community support specialist

desk clerk

crisis response specialist

support specialist

residential specialist

Thresholds

A typical day includes meeting with members for 1:1 appointments, preparing meals for all members in the house, documenting activities, implementing treatment plans.  Occasional crisis intervention resulting in calling 911 for police assistance or member transport to hospital for medical or psychological evaluations.

Thresholds training is an A+.  They are very thorough and provide evidence-based training for all staff in direct care.  This is not just lectures, but they do role play and gave us a chance to test out the theories we were to implement with our members.  Training department was phenomenal in their support of staff questions and clarifications as needed in person or via email or phone calls.

Management - policies are very fair, positions for advancements are competitive.  The develop their policies with staff and members in mind.  The listened to all people involved to try and ratify changes and while implementing business changes to meet funding sources requirements or accreditation requirements.  With policy changes, management trains the staff so they are understanding what's happening.  We don't always agree, but at least we understand enough to accept and work with them on these implications.

Hardest part of the job, was keeping up the quality of service and documentation standards required for our funders and accreditation.  The emotional and mental part of they job in Mental health can be very draining.  If you are not careful you can burn out easily.

Co-workers some were a team, some were not.  The cultures affected the relationships, until a lead set the standards that were considered the Employee Culture and work ethics.

I enjoyed working with the staff and members.  Watching the members grow over the years and accomplishing some of their goals.

The turn over rate is extremely high. They provide false hope for clients. The team leaders and management is bad and will bully talk down to you, and try to overwork you. Management takes all the credit for all of your hard work. The pay is extremely low and their benefits packages are extremely high. They hire unqualified people and they will stick you with working a lot of overtime because they lack staff. They have a lot of trainings and meetings only to get yo to bill better to make more money from the state. There is not much room for advancement if you don't know anyone in higher positions and are not in their clique. Stay away from Thresholds. They expect your job to come first before your own family. This company doesn't care about anything but, making money any way they can. I can't believe they are supposedly one of the best companies to work for....LIES, LIES, LIES!!! They have non degreed staff writing all care plans and performing mental health assessments when it should be a person doing it with a college degree, yet have a higher degreed person signing for it. This company is full of doing sneaky stuff. So much theft is going on in this place, it's crazy. They falsify lots of documents among other shady business practices. SMH.

Compassionate, grace-filled and laid-back work place; meaningful, worthwhile work.

Despite having been let go from Thresholds in a less than stellar decision in which I felt unheard, I still whole-heartedly believe that Thresholds is one of the greatest agencies one could ever work for.  The people we work with are among the most resilient, most courageous, and most hilarious that I've ever met and, until the very end, there wasn't a time in my 2+ years that I didn't want to go to work.  Their smiles and laughter and the joy of helping find them a home or get them set up with food stamps and such made coming to work worthwhile.  And the community at Thresholds is great.  It tends to be a fairly young community and includes a lot of people who transition in and out as they get their certifications, but overall, the Thresholds community loves hanging out and getting to know each other.  They look to support each other and there's always someone there if you need a listening ear.

Typical work day consists of team meetings, scheduled visits with members in the community which can range from home visits, to doctors appointments, to advocating for members benefits needs to social service and external benefits agency collateral. Hefty amount of paperwork (progress notes, care plan updates, scheduling doctors and follow up appointments, collaborating with external health, benefits, and other community collateral) and no overtime pay even though working more than 40 hour work weeks. Management is excellent in trying to work with staff to help develop clinical and professional skills and is actively involved in encouraging and supporting staff that are experiencing challenges with adjustments to work environment. Most enjoyable part of the job is getting to know and work with amazing members that expose staff to various mental health diagnoses, life experiences, and cherished moments that promote and encourage staff growth both professionally and personally.

A typical day at work is curious, walking into the building with teens and their children, teens with mental disabilities you have to be on guard and very aware because you never know what will happin, Staff have a personal office didicated to serve the teens with any thing they might need assistent with : parenting, relationship advice, budgeting and bank account assistent, monitor teens and children through out the shifts, keep logs on activities through out the shift, MPR(missing person report from chicago police) when need, transportation when needed, and prompt teens for school,work, appoinments etc. cook on meal days for teens as well. Working with teens that can be upset,fight each other, curse staff out can be hard , but! when you have supportive staff and skills to calm them down, and help them figure out he issues and they thank you is so rewarding and you know you've made difference and done ur duities. The hardest part of my job is not getting enough hours and being left days or even weeks without no hours, And all paper work is not completed when your shifts start so it make it hard to continue when you have to fix an issue or dont know certain things.

I worked as a residential staff for Thresholds for 3 years. I transferred sites once when I became overwhelmed by my schedule (14 hour weekend days, but hey, 3 days off a week...) and I had conflicts with my supervisor for not allowing me to use sick or vacation time. After a year and a half of that I transferred to a different residential and a much, much better team. Sometimes it takes some moving around to find them, but most supervisors here are willing to work with you and grant you much needed time off. The work can be stressful, as you need to make monthly billing/note quotas so Threaholds can make more money from the state, which in turn helps the clients. I worked in the Young Adult Program and would meet with the teens daily to talk about their progress and goals. Not every client will like you, but difficult clients present the most training opportunities. After 3 years and no raise or promotion I decided to leave Thresholds. There is very high turnover with staff at the residences.

Like most nonprofit social service orgs, Thresholds can’t pay people enough for the direct client work they do. On top of that, working with the specific population that I served as part of an assertive community treatment team (ACT) (people with severe and persistent mental illness, often experiencing homelessness, sometimes with substance issues) can be extremely draining on clinicians. It takes a lot to stay motivated and the teams do try to buoy each other up. However, the time constraints, productivity standards, low pay, frequent crisis situations, and general nature of trying to engage this population for services can feel overwhelming.

Many people use this type of job as a way to get clinical experience, get hours for licensure, and then move on to careers that pay better and support work/life boundaries.

*You may become trauma bonded with your fellow clinicians.*

I learned much the years at my agency. A few fantastic mentors have retired who were the most influential to me. The present management is not all encouraging and this shows; meaning except for one person, no one has stated to me personally good job. The personnel who retired always gave those comments. That is the older folks. Communication is a key to serving the population we serve and that is good. I am so blessed by the clients (i.e, members) we help. It is difficult at times with the behavior issues but is so rewarding. The stress in getting the paperwork completes one has to work overtime for this. Also, with only a lower degree I felt the personnel who had higher degrees were looked up and more opportunities for them. Especially, the many who were young and not much work experience they seem to get the more interactions with the management.

Thersholds is not a welcoming or supportive environment for everyone. I've experienced racism and mental health stigma from employees, including administrators. There are plenty of opportunities if you can handle those things and a company that is outdated and unsupportive with it's policies. Pay is very low and it is salary so you don't get overtime for all the extra time you end up putting in. Also your supervision for licensure is not made a priority so you frequently have to miss it. Policy around supervision is not trauma informed or responsive, this it is below standard for this type of work. Turn over is also incredibly high, thus teams are almost always understaffed and on the edge of burn out if not fully burned out. 

I loved my work, but the job is too stressful to not have the full support of the company behind you. I had better experiences elsewhere.

This organization practices many unethical standards that have created an unhealthy work environment for many employees. The organization does not follow diversity an inclusion model for employees. Residential Services and the Young Adult Program are in a continuous power struggle leaving employees without a clear sense of direction and purpose. The hostility from Residential and Young adult program managers flitters to the bottom leaving employees without support in completing objectives. Favoritism and nepotism practices have created hostile working environments. The organization serves DCFS wards of the state, there once size fits all moto leaves many loops in proper services to these clients. Unrealistic expectations are given to employees often leaving them in situations that are understaffed and hazardous.

Top Job Titles	Average Salary
Community support specialist 92 salaries reported	$24.40 per hour
Desk clerk 35 salaries reported	$18.46 per hour
Crisis response specialist 25 salaries reported	$28.07 per hour
Support specialist 15 salaries reported	$26.20 per hour
Residential specialist 27 salaries reported	$22.86 per hour

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