KidsPeace Reviews

Pros

Medsabi Academy is a treatment center for troubled youth. The turnover is very high for both staff and clients. you will have two weeks of training and half of that is dealing with crisis management. This includes deescalation and restraining type holds for when the clients start fighting each other or fighting staff. The ages range from roughly 13 to 21. They all have their programs and most take medication that you would have to distribute if you make it 6 months. There is a lot of room to move up within Mesabi Academy and since it is corporate and ran by Kidspeace you can have a career through them. Most dont though. If you can handle the overnights thats the way to go. You get paid the same as day staff and will allow unlimited overtime.

Cons

May get beat up by clients. Some have been sent to the hospital. Will call you asking you to pick up shifts pretty much once you walk out the door and wont remember the sacrifices you make for the company.

Advice to Senior Management

Show more recognition. Be more open to advice.

Pros

Working with the kids is great and rewarding. Support staff, clinicians, etc. were fantastic. Wonderful place to work if it weren't for the attitude and actions of upper management.

Cons

Upper management does not have any concern for their workers. Do the job and shut up...you will be okay. And no matter who screws up...it's always he little guys fault. Upper management gives you none of the credit and all of the blame.

Advice to Senior Management

Get people working their who actually care about their employees instead of greedy arrogant leaders who think they know the answers, but truly couldn't punch their way out of a paper bag....in the minds of these folks....ready, shoot, aim.......knee jerk reactions and unfounded bs they blame on us.....oh and they just fired a ton of people because of hearsay and caused more harm than what they blamed the employees for.

Pros

Excellent co workers many extremely dedicated to the kids
Helping kids

Cons

No raises for multiple years
No feeling that staff are appreciated
Will ask you to work more OT than humanly possible and if your performance suffers you will hear about it.
Reactionary policy
you risk assault on the job

Advice to Senior Management

Stop writing people up for calling out sick when its because you are burning them out and start praising your MVPs The same as you want them to do for the kids reward the good. Pay your managers enough to keep one for more than a year.

Pros

This company has been around for over 130 years and has a solid reputation for being one of the best in helping kids in crisis. It's gratifying to know that you're making a difference in the lives of children and families.

Cons

Child Welfare is a tough business to be in these days, with many changes and challenges happening on the Federal, State,and Local levels. KidsPeace hasn't escaped the impacts

Pros

Working with the kids and free meals for staff are really the only good things about the job.

Cons

KidsPeace does not care about employees. That is why the turn over is so high. They micro manage and do not empower the staff. KidsPeace management does not listen.

Advice to Senior Management

KidsPeace should treat the employees how they would want to be treated. They have not given raises for years and rolled back wages, cut benifits, and the pension is gone! Not many reasons to work here anymore.

Pros

you are giving children a second chance on life

Cons

the stress and hours are very long

Advice to Senior Management

raises would be helpful

Pros

You get to feel like you are making a difference in the kids life

Cons

Horrible pay for the people who work with the kids while the higher ups get the money and bonuses. Five times the work that can't even be done in 8 hrs.

Advice to Senior Management

Instead of making sure you and your families can continue on living the grand lifestyle pay attention to the lower workers .Some lost alot of pay just to help you change over to a Clinical system that isn't working.

Pros

The salary and benefits are good. Somewhat flexible schedule. Meet some great people (clients and co-workers).

Cons

Basically they management act like they own the staff. They expect that you are available 24/7, including being on-call. Staff burn out very quickly, most people last approximately 6 months, and 2 months of that is spent in training. There is no respect from management, the morale is low, and they work staff into the ground until they quit. Staff are very unhappy here and everyone is trying to get out.

Advice to Senior Management

Honestly, I don't know what to say, although management does not respect the work the staff does, it is not completely their fault that this jobs sucks as much as it does. The DC foster care system is very complex, and this is an extremely tough field. Lower the requirements of the job, get company vehicles, don't duplicate work, really EXPLAIN the job during the interview, train staff more at kidspeace instead of relying on the useless CFSA training.

Pros

KidsPeace does great work with kids and treats a wide range of clients with varying needs. The company has gone through leadership changes recently and continues to have some growing pains. Recent grads will have the opportunity to gain great experience quickly. Professionals seeking licensure will receive decent clinical supervision from professionals and will get plenty of hours/client exposure. The mission and vision of the company is intact... see Cons about culture. If you are considering employement at KidsPeace, the community programs (foster care for example) are great placese for opportunity. Residential jobs will garner you great experience as well as work in the Hospital. There is risk associated with those programs however.

Cons

Benefits package used to be great, but policy changes over the last few years have degraded that. Senior leadership continues to be detached from actual work at the "boots on the ground" level. Organization structure is completely changing, but the migration has been less than transparent. Corporate culture can be reactionary. Training, supervision and mentoring is not valued as training budgets are under funded. There has been a recent focus on accountability, but there are pockets of good and bad there. Establish a good relationship with your supervisor and seek out feedback or you'll get left on the sidelines.

Advice to Senior Management

Focus on staff as your most valuable asset. They need to understand their value and attachment to the mission. Crafting a culture of service to the organization has demonstrated some gains; keep it up. Ultimately, staff want to see compensation and benefits as indicators of their value.

Pros

You work a TON of hours, so you can get your licenses and/or certifications fairly quickly. This is the #1 best thing about this company. Coworkers were generally great people.

Cons

Management is only concerned about the bottom line, including keeping kids in treatment who might be better served by something else. I had a lot of ethical issues with this place. Very long hours, no sympathy if you need time off. Stingy with time off if you've worked there less than 10 years. This place accepts the worst of the worst kids, so be prepared. Just before I left, mgt. cut salaries across the board - unbelieveable.

Advice to Senior Management

Realize you have some good people working there who care about the kids. But guess what? The good people can find other jobs at companies that compensate them better and appreciate them. So guess who stays?