Pros
I loved watching kids grow mentally and making huge strives towards full potential! Great experience working as a BI to understand what the role entails. The families are amazing!
Cons
Poor pay - they say they are trying to be “competitive” but yet cap BI’s at a very minimal wage. As well no compensation for gas or time spent traveling. Scheduling - an absolute mess, less than 24 hour notice for changes, double booking clients and no notice for cancellations while traveling. Co-Workers - everyone was very friendly however BI’s were considered lowest on the scale and clinicians didn’t really care about anything BI’s had to say. Patterns went ignored, requests ignored and denied and workload put on BI’s by senior staff did not help. Training- I am lucky I came to company with lots of experience because I got 2 shadow sessions and was thrown into running sessions on my own. The “trainer” does nothing but smack talk others and does not have the qualifications that Monarch expects even the BI’s to have. We go through a 6 HOUR unpaid “training interview” before you are hired and it is way too much information to take in to even absorb any of it. There is no safety training available to me, I personally was hospitalized on multiple occasions because of lack of training. They “provided” a seminar that the expected us to Skype into that we did not get paid for. Duty to report - management was made aware of situations where a client could be / was in danger and decided to ignore it. Money comes first - to this company it didn’t matter what is happening, as long as money is coming in. The centre charges an absurd rate for therapy and BI’s who run 75% of sessions don’t even see 10% of that hourly rate they charge. A lot of the times, staff is fighting to get the supplies they need to do their jobs properly. I’d personally love to know where this money goes. Hours and benefits- when interviewed and hired, you are told you will get full time and benefits through the company. What they don’t tell you is that they will cap your hours at 37.5 every week and you need a minimum of 38 to qualify for their benefits. I personally worked 8:30am - 6:30pm Monday to Friday, got paid 7.5 hours a day because of the “breaks” and “gaps” they would throw in the schedule. Sometimes I would have to sit and wait for four hours for my next session to start because they didn’t want to pay me more. This means with all these hours logged, I still was not able to receive the benefits program they told me was available in the hiring process.