therapist

registered nurse

counselor

dietitian

prep cook

The Renfrew Center

I have worked at the Renfrew Center for the last 7 months, and I can say it was both an amazing and terrible experience in one. The only reason this experience was even remotely good was because of the patients. You get to work with some amazing, resilient patients. There are also a few great co-workers as well. You get good experience in the eating disorder world and it is pretty magical to watch these patients grow in their recovery.
That being said, this job is in no way sustainable, ethical, or fair in any way. There is SO much wrong with this company and management. I am quite disgusted by the way Counselors are treated at Renfrew.
First off, when I began, I literally had NO training. I was told to shadow another counselor for the day, and that was my training. We had weekly supervisions with upper-management which definitely could be helpful, but that was it. 
The majority (not all) of nurses here are extremely lazy and rude. Nurses will deny patients medications, even in there is an order for them, and then gossip in the back of the nurses station.  They are not diversely sensitive at all, several patients go by a variety of pronouns. Nurses use wrong pronouns frequently.
The nursing and counseling staff went un-supervised for MONTHS during the COVID-19 pandemic.
From a COVID-19 standpoint…it has been AWFUL. Upper-management has been acting as if we are transparent in this matter, which is very far from the truth.
First off, we have had multiple staff test positive for COVID. Upper management has chosen to pick and chose which instances they would like to inform the patients about, which is incredibly unethical. One kitchen staff had tested positive, and no patients were informed. 
We have received one SMALL bonus throughout the entire pandemic. Other than that, no hazard pay has been given to us.
Many of the jobs we do are not in our job description. I have found myself in many roles, doing nursing, kitchen, house keeping, maintenance, IT,  and therapist job requirements.
We have been EXTREMELY understaffed, evening shift is worse as I have worked evening shift for a few months as well. Often, there can be 1-2 counselors with 50-60 patients. The patients deserve so much more than that.
These instances are merely a handful of unethical, poorly managed, and grossly disturbing experiences I had endured during my time as a Counselor at Renfrew. 
I am leaving this company with heavy heart for the patients here. They have kept me here much longer than management ever could’ve. 
If you are a counselor here, you can likely expect to feel rewarded from patient interaction. Yet, you can also likely expect to feel belittled, unheard, under appreciated, over-worked, under-paid, and afraid to speak out. It is very unfortunate that this is the note I am leaving on and the opinion I have developed throughout my direct experience with this company. However, my review stands true to my outlook on it all. I truly hope there is a turn around for this company and broken system as it is right now is absolutely not ok.

I worked as an evening shift counselor at Renfrew for eight months. My shift was 3pm - 11:30pm. Most of my patients had programming all day long. They were in group therapy, individual therapy, they had appointments with nutritionists and psychiatrists. During the day Renfrew had four counselors on the floor and typically four to five nurses. Once 5 pm hit, everyone walked out that door. I was the only full time evening counselor for the last three months I worked at Renfrew. Nursing staff dwindled too as time went on. On a Saturday night at 8PM staffing ordinarily looked liked one counselor and two nurses for 50 some patients. Many of my patients were suicidal and were on quarterly checks, which means they needed to be checked on every 15 minutes. That exceedingly difficult to do when I am the only one there to do rounds and safety checks in the evenings. We had adolescents who were forced into treatment by their families and did not want to be in treatment. They occasionally ran away. I had one patient who had made a habit of jumping out her window after nine pm snack. The security guard and myself were constantly hunting her down. When I had a particularly rough shift, and I was concerned about the safety of a particular patient or two, I'd email the director of nursing. She NEVER ANSWERED. I sent countless emails that went unanswered to upper management about the dangers of understaffing at this place. No one cared. All they care about is filling the beds and billing insurance. Patients to them are just a chart and a patient ID number. If you have any morals or values at all, don't work at Renfrew. It will break your spirit.

This place is unorganized in every area.  There is no communication and their depts are not sett up right. You have people who know nothing doing whatever they want. They have billing issues that they won't correct they lose the good people they have because they don't listen & the CFO knows nothing about healthcare and he's got things so messed up people have no idea what & why they are doing things.  He needs to understand the business if he knew a lit bit he would never let things continue. Financial ruins is where they are going and billing is shady & the CFO continues to make a mess, u have so much talent at Renfrew but they don't let you use it instead your thrown into things that are set up completely wrong. You will leave this company because you  know better and even if you try to speak up nobody listens. You will not learn or grow they will make you outdated like they are Don't waste your time on this place you'll be working like a dog and you'll take 10 steps backward because your strengths will never be used maybe if everybody had no healthcare experience it would be better because having it means nothing to these people. They're billing dept is going to have nobody in it under the CFO direction it's a dead end street the pay is a disgrace

My experience at TRC was frustrating and disappointing. Training was minimal and left me feeling unprepared to handle the job's demands. Upper management showed little empathy for the challenges faced by staff. Often times they were openly disrespectful to staff AND patients. Workloads were unreasonably heavy, and feedback was vague or overly critical without providing meaningful support or direction. Staff concerns/limitations were often ignored, fueling a culture full of burnout and resentment. You get 12 hours of work to do in an 8 hour day, not enough instruction on how to do it, and reprimanded when you do it wrong/don't do enough. 


The overall atmosphere lacked the structure and support needed to succeed, and the disconnect between leadership and staff was palpable. Promises of support were often empty, and instead of fostering growth, the site seemed to set people up for failure. While coworkers were supportive and helpful, this did little to offset the pervasive issues within the organization. The name seems great to have under your professional belt- but save your mental health and go elsewhere. 

Some of the veterans would say, “you work here for the name not the pay, but the name has fallen apart.” The first treatment center in eating disorders has sadly fallen apart in terms of employee happiness and benefits, ethics, as well as effectiveness in treatment. There are stories of countless motivated professionals coming through and ultimately leaving due to poor compensation and unapproachable and condescending leadership. Personally speaking, the co workers are amazing and the patients are resilient and insightful. Leadership has made this job stressful and doubtful as interactions are met with belittlement by many. This can be a great stepping stone for new therapists working on licensure, but a long term career with the company is difficult unless one is willing to look past the dysfunction and ethical concerns. 

Initially this seemed like a wonderful place to work but the reality of it all soon came to surface. This company does NOT care about its employees, is highly unorganized and has awful compensation with little to no room for improvement. They often hire young grads right out of school knowing they are desperate to get a job and will take ridiculously low wages. After deciding to leave they were unprofessional and withheld my take home pay due to errors in their own processing. They were callous and didn't care how their mistakes impacted my family. This is NOT an ideal place for a long term career. There is high turnover and constant micromanaging. I have a hard time believing that the CEO doesn't know the true state of this company. My thought is that he doesn't care and continues to open nonresidential sites at the expense of his currently underpaid employees.

The work is very easy that I will say but working with some of the Nurses is by far the hardest part .... If they are not Gossiping about the patients or co-workers they are being condescending to everyone. Not only that they huddle in the back office like if its a cave and barley want to come out and help a patient. Consolers who work here will have a very hard time because at the end of the day even if its not your fault ....... it will end of being your fault. The unit clerks are horrible!!!!!!!!!!!!! during the week and the Weekends are a free to do what ever show.

But not all the nurses are bad there is like two maybe three that actually care about there job. And the consolers work very hard and should be paid more. The poor maintenance staff juggles a lot of hats and work very hard as well.  All in All the idea of the Refrew Center is great will helping the patients the Philadelphia location needs work.

Overall I LOVED my experience at renfrew. As a baby therapist I learned SO much and now feel like an absolute expert in the field. My team and supervisor were unparalleled and I never felt that I was struggling alone with a client. However, the nature of the work is  exhausting and you are expected to wear many different hats outside of individual therapist (though annoying, this was great for learning though) The clients are wonderful but the work can often feel futile when you have so many unmotivated folks coming through the door. The wage is livable but really doesn’t even come close to matching the amount of energy and effort this job takes. Overall I am SO happy that this was my first job out of grad school and if I could go back and change my decision, I would still absolutely choose Renfrew. 

I have never been at a job where your supervisor cares so little about your wellbeing and mental health. This job cares for the mental health of the patients while damaging the health of the employees. They will give you more work than you can manage and then get upset that it isn't done. When you tell them that you are struggling with the amount of work and feeling overwhelmed, they say "ok" and then do nothing about it. The job in itself is very rewarding, but feeling this way while doing this type of job puts the patients at risk because you will not be able to care for them properly. The other co-workers are extremely supportive for the most part and will work with you and help when they notice you're feeling beaten down.

After reading previous reviews, which are outdated, I was hesitant to begin my career at Renfrew.  After working there for a while I realized that an honest, current review is needed for other potential nurse/counselor applicants who are also hesitant to apply.
The counselors (who work within the nursing department) are a highly skilled, educated, incredible group of individuals. The nurse supervisor is an excellent resource of knowledge and truly supports her staff.  She cares about staffing levels, overall staff satisfaction, and promoting change to make the job better.  
As a whole, Renfrew does need some work.  However the nursing department is moving in the right direction and I'm really happy with my position.

Top Job Titles	Average Salary
Therapist 5 salaries reported	$55,000 per year
Registered nurse 6 salaries reported	$36.42 per hour
Counselor 3 salaries reported	$20.33 per hour
Dietitian 3 salaries reported	$57,333 per year
Prep cook 4 salaries reported	$16.13 per hour

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