Community Mental Health, but from home!
Pros
- Work from home - Technology provided - Decent pay - W2 employee (get paid consistently regardless of whether the client shows - not an independent contractor) - LOTS of PTO - If you can say “no” to extra requests, it’s manageable(ish)
Cons
If you have ever worked in a community mental health setting, then you already know a lot of the cons. High caseloads, expectations of having 8 appointments per day, over-emphasis on productivity measures (billable hours) instead of quality of services provided, not enough support, disregard for your work / life balance, “magical math” (expectation of 41 hrs a week caseload count when at best you only have 39hrs a week at best to schedule), frequent expectation changes, revolving door of staff… Now for the stuff that might be Brave specific: - No 401k. - Limited room for advancement unless you fit a very specific mindset that is “tow the party line, be enthusiastic about everything regardless of how terrible it is!” The supervisors all like to claim that they’re “transparent” but it’s a lie. Their job is to sell you on the BS (the top pees down on you while the supervisor’s job is to convince you it’s just rain). - The expectation for licensed providers is to put your license on the line by signing off on notes for clinicians you’ve never met, have no contact with, and often times produce TRASH assessments while you’re just supposed to give minimal feedback and keep it moving. The trash assessments aren’t the complete fault of the interns either as it’s very evident they aren’t being adequately trained. Also, don’t forget that you’re expected to provide this feedback ON TOP of doing your own work and there is literally ZERO flexibility in changing your productivity hours to reflect the extra workload! This isn’t the only example of them asking you to do supervisory work with no flexibility or benefits to you either. - VERY inflexible with both staff and clients. They have been pushing numbers so much that their policies are now discharging clients after a single no-show or 2 consecutively missed appointments. For a place that accepts Medicaid, this seems unusually harsh. - LOTS of administrative work beyond notes. You’re expected to send individual text message reminders for all of your appointments even though there are already automated ones that go out. You’re expected to reply to emails and other messages from clients in addition to regular trainings. None of which you are slotted any form of administrative time to complete. If you have a cancellation even a minute early you have to immediately report it so they can fill it with an assessment or new client if possible. - Documentation: when I was initially hired I was told that the documentation requirements are minimal. HAHAHHAHAHA yeah, that’s not true. They accept Medicaid and are CARF accredited so they slowly over time created more and more documentation to the point that it is just as much (if not slightly more) than any other community mental health setting. Overall, it’s like they have found a way to take all the negatives of community mental health and somehow managed to extrapolate them. It’s impressive if I’m being honest.