jobbite
Within the first month that I joined this agency, I was working at least 55-60 hrs per week. I felt highly misguided by the information I was provided with during my interviews, and it was very obvious why their website consistently has multiple job openings. I was told (by the agency) that the turnover rate at the office where I was employed was very high. During the time that I was there, a staff member left every few weeks, and because they could barely keep or hire new employees, the current employees were expected to pick up the hours from employees that recently quit. Staff members at the residential facility treated the children in an emotionally abusive manner, and at times, were extremely unethical. Many of the residents left the residential campus worse than when they entered YV's program.
The pay was very low, and "time off" never felt like time off. This job was so awful that I quit before I even had another job lined up. Upon meeting other previous YV employees, I heard similar stories and across the board they told me YV was their "worse" job experience. I could not agree more. I will never donate or advertise for this company's services because of the terrible and unethical work practices that they demonstrate. If you truly cared about the children and families you serve, you should start with appropriate care and treatment of your staff.
On a side note, I have heard that the YV programs in Memphis and the surrounding area are among the worst (as far as staff retention and employee turnover/satisfaction). I think some of their programs in other states are not as terrible. Also, because their main offices are in Memphis, they have a huge number of programs, offices, group homes, and facilities there (hence the large turnover in the Memphis area).
low salary, terrible vacation/health benefits, staff feel guilty if they even schedule vacation time or call in sick. I was called at home when I had the flu and asked if I could still come into work because another staff member had quit.
I've been away from YV for a couple of months. I thought it was wonderful, supportive and all those things you mentioned...then I remembered some things. I am organized, VERY organized. I hold a license and a master's degree. I do know what I am doing and most people who do have any concept of counseling and common sense leave quickly. I was and still am in private practice. On call 24/7, no mistakes allowed because I have no supervisor for things to fall on. I have colleagues who applauded me leaving YV. Most professionals find YV to be a joke. You haven't been there long enough to understand our level of distaste and disgust. If work dates show, trust me they are incorrect, I didn't bother. I wish you the best in your career and hope that you do well whatever you do. God help you if you stay. I hope and pray that your skills far outpace what YV can provide you find a way to truly provide lasting change.
Please ignore all of the previous posts that are clearly from disgruntled, ignorant individuals who have obviously never worked for YV. I know I am new to this job, however, I love it! Everything that was presented to me in my interviews has been true. I have a case load of five families. I do not "baby sit " as others report that they do. I meet with these families and assist them in constructing plans so that they can keep their children at home or regain custody of them. The environment I work in is very supportive, and my supervisor is ready and willing to assist me at all times. I feel that what I do is meaningful, and that I am really making a difference. I have read in other posts that YV supposedly makes the counselors work long hours, and do loads of paperwork. WRONG! Only individuals who are disorganized and incompetent end up having this fate. Many people are ot used to having the freedoms of ths job, thus they end up "hanging" themselves. This is not a job for someone who wants to sit in an office all day. YV in home services are none traditional and we have to utilize non traditional techniques to get the job done. Thus far I am very satified with this company, my pay, and my families. I am not saying that YV is without flaws, however what company is?
YV is a great opportunity for those who are capable and open to step outside the box.
Pros: Flexible schedule ( i get to do school wrok and spend tie with my child), supportive administration, good pay
Cons: You are on call and may get a phone call about a crisis. however, an effective counselor could deesculate this over the phone.
As an experienced family counselor, I looked forward to working in the upbeat, "flexible" environment that was described during the interviews. Now I know why most of the listings for counselors on the job sites are for Youth Villages. They hire mostly young, hopeful graduates and promise the world. They lie about promotional opportunities and salaried work hours. There is little substance to the therapy that they call MST. It is really just driving around all day, babysitting and collecting billing units. They will put you on call every few weekends and make you catch up on everyone else's units. A 70 hour work week is not uncommon if you add in the ridiculous, redundant paperwork. If you get lucky enough to get vacation days, they'll tell you to call your families every day from the Bahamas. If you call in sick, you can expect to work the weekends and nights to catch up and bring a note from your doctor at about $150 per visit. Figured hourly, Kentucky Fried Chicken pays better and is less stress. Driving over 100 miles/day is common but you'll get $.39 a mile and have to argue for every penny of it. If you have no family or friends, it might be possible to maintain a 15hr/day schedule but you will probably burn out and start looking for a job in a year like about 75% of the counselors do. Unfortunately for most of them, the experience will not be helpful for any other job. But, somehow, YV will skew the statistics to show that everyone is happy and the families are all doing well. All I can say is, it's just not the truth
Counselors start at $32000 and get about 5% bump after a year. Then they call you a senior counselor and start adding more duties to your job. There are no bonuses, only "prizes" for hooking new clients, maybe ten bucks or some cheap promotional item with a red kite on it. Be prepared to argue all reimbursements to the death. Vacation time will be nothing but stress over postponed requirements.
You call yourself a counselor but what you really are is a creative writing expert disguised with words like: Barriers, Breakdowns and Fit, Advances and Alignment or Engagement. Well, you have to look at like you are a behavioral specialist. Guess Medicaid doesn't pay for that field. In fact, I can't understand how Medicaid would even pay these people. You don't visit the "identified client" aka the youth/child or provide counseling, you are actually teaching parenting skills and playing babysitter. They require you to make families dependent on you. This is unethical, unprofessional and just wrong. No wonder they have such young staff.
On the upside when I was sick they called multiple to check on me.....and find out if I had completed my paperwork, my sessions and when could I manage to get these things completed because we can't risk being out of compliance. ...but they did at least act concerned about my health, no dying before you complete your paperwork or sessions!
You will work 20 hours a day. Every day. With no sleep. Supervisors will lie to you and tell you that it's just the first week. Week 2, and 3, and 4 will go exactly the same way. You will be depressed and sleep deprived and live in your car. Your life will not be your own anymore. It will belong to them. By the time that you are completely beaten down by your supervisors, you will no longer have the mental competence to spell your own name.
pros: I didn't wrap my car around a tree on one of the oh, so, many nights that I lived on an hour of sleep before my next 20 hour shift.
cons: Everything else
Core values include valuing their employees and children are best raised by their families. By this they do not mean YOUR own children. Yes, most of the employees are fresh faces ready to take on the world. Everyone is sick, run down and very stressed or burned out by the sixth month mark....err, make that six day mark!. Charles Manson's family has more reasonable hours and expectations than this place! How can I say that? I am on call tonight and got a call to go out and check on a client who was being threatened by a neighbor with a gun! GUN! Since when am I a police officer and then halfway there I was told to turn around because it MIGHT NOT BE SAFE! MIGHT NOT BE SAFE???? I cannot think of a reason to use GUN and MIGHT NOT BE SAFE in the same sentence. MIGHT NOT BE SAFE? The company's reasoning for me to go out at 10 o'clock at night and possibly leave my children motherless? To make sure the client was following a safety plan! They are locked in their home and staying away from windows and calling the police. I think that qualifies! Yes, I am searching for a job right now. These people are INSANE! Yeah, I was advised to call an attorney. Think I might just do that.
PERKS? I have multiple job offers and connections made in the past week. 10 years experience, a license and a master's degree earns you 31K a year, 39 cents a mile and wooo hoooo a free calendar to keep track of the unreasonable expectations they have of you.
After graduating with my Masters degree, I decided to seek out a new job and continuously found positions advertised with Youth Villages. When I went through the interview process, I made it a point to inquire about the numerous openings I found for Youth Villages. The supervisor sold me a wonderful story about how the company was growing and people were being promoted. After talking with her I was sold, plus I couldn't find anyone who had anything negative to say about them. Once I began working I quickly realized I had made the biggest mistake of my life. The flexible schedule they so frequently talk about is a joke. Your schedule has to be flexible because you have to meet with the families when they can meet with you. Obviously, if you have a family were the parent/parents work then you will have to be meeting with them around 4 or after. Now figure in that you will have 5 families or possibly more that you will be the counselor for and have to see 3 times a week. The sessions with the family are supposed to be an hour and a half long and oh yeah...you have to drive 30-50 miles from one house to the next. In addition to scheduling all that you have to also factor in time to do notes for each session and make two weekly contacts for each kid and don't forget you have to do weekly treatment plans for each kid and every other week you have to do discharge summaries. Now, I pride myself on my organizational skills, but I could never get my schedule to work the way the supervisors had led me to believe it could work. Instead, I was getting into the office around 8:00 am and coming home around 7:00pm/7:30pm and I spent the weekends doing treatment plans...every weekend I kid you not. As if the work schedule was not bad enough, the Dickson office goes one step further in making the counselors life miserable because there is a supervisor there who is completely disrespectful to her coworkers. I have witnessed her belittle fellow employees by calling them out in front of everyone in the office. One of our coworkers got sick and was going to have to go on medical leave and she threatened to fire that employee if they did not come into work. And best of all, she requires notes be entered daily even though the company has a three day time limit for entering notes. So with all this wonderful stress and pressure of this job one would really value any vacation they could get from work but at Youth Villages you can forget it....there is never a vacation! Anytime you take off from work, you are still required to get all of your work for the week done. That also holds true for holidays so the times of the year that were supposed to be joyous were miserable. I was so thankful when I got offered a new job.
Starting pay was $32,000 and I didn't stay long enough to get a raise. They did reimburse $25 for my cell phone bill but my bill went through the roof because I was constantly having to call my families to make sure my kid wasn't trying to act a fool. They did reimburse for mileage but I don't remember the rate. I can say my mileage check was usually just a few hundred short of my pay check because I would be driving 5-6 hours a day.
MST is a great concept that has been converted to a money making mill by Youth Villages. It's not about the kids, it's about the billing units. It was also my mistake to accept the relocation package and pledge a year to this company. First they held back reimbursement for over two months and then dispensed it as fully taxed wages. If you like pseudo-religious pep rallies, donating 40% more hours than full time, being compensated at about 70% of the going rate for your Masters degree, being reimbursed $25/month for your $150 cell phone bill, driving 1000 miles/week for much less than the usual scale and the joys of being micromanaged by people who are just as frustrated as yourself... This could be the job for you. Otherwise, I suggest looking for something more professional that is not directed by a disfunctional sorority. Your ambition and concern will be better invested anywhere else.
Relax. If you take any vacation, you will still be responsible to catch up your case load when you get back. That goes for attending mandatory pep rallies 100 miles away in the middle of your work week too. You'll start around $32000/yr for 60+ hours per week, weekends and on-call and it doesn't rise much after that. If you accept the tuition assistance they'll own you for another 2 years but you won't have time for school anyway. Maybe one class per semester for eternity. Oh, and don't fall for the flexible hours and "small" case load claims. There, you're already smarter than me. Good luck with your job search.
I was interviewed three times by this company. Twice by the local manager and once by a regional manager. The second interview was the longest interview of my life, an hour and forty minutes! The company scheduled me 10 days later at 4 pm for the third interview and called me two hours early. Then the interviewer presented scenarios with questions and when she disagreed with my answers she would interrupt and ask me either to repeat my answers or ask me "and what else?" It was obvious she lacked the training necessary to conduct an interview for the position. When she asked if I had any questions for her I asked her if there would be more interviews. She said that there would be a third with a higher level manager, and then they would ask me to fly to Mississippi at my own expense to work two days on site, then fly home to wait for their answer on whether or not they decided to hire me. I've worked for over twenty years and never has a company asked me fly at my own expense after three interviews just to be scrutinized by them. They mention after each interview "we need to decide if you're the right fit" but they never indicate what that is. As the previous poster mentioned they want to profile their candidates to match their religious values. It has nothing to do with professionalism or qualifications. There also appears to be a high turnover with this agency as the regional supervisor indicated to me when she stated that new hires were leaving the program after receiving their relocation expenses and that because of this the company now delays reimbursement until the second pay period. Another, red flag is that most of their staff (check out their photos on their website) appear to be in their twenties or early thirties, yet the company has been around over twenty years. This indicates two things to me, short career spans, and/or ageism in their hiring practices. To top it all off I was told that I would receive a phone call from this company regarding either a third interview, or, the company deciding not to offer me the job. I waited ten days before I got a form e mail rejection and this was only after calling them regarding my application status on the ninth day.
Maybe I was just too idealistic in my expectations, but as an over-thirty-something with military under my belt and a new college degree, I though I could change the world. I'm a parent too!!!! Thought I had plenty of experience! Went in, did an awesome job, bought the book they use on Multisystemic approach, read it cover to cover....spent long hours....everything I could to fit in. They still found problems with me. I was very discouraged until some of the other women I was in training with emailed me about their experiences in the office in Nashville where they were working and told me of the same experiences. Youth Villages uses the term "a good fit" a lot. They say they want to see if you are a "good fit" for their company......seems to me these people are highly religious people and those I worked with said, "We don't use the children's medical diagnoses here" when making service (behavioral) plans for them and their families.....I think these people are totally off their rocker. Sorry! I'm so glad to be done with them, but I hate that my spirit was hurt by working at this place where it seemed the women staff had it in for me from day one and I definitely wasn't a "good fit". BEWARE unless you're a brainwashed Christian type who loves Corporate America.
All of the above.
This company is not an equal opportunity employer. They discriminate against anyone that is not *** in terms of promotions and fair employer practices. In addition, they claim to be a youth treatment facility however if organizations such as DCS were aware of some of the abuse that takes place to residents they would be shut down for sure. Very disorganized management and an extremely high employee turnover in the 70 percentile range. Not a good place to attempt to start a career. I am not sure if the Deer Valley facility is the only one operating like this, the rest of the company seems to be organized from what I can tell.
f you take vacation time you will have to work the hours at a later time for free. There is no true vacation time.