senior program specialist

family support specialist ii

family service counselor

senior service associate

service technician iii

Virginia Department of Social Services

Very high frequent turnover for child support enforcement specialists. Poor training, lack of training, you're expected to jump in quickly & work an unrealistic & extremely high caseload, over 1,000 cases. Hybrid work schedule. 2 days in office, 3 at home-subject to change. You must see walk-in clients on days you're in office. Very stressful work, grey policy so everyone does everything differently, no consistency. Extreme micromanaging, you must meet monthly, quarterly & yearly production metrics, quotas & goals & you're constantly being watched, reviewed, & micromanaged to meet these requirements. Upper leadership receive bonuses based off of your job performance, lot of pressure. As an SES, you can be moved around & you will be shifted from one supervisor/unit to another several times a year due to high turnover. Many staff experience significant health issues from the stress. Decent people, decent leadership, decent atmosphere. Holiday parties, great benefit, alot of paid time off & holidays. Alot of team & agency meetings. Alot of reports & completing spreadsheets. All they care about is job performance & getting the numbers/quotas met every month. Quality takes a back seat. Some supervisors falsely scew numbers to meet goals. Some unethical practices. Deal with disgruntled clients. I do not recommend. 

My first 3-3.5 years there were wonderful.  For the first time, I really liked going in to work.  I loved what I did and worked WITH a great group of people (note the "with" part).
But then, things changed dramatically.  There started to be some seriously toxic political wrangling within the leadership and suddenly my very functional team with happy customers started being micromanaged and picked apart.  From that point forward, things just went downhill and the stress of it drove me away, despite having a great work friend group, which is quite rare.  Sad, really.  I did love my work and did my job very well, but I had to move on for sanity's sake (half my remaining team left within 6 months after I did, so I don't think it was just me).  This agency can be one of those places where if your particular department has great leadership you can really enjoy your job or at least have it not kill you.  If not, though, ooof.

Lacks empathy and professionalism which is why there is high turnover. Would be a great place to excel if they followed their core beliefs and values. 

I loved the opportunity to help the population of those who don’t often have a voice “children, mentally/physically disabled, and the elderly. ” The majority of staff members are kind beautiful hearted individuals but very in your personal business - awkward environment filled with inconsistencies.  

Micromanagement style with no one on one training (read policy and pop quiz) and when you are spoken to by supervisor it is uncomfortable and degrading. Blunt disrespectful delivery approach not only to customers but towards staff. (on more than one occasion publicly humiliated by a senior worker). The way they talk about clients is horrific and they act as if they are superior to those who are less fortunate. 

You are expected to be in your seat prior, 10 minutes without pay, to official start time and no deviations from set break times (most employees don’t have the opportunity to even take the federal mandated breaks) 

First week full caseload assignment at start without any knowledge of how to use systems. Cases were in my name and I had no way to actually help my clients when they called with questions regarding their case; huge concern for client. 

It is a lot of work for very low pay. It’s a decent job if you don’t really care about people ever getting their benefits on time, Medicaid being delayed due to being understaffed, etc. it’s kind of hard to be a worker who actually cares about the quality of work that you do. The systems are very slow, you’re just expected to “do what you can” yet there’s a million fires all day everyday. They give a lot of perks such as teleworking some days to make up for the terrible pay and workload. You will do the job of about 3-4 other people in one, yet won’t be properly compensated for it. I left this job only working 3 days in office, to a role in the office 5 days a week, that is how stressful it is. You will only succeed if you don’t actually care. If you’re a BPS, you will literally do the job of customer service, data energy, case manager, IT, fraud all in one. The clients are honestly one of the least frustrating parts of the job, the system, lack of resources, training, and understaffing is what makes this job super difficult. Management can also be messy and gossip just as much as everyone else. After about two years, the job gets unbearable. 

Small team of four social workers. Have to be comfortable completing home visits alone as team is small and utilizing crisis intervention skills in high risk intense situations.  Duties include home visits and providing transportation. May have to transport long distances.  Majority of work is completed in the community. Have to be able to multitask and manage caseload. On call is fourteen days out the month and rotated among four social workers. You will be primary on-call worker one week and back up on-call worker the next week. On call starts at 4:30 pm after your regular shift of working 8:00 am-4:30 pm. You have to live within 30 minutes of Williamsburg and ready to respond to on-calls within 30 minutes, including holidays and weekends. Work/Life Balance can be limited. Have to be comfortable going into unkempt environments and assessing the need using appropriate social work skills. Pay is okay, not competitive for intensity of work. Benefits are great. Having the ability to help people is great. Days can be long up to ten hours; however, you have the ability to flex time.

The Virginia Department of Social Services (VDSS) is a state supervised and locally administered social services system. Providing oversight and guidance to 120 local offices across the state, VDSS delivers a wide variety of services and benefits to over 1.6 million Virginians each year.
VDSS' programs are designed to help Virginia's most vulnerable citizens find permanent solutions to life's many challenges. The Department is responsible for administering a variety of programs, including Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), Medicaid, Adoption, Child Care Assistance, Refugee Resettlement Services, and Child and Adult Protective Services.

The VaCMS (Virginia case management system) application is used to maintain the cases which are registered to VDSS through various programs such as Medicaid, TANF, SNAP, Child care etc. The interfaces module will act like interface between the VaCMS system and other third party vendors to send and receive the required data.

What is the best part of working at the company?
The best part of working for the company was you worked from home

What is the most stressful part about working at the company?
The most stressful part about working from the company was getting evaluations based on job performance despite little to no training

What is the work environment and culture like at the company?
The environment and culture is every man for themselves. My manager was new to the company like me and I felt that they treated her the same with little leadership and guidance, which left both of us struggling to learn and apply procedures, policy and laws.

What is a typical day like for you at the company?
Signing in to the system and processing child support requests, interviewing clients, processing court orders, requesting actions on cases, sending administrative summons, requesting, handling and uploading documents, meeting quotas and documenting case actions.

Two years at HRSSD and I have grown professionally and personally. As a foster care case worker, you will be on the road A LOT. You will have uncomfortable conversations. You will have to learn to manage your time and balance many aspects of the job. Feels like there is more administrative work than there should be when we are constantly trying to keep crisis stabilizing. With all of that being said, this is the nature of working with families who have been through an enormous amount of trauma. Child Welfare is not easy, but I believe HRSSD is constantly working to help their workers find balance. Foster Care Supervisors encourage you to take time off and take care of your mental health. The staff there works as a team and will lend a hand. 
The work is not easy, and to be honest, very rarely is it rewarding. That is just the reality of foster care. You will receive a lot of training, great benefits, good support, and learn many invaluable lessons. 

Working for Alleghany/Covington Department of Social Services was terrible. There is no formal training plan—new employees are just supposed to jump in, learn as you go, and do whatever it takes to keep your head above water. You schedule yourself to watch a few videos, then are expected to know your job. The supervisor in benefits is a micromanager and belittles employees when questions are asked. CoWorkers will act like they want to help, then complain to management if you’ve asked questions. Also, the supervisor is constantly reminding you of their title. There is no work life balance. You will give more than 40 hrs a week. Workload was way to much for even the most experienced workers, (they are constantly complaining) with very minimal support from the supervisor. Most benefit workers seem unhappy there, but it is a monthly paycheck. Some of the employees cliqued together and spoke horrible about other employees. 
Turnover is also very high.
Very Toxic Work Environment.




Absolutely ridiculous trying to work there. Medicaid Supervisor very immature, fake and unhelpful. I sat for a month with no guidance, nobody would tell me what was expected even though I continued to ask. The supervisor acted like a teenager with her click on episode of Mean Girls. After trying to figure out what I was actually expected to do on the job after about a month they said “ I wasn’t interested in my job and I had a week to improve”. Although I continually ask for guidance. I finally quit and when I did other employees ( including management) stepped up and told me I was not the first person who had been treated that way, that the supervisor and her minions would do that when you didn’t for in their click. My advice is to avoid that place like it is contaminated....because it is!! Worst place I have ever worked in my life!!!

Top Job Titles	Average Salary
Senior program specialist 15 salaries reported	$55,348 per year
Family support specialist ii 13 salaries reported	$48,937 per year
Family service counselor 7 salaries reported	$70,384 per year
Senior service associate 9 salaries reported	$39,349 per year
Service technician iii 9 salaries reported	$51,891 per year

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