Poor pay, lacked training, poor management
Pros
The patients are awesome, and if you are interested in working in the mental health field, this may be a good experience for you.
Cons
The staff does not receive adequate training to manage incidents or to provide therapeutic environment for patients. I worked over three months, and worked an average of 56 hours per week with no time to complete online training. I was expected to come in during my off day/free time to complete training online if i wanted pay for it, but there was virtually no time for this when I was scheduled to work so often. I also was told that I could complete training at home with no pay. I shadowed a tech for five shifts, and this was considered training. They are severely understaffed and will ask you to work double shifts or on your off days, and management may make promises that they are unable to keep (promising off days, etc.). I had to quit because the job threatened personal safety, and I felt that I had no support from management/nursing. I am a young female, and was scheduled to work with adolescent males who had problems with inappropriate sexual behaviors and aggression. At one time, I was alone with 5 male patients with no assistance, and was regularly scheduled as the only staff working with 11 adolescent females. The patients will not listen to you when you are new, and it is very difficult to get management's support because they are so overworked. There is no structured discipline system for patients, and I felt like I was thrown into tech position with no way to enforce rules. I also noticed that many of the patients take the same prescription drugs, and several adolescents are prescribed Lithium and expressed being unaware of side effects. The doctor is extremely unpleasant, and cursed one of the nurses for calling her in the middle of the night to get info for a new admit (doctor was 'on call'). She regularly arrives at least 2-3 hours late, and everyone just works around her schedule without complaint. The patients are intimidated by her and other staff members, and it seems that many workers use this intimidation to get patients to follow directions. There are no SSRs available on the weekend, so the patients regularly go ape. There were more restraints and more violent behaviors from patients over the weekend.