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Child Mind Institute

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Toxic work environment from the top down - Anonymous employee Child Mind Institute Employee Review

1.0
15 Jan 2026
Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

lower-level staff and administrators are kind, hard-working people

Cons

This is an organization that has gotten progressively more toxic and dysfunctional as the years have gone by. It all starts with the executive leadership, who only care about schmoozing with New York high society and sweet-talking billionaires into donating money to Child Mind's "non-profit." Meanwhile, they've built this beautiful office space for children's mental health treatment that only 1% of the NYC population can afford and pay the founder/president a massive salary. Executive leadership is strategic in who they place in high-ranking positions- usually well-meaning people who are too meek to speak up and wind up following leadership's rules out of fear and false promises. They use these people to carry out leadership's shady orders and act as buffers to make sure that the people at the top can't be linked to any wrongdoing. The problem with putting a bunch of "yes-people" in high ranking positions is that they don't know what they're doing and they are too weak to speak up when things go awry. As such, the organization has made a tremendous amount of mistakes and risky decisions that could put research projects and clinical patient care at risk. When employees speak up about these poor business practices, they are either ignored, silenced, or retaliated upon. After a while, most of these people leave, unable to continue working in such a toxic work environment. Those that stay are placed under continuous pressure to cut corners, lie, deceive, and engage in clinical/business practices they don't feel comfortable with. The organization promises these employees all kinds of things for their complicity and then back out of these promises whenever they feel that it's not worth keeping that person on. It's no wonder that there is constant staff turnover and poor reviews on job websites. The saddest part of all is that executive leadership is too egotistical to see that the walls of their empire are crumbling around them. The only thing executive leadership cares about is fame, power, and influence, which they've has gotten, thanks to powerful connections and a massive PR and marketing team that promote the organization's brand. I would highly discourage anyone from joining this organization. Not all that glitters is gold, and this organization epitomizes this. If you interview there, you will be made to feel like this organization is changing the world for the better and that you'll be part of something magical. You'll get a very different feeling when you start working there and it's only a matter of time before you look for the exit.

Explore other reviews about Child Mind Institute

5.0
6 May 2025
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

I learned a lot and the leadership was great!

Cons

There were no cons, truthfully!

1
1.0
2 July 2026
Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Some very smart minds working here

Cons

- Extremely toxic work culture - Senior Leadership have no strategy. They chase good PR to the detriment of the health of their teams. - All power stems from the top. It changes like the wind and is not anchored in the mission or evidence. If you are not kowtowing to the leader, you are let go and without any respect to what you have contributed. This can be seen in the C-suite changing constantly over the past year. - Resource allocation prioritizes senior leadership salaries, which negatively impacts delivery of programs and services. This also illustrates to anybody wanting to invest or fund that it is not a good place for ROI. - Extremely high turnover is a reflection of toxic HR and senior leadership.

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