Pros
Working with the different individuals and aiding them to be as independent in a home environment is fun and rewarding. You will get in depth training and learn skills that can be used beyond the company, such as First Aid/CPR and medication administration.
Cons
The is a severe staffing shortage, causing employees to be mandated at any time, to include shifts that go over 16 hours, or in the case of needing an overnight awake staff, will cause a mandate of two staff who will split a 4 hour awake and 4 hour asleep shift. If there is not enough staff, the program supervisor will need to either try to find coverage at the last minute (near impossible since all trained employees are covering back to back shifts at multiple programs) or will be forced to cover the shifts themselves. The pay is salary, and not enough for being on call 24/7 with an hour response time in case of an issue at the program. They classify the position as "supervisor" and "non-direct care" when the job description clearly states there is direct care involved in order to get out of paying you an hourly rate when most of your time is actually spent in direct care duties. In the past past year, multiple program supervisors, as well as DSPs, have either stepped down or resigned due to working conditions. There is no extra rewards and/or bonuses for having a college education or doing a great job -everyone is paid the same, and there is no tuition assistance. Health insurance has a ridiculously high deductible (over $1,000) and the out of pocket expense for urgent care ($100) is more than the $80 you would pay without insurance. You are forced to pay for urgent care, as with there is never enough staff, so you can't even attend your own health care appointments while being held accountable for the individuals missing theirs. Also, many of the individuals also suffer from more mental health than intellectual issues, which none of the staff are properly trained to handle, causing a constantly volatile working environment. This, along with constantly long hours, causes serious errors to be made while on the job, as well as a high rate of employee burnout. You will constantly have to justify why the program is going over budget, even when you voice the fact that having a limited number of staff will run into a large amount of overtime. They would rather put someone out on administrative leave for not completing a training (after employee misses due to being mandated), then to pay them the mileage to travel to another region. Meanwhile they are paying other staff overtime to cover these hours. They also will pull employees from another area to cover shifts, but do not want to pay them the mileage for working outside of their usual areas.