Summary: Large and stressful workload, limited support, and a culture of bullying and defensiveness from management. Staff turnover in the Advocacy and Support team is very high - in the last year I worked there, I’d estimate around a quarter of the 40ish-person team left. Since leaving, I’ve heard of multiple others quitting too. I would discourage people from working here, particularly people of colour.
Culture:
- I heard repeated accounts from colleagues about bullying, mismanagement, and racism. The stories I've heard about how complaints are handled have shocked me, even considering my experience there was so bad. Had I known any of these stories, I would not have applied to work there.
- Both in my own experience and in accounts I heard from colleagues, middle management were hands-off until problems arose, at which point staff were blamed and sometimes punished for oversights.
- There seemed to be a culture where enduring high levels of stress and difficult working conditions was framed as a point of pride, and staff who left or raised concerns were often implied to be "not up to it" rather than highlighting systemic issues.
Support:
- Some managers were concerningly hands-off. In my experience it was common for questions to go unanswered for hours or days. This wasn't just the case for administrative questions but also (sometimes urgent) queries concerning clients.
- Attempts to ask for extra support often left frontline staff feeling as though we were being fragile for raising concerns. This was shocking to me coming from an anti-abuse, supposedly 'trauma-informed' organisation.
- Mental health leave was extremely common, I believe normalised, to the point where it felt expected that staff would need to take time off each year to cope with the stress.
Training:
- Beyond a generic induction on policies, there is no standardised training for new workers in their roles. Experiences vary depending on the manager.
- Lack of consistent training creates a high-anxiety environment where workers are unsure if they’re doing the right thing. It often felt to me that managers prioritised protecting themselves if something went wrong, rather than supporting staff.
- As far as I was told/aware, there was no budget for training, so we could only attend free training offered by other organisations.
