For my personal achievements and goals, I felt that there wasn’t much room or opportunity for me to grow other than to administration or management. I definitely felt that staff development was lacking. There is very few trainings or in-services to help develop the practical knowledge, skills, and techniques needed to work with this population. Of course, I gained a wealth of knowledge from my peers and through experience. However, I believe there is value in investing or encouraging in human capital via in-services and training to promote a culture of wanting to see people succeed. It also seemed to me like middle management and upper management cherry picked who they wanted to give opportunities to.
There was an overwhelming sense of fear, intimidation, and lack of trust. I didn’t really feel that the ones making the big decisions were really interested in staff opinions or helping staff succeed in tough situations. Staff are minimally appreciated and there were many times where I or other staff were verbally reprimanded in front of our peers, which was absolutely embarrassing. If this was a tactic to make me correct my actions or illicit a desired response, I can say that it didn’t work and further fueled my desire to seek another job. I know it’s a business and we are the worker bees, but a bit of soft skills helps.
