Pros
The counseling staff is very committed and works hard to support our students and eachother. The model of one on one counseling is really positive for the students we work with. The students we work with are the best, and most are grateful for the work we do for them.
Cons
For a non-profit, there is a very corporate structure and process. It's like a bureaucracy, but it's too small to be like this. Communication is poor, and it seems to be all in one direction. Even communication between teams can be poor, when it's important to share best practices.There is no respect for staff who have Student Development, higher education backgrounds or years of experience. They make changes to the process steps for counselors and student milestones on an annual basis as if consistency matters not at all in interventions. There is an ancient database that has been in process of updating for over a year, and is still not updated. The middle management is undereducated, under experienced and under trained because most staff move up too quickly and are unprepared. The National Leadership has no idea how to support staff who have little counseling background to work with students who need a lot of support. They focus on the students more than the staff and that is a model that worked when the org was smaller, but the National staff is not able to switch to supporting a growing staff, they just keep on focusing on the students and skip over the burning out staff. Instead of hiring educated competent staff who could run the programs with little supervision, they hire young staff who are eager and gluttons for punishment, pay them nothing, and barely support them. The turn over is crazy, and not just among new counselors but also middle managers. If you question how things are done, and suggest changes, you are considered making a negative working environment, and get lower marks on your evaluations, so you can't move up. Questioning authority does not go well, even when you suggest other ways of doing things that are considered innovative or best practices. Also, this is not a social justice organization despite the population of students we serve. Cultural competency is in the works, but only about 30% of the way there. There is zero room for creativity here. And do not ask why we do things a certain way, you will get smacked down.