Personal - Clinical Case Manager SMYAL Employee Review

It’s interesting that even for this review, I have to select my gender as “male” or “female”. (Do better Glassdoor). There are so many places that don’t see me for who I am or let me be me around my identity, even this app, that it’s awesome to work at a place like SMYAL that really allows me to be. Even more, it allows youth who need our support to be themselves. The management all the way to the Executive Director authentically care about the staff in a way I’ve never seen before. If you want a place that really works to support queer and trans youth, this is it! Just be careful, management doesn’t play with unprofessionalism with working with youth.

It’s not easy. Not everyone is cut out for direct service work with queer and trans youth. We train a lot on trauma and some staff don’t know how to deal with their own. “Everything is someone else’s fault”. But that’s rare. Still the best place I’ve worked to make a difference and be treated with dignity.

Good pay and benefits and able to work with lgbtq people. Great coworkers who were passionate about the mission.

The ED supports directors who do minimal work and point fingers at staff who all work hugely without supervision. Directors blame front line staff, and ED is out of touch with the mission. SMYAL has a terrible work place culture and as queer person who is black I brought issues relating to racism to HR and to ED and eventually left because I felt there was a backlash. My division YDCE was not catered to queer people of color. A lot of the videos and things asked of people are very performative and staff have little feedback. Management operates at a high school level and the org is running into the ground.