Pros
Pay is higher than other CMH agencies in the area.
Cons
Upper management treats direct supervisors very badly, and many direct supervisors in turn treat their clinicians very badly. The clients are not taken into consideration when upper management makes decisions. Upper management does not include clinicians in the decision-making process, and as a result creates policies and processes that are extremely problematic for the clients and the clinicians. Productivity is unattainable. Even when 0 employees are meeting the productivity standard, management continues to treat clinicians like they are lazy and incompetent for not meeting the productivity standard. Caseloads are very high. 200+ in some departments, and clients are often placed on waiting lists for basic services like case management and therapy. TGC has very high turnover and is always under-staffed. Clinicians on staff are often told "we're working on hiring people" and "we know your caseloads are too high" but management will not allow clinicians to refer clients out: instead, clinicians are expected to carry the overload of cases. In the meantime, intakes remain open and new clients are constantly streaming in to the agency. Write-ups and disciplinary action against employees is common. It is common for an employee to be fired and then for The Guidance Center to go to the licensing board and attempt to have the employee's license taken away. This is a very dangerous environment because of that, and all clinicians are working in a state of fear. Fear of disciplinary action, fear of supervisors who are a pack of bullies. Management likes to bully people into quitting, and then celebrate when they are successful. All competent supervisors and clinicians quit and find employment elsewhere. The Guidance Center used to have a very good reputation and offer high quality services. I'm not sure what happened to put it into a decline, but it is very embarrassing to work there. I felt like I was constantly having to apologize to my clients for things upper management had done. Even the clients will say things like "I know The Guidance Center is always messing up" and ask you "What's going on? Why does everyone quit?" Clients will say "Everything seems to have changed here." Other agencies in the area have stopped referring clients to The Guidance Center. They are still using paper charts for medical records, and clinicians are not allowed in the chart room. If you need to get a document from the chart, you must request the chart, flip through pages to find the document (if it's even been filed - documents are often missing) take it out, copy it, and then put it back in. Clinicians are often assigned tasks that are supposed to be performed by other departments. For example, when a client owes a balance and hasn't paid, the clinician will be asked by the billing department to tell the client to pay. This is embarrassing and inappropriate! And it's just one example among many. Just seek employment elsewhere.