism...
It is a sad when even the patients see the favoritism and comment about it all the time.

The MOST enjoyable part of the job is working with the patients, attending to their needs, knowing that you are making a better day for them by being sincere, accurate, and dedicated to them as well as to your job responsibilities.

Sheppard Pratt used to be a very reputable institution. You knew that if you worked here that it held some type of weight behind it. Over the years this place is going down. And here is a few of the reasons why. There is no trust between the staff and management/ staffing, we are constantly met with unfulfilled promises and unrealistic requirements. A normal work day will include you coming to work and even though you may be a core staff being pulled somewhere where you are unfamiliar, or better yet you can work on your own unit and you will be so understaffed to the point that you are vulnerable to aggressive patients. THE PAY IS TERRIBLE for mental health workers, constant trainings, test and certifications that we are required to take and at the end of the day its for nothing because you will be paid pennies. Mental health workers do all of the work honestly, run majority of groups and maintain a safe unit. The nurses get $35 an hour to do nothing, its amazing. Majority of them are not busy unless there is a code, they don't take sits, they are lazy, I have worked on units where the nurses run 'charge" from the back corner of the nurses station and just call people all day. Amazing. The wages aren't competitive, you wont get a decent raise, if any. All of the mental health workers in the hospital have been demoted, they took away the weekend option bonus, taking away $4,000 from us a year, took away the pick up shift bonus, took away the holiday bonuses and now are looking to take away overtime. These people treat the mental health workers so poorly, there is no initiative to work here anymore, its time to go elsewhere where experience is appreciated. You have to make up weekend shifts that you take off even when you use PTO, which defeats the purpose of having PTO or ever using it if you have to always make it up. This place is a waste of a degree and also a waste of experience. The saddest part of this is that you learn to love the patients and environment but if you have to pick between loving your patients and being able to pay your light bill,that is a problem.

Sheppard Pratt does good work. They serve some of the most difficult patients around, and there are so many knowledgable, educated, experienced, and caring people on staff. Things have been very difficult recently in terms of staffing, however, to the point that the typically high turnover rate seems to be even higher, with staff resigning or transferring within 6 months of hire. There are some major staffing issues at play; clinical staff (RN, LPN, MHW) have been subject to frequent mandations and understaffing on the units, sometimes to the point where it is affecting the staff's ability to keep the units safe and to provide necessary services for patients. Staff will often be moved to other units within their service line to satisfy needs, but at the cost of short-staffing their home unit. The staffing office at SPHS is unsympathetic and unapologetic, and will give anyone who tries to call out a hard time, even in the case of actual illness or emergency, and bother the CNO at all hours of the day by forwarding call-outs to her personal phone. They are frequently citing policies that do not exist, and do not honor any agreements with staff who volunteer to pick up on their own units, meaning that there's a chance that you could get moved to another unit or even mandated when you volunteered to fill a need on your own unit.

All that aside, the organization itself has been incredibly accommodating while I have been in nursing school, allowing me to work a full-time weekend option contract. I have some of the best coworkers and I adore my patients.

Well, I will start off by saying that I love what I do. This was my first job with this type of psych and inpatient experience. You will grow to love a lot of the patients, and you will really feel like you are making a difference. That is the best part of working here.

But there are so many things that need to be changed. Sheppard Pratt does not appreciate its employees, and you can tell by what they pay them. Mental health workers do a majority of the work on the floor and the pay is extremely poor. Mental health workers run groups, help the patients all day, help with codes, and they will start you off making under $13/ hour! Don’t get me wrong I love my job, but I have bills to pay! This is just not somewhere that you stay for a long time unless it’s a side gig. On top of that you are surrounded by some people who don’t even like their jobs, but our paid way more than you are paid! The nurses are paid triple the amount you are, and don’t do as much of the work as you do! Bare minimum mental health workers should be making $15-17/hr especially since we are irreplaceable and do much of the work. Maybe if he required a degree you would get more people who actually love what they do, instead of just anybody off of the street! 
 Another problem is that the doctors make decisions when they don’t even know the patients! The mental health worker should have a say and some of the decisions because they are the ones who are around these patients a majority of the time! Sheppard Pratt just needs to do better!

As an MHW, I loved working with the patients on my unit. I learned so much from them, and I was honored to support such brave, strong, and compassionate people. However, I was completely unsupported by my coworkers. I have a calm and gentle demeanor, which patients have attested to and conveyed appreciation for, but my coworkers didn't seem to appreciate my personality type. They thrived off of drama, chaos, and dysfunction, which is troubling given that our role is to create a safe and therapeutic environment. My supervisor was largely absent and took several week-long vacations over a span of just a few months. We were always short-staffed, and I was the one who was always forced to stay for another shift when there wasn't coverage. I even advocated for myself by suggesting someone else should take a turn, but there were only a handful of coworkers who would respect this. Throughout my time working there, my coworkers (minus a couple really kind MHWs) became increasingly hostile towards me, and I ultimately left for that reason. I'm saddened that the folks who truly care about the patients are often those who are unwelcomed by the toxic environment for refusing to be complicit in a frankly abusive environment for the patients.

Being an MHW at SPH is a good way to get patient care experience if you are considering going further into a career in healthcare or the mental health fields. You spend almost all your time working directly with patients and get to see a lot. By far the best part of the job is the patient interactions. But, many people in this position for the longterm are burnt out, lack the disposition needed to interact well with pts in a supportive way, or the knowledge/ training to support people in crisis. Many staff are very reactive/ confrontational and do not deescalate well, if at all. Depending on what unit you work on, morale can be low, especially bc many staff work long hours for low pay and no real chance at advancement. Management seems disorganized at times and is uninterested in making substantive changes that would keep good floor support staff on, and staffing will run you ragged if you let them dictate your schedule too much w/o pushing back.  ALL staff need much stronger training in trauma-informed care and therapeutic communication.

My typical day at work involved reviewing all patient records in the Electronic Medical Record (EMR) 48 hours post discharge for physician deficiencies. I also monitored other systems that were linked to the EMR to monitor and resolve issues. I learned analytical and problem-solving skills. Moreover, I was also able to enhance my oral and written communication skills by creating reports and giving presentations in meetings. I reported to the HIM Director on a weekly basis to give updates and reports on current issues and my action plan for resolving those issues. My co-workers were friendly and we worked as a team very well. I held team meetings when failures in a process occurred in an effort to discuss and fix the broken link. The hardest part of the job was to communicate with all medical staff in a timely basis to ensure deficiencies were being completed within the appropriate time-frame set by state, federal, and HIM regulations. The most enjoyable part of the job was working with a variety of individuals and reviewing documents to improve the overall quality of healthcare and maintain compliance among physicians.

When I started the job I absolutely loved it! The unit I worked on was challenging but I worked with an amazing team. It was the first job that I've had where I liked everybody, and if someone wasn't my favorite person personally, I still didn't mind working with them because of how well they did their job. People coming from other units also said the same thing about our unit (although any people had/ have a difficult time working with our population). Things got difficult when mandations (being required to work the next shift due to them being short staffed- usually because of call outs) became consistent. People are coming into work for a scheduled 8 hour shift knowing that they are going to get pulled to work a 16 hour shift. The majority of the staff has left the unity, so now mandations are happening even more frequently because we are short staffed, and the staff we have is not properly trained. That being said, I've talked to people who work other units and this is not as much of an issue, if at all. I would just do your research first. If there are a lot of openings  for a specific area, here may be a reason why.

The MHW position at Sheppard Pratt is great if you are trying to gain experience in the mental health field especially if you are a recent graduate with a degree in a related field. The management on my unit was decent but I definitely melt like they needed to give the staff more clear direction for how to deal with patient behaviors. My coworkers were all decent, there definitely were some people who gossiped a lot which was annoying but it wasn't anything you wouldn't see any where else in the health care field. One of my biggest issues was staff not following procedures we were taught. This include supervisors, MHWs, and Nurses. I have seen a lot of MHWs simply just lie about doing room checks or just tell patients to go chill in the courtyard when they are supposed to be running a group. You can also expect management to always be asking people to pick up extra shifts. Even though it's self schedule they will expect you to work doubles (16 hours) sometimes back to back like it's nothing. You really have to put your foot down and set your boundaries if you don't want to do that. Overall I'd say it's a decent job to get experience in the field but don't expect it to be a position you'll want to stay at for more than a year.

Top Job Titles	Average Salary
Mental health technician 7 salaries reported	$18.67 per hour
Registered nurse 1 salary reported	$46.96 per hour
Rehabilitation specialist 1 salary reported	$18.63 per hour
Therapist 8 salaries reported	$68,516 per year
Educational assistant 1 salary reported	$17.75 per hour

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