Pros
TMs (Therapeutic Mentors/Family Support Specialists) manage their own schedules and they divide their work week up among their client base of seven to nine "persons served." Because the majority of a TMs client base will be school-aged children, most work days do not start before 11 AM, provided you do not have to attend any meetings. Working with the clients can be difficult at times but there is a lot of fun to be had. Most of the work takes place in the community so TMs and their clients are encouraged to find creative ways to utilize community resources outside of the office and the home. Weekly supervisions with the Program Director(s) provide TMs the opportunity to discuss their cases with their direct supervisors. TMs may vent to their PD, strategize certain types of skill-building, or receive feedback about performance on a consistent basis. The Mentor Network's office is a large shared space with a few other programs that all function under the same umbrella more or less, there is always someone around to chat or to discuss your work. The Mentor Network is usually pretty generous with food, too, there always seems to be pizza or Panera Bread or donuts and pastries around somewhere!
Cons
Although TMs are compensated for mileage, it is on the low-end in comparison to similar organizations. The Mentor Network services the cities of Boston, Cambridge, Somerville, Brookline, and almost the entire metro region of Boston. TMs may be assigned cases from Maynard, Hull, Plainville, and Natick at the same time. Logistically it can be a hardship for some, although The Mentor Network has recently made efforts to match clients as close to a TMs home as possible. Because The Mentor Network is a for-profit organization they are in a constant state of "financial flux." One month the TMs are told their benefits are going to be cut drastically, the next month they are not. It can be very frustrating to work for an organization for a few years without a single cost-of-living wage increase and then you are told that the company has had an initial public offering and they are now publicly traded on the stock exchange.
