Pros
I loved what I did and appreciated having the opportunity to work with the clients.
Cons
People who work at The Guidance Center are very rigid in the way they approach their jobs, and took unbelievable amounts of time to adjust and make the changes requested by administration (for the benefit of the client). There was not much professionalism there, and the clients suffered because of that. Some staff would mimic clients and make fun of them behind their backs. When this happened at meetings, you'd think the supervisor would speak up to squash and deal with it, but that never happened. A client would be beyond frustrated because they needed to work through an issue, and staff wouldn't deal with it effectively because they were already annoyed with the client, because they felt everything needed to be done the way it was always done, because it wasn't their job, etc. I had one supervisor for about a year there who was racist and made the most idiotic comments (that were hard to believe coming from someone with a Master's Degree). Administration seemed more interested in themselves (and buying property) than in the clients who were already in the program and needed assistance. There was very little management support towards those in patient contact positions. Very very little training for para-professionals that worked with the clients, leading to many inappropriate things happening (and mgmt. not seeming to learn from these situations so they kept happening over and over again). The Guidance Center seemed to be on a witch hunt in regards to culture and values issues, and ended up punishing an entire team of people on the word of a person who lied a great deal while she worked there. The team never got over that experience and harbored resentment for being held responsible for something that should have been handled privately between two people.