Pros
There are some incredible things at this YMCA. Sheridan really is an amazing community, and that was one of my favorite things about working there was seeing and interacting with the community there every day. The kids are great kids. The facilities here are really great, there has been tons of funding there. With an actual well hired leadership team there it could be an amazing place.
Cons
These are current cons, and very changeable cons. Many of these could easily change with different leadership. Main Campus: The portion of your onboarding handled by YMCA national will be smooth and streamlined. Everything else is a mess; be prepared to have to chase down legally required certs like child abuse prevention on your own. The system their computers run on for employees is trash and causes way too many daily problems and headaches for every staff member. There is no safety protocol or training for missing kids, so if you're used to the professionalism of code Adam, code pink, or even just having a priority search zone for your department in case of a lost kid? You won't find any of that here. Same with team or staff debriefs. Trying to get anything done that requires working with another department takes an act of god. I have never been somewhere with such slow, unmotivated bureaucracy. It will take other departments three weeks to make a simple phone call, and if you're waiting on more than one department, you'll be delayed months. The number of times I've had people tell me "don't worry, it's always a mess when we do something new, it's just the way things are" is crazy. Resident Camp: is an open site; strangers and anyone from the public can walk through at any time, day or night, no background check, no questions asked. There is no additional policy in place to protect kids. They still play night games. There is no mandated reporting policy on the books at camp or training. Leadership (directors and above) needs to be cleaned out or it's never going to get better. Real effort needs to be put into their hiring process. They need a professional to step in and consult this process as well as implementing new hire protocols and training for staff. I have middle-of-the-road camp experience, think leading out trips level programming, and I was the person in the room with the most camp experience, including the director. Be prepared for a weirdly catty environment, several leaders that openly talk about hating kids, and a team with such fragile egos that using words like "unsafe" is considered harsh and unprofessional. Good luck explaining why something won't work in a rescue plan for the climbing wall without using that word. Also, if something doesn't fall within the leadership clique's personal interests, be prepared to be in the middle of a weirdly adversarial relationship between upper leadership and the community. The Sheridan community fundraised for climbing amenities. The leadership doesn't know anything about climbing and is not happy about it being at the YMCA. They will delay projects, openly talk about wishing we didn't have it, and refuse to staff it. It looks like there has been some misused grant money, particularly for climbing. Think HR is going to be helpful in navigating everything I said above? Absolutely not. Going to HR with concerns is apparently unprofessional. You know what else is unprofessional? Going up the chain of command, apparently. There is genuinely no way that YMCA leadership will find acceptable to report harassment, abuse, or safety concerns. If you refuse to drop the issue, they absolutely will fire you and won't even pretend it's for a different reason. The pay is not what it should be and the health insurance is really expensive for the coverage. You'll be better off buying your own marketplace plan.