Pros
Your work makes a difference for the community. You get trained on having trauma informed approaches. You get to work in a positive, team driven work environment. Depending on your program, you may get a small funding to help client's celebrate important milestones such as birthdays and graduations. The agency usually provides interventions (therapeutic board games, balls for sports) so you don't have to spend out of pocket. The program involves the client's caretakers as well to help the children's environment adapt to their needs. This is a great place to get your foot into the field (clinicians and social workers) professionally. You will always find at least one staff that will go above and beyond the job description. You get 10 holidays. One includes your birthday that you can take within 30 days after your birthday. You use your personal vehicle and get reimbursed for mileage. Most would see this as a con, but I appreciate not being liable for driving a car that isn't mine (you can claim the difference in overall mileage vs counties rates on your taxes). The pay is competitive for my area. Other jobs that pay more, would require more work and greater caseloads. Support Counselors are able to advance to non management positions with enough experience. Working here qualifies you for career opportunities outside of the agency. Aspiranet's trainings and work ethic is recognized by other community agencies (county). Managers have an open door policy and are quick to respond to emails and phone calls. They are open to feedback.
Cons
Please understand that this is not a 9-5 job. Flexible hours are sometimes mandatory to get work done, however sometimes they can work around your personal appointments as well. You will mentally take some of your work home at times as the cases can by intense. It's up to you to balance it with your personal life. This field requires patience as clients and their families have been through a lot and are not always receptive immediately. Once in a while headquarters (out of town) makes new policies that slow down productivity, but that seems to have decreased over the time that I've been here. There are also willing to make changes to improve workflow. There are health benefits (retirement plan, life insurance, dental, etc), however for the best benefits staff typically move onto other agencies (county). Being a non profit, Aspiranet is not able to match a portion of your own contribution towards retirement. As of this writing, you don't need a doctor's note if you are out less than 4 days. Some of the monthly trainings takes hours that do not fit into full schedules without affecting timeliness and/or productivity. If and when the Agency requires staff to work more (events, long trainings), the agency should already understand that it will take more than an 8 hour day(overtime) to complete such tasks on top of a regular day's worth of tasks.
