These positions are promoted as "flexible," and while there is some flexibility in theory, the reality is very different. You are constantly working around other people’s schedules—clients, coworkers, DCBS workers—which makes your own schedule unpredictable and chaotic. Meetings that could easily be handled via email take up large chunks of time especially when considering travel time, and you're expected to remain available for last-minute changes, cancellations, and no-shows, all while meeting strict deadlines.
You’re also expected to drive long distances across multiple counties or regions with minimal notice and little control over your daily schedule. It’s not uncommon to be sent two hours south in the morning, drive two hours north because that was the client's only availability and back south before going back up north to go home all in the same day. These changes often happen with little advance warning, sometimes the same day or day before, which makes planning anything outside of work nearly impossible. The travel expectations, combined with high caseloads and poor scheduling systems, contribute significantly to burnout.
The documentation requirements are excessive, repetitive, and often feel redundant. To make matters worse, the records system is unreliable and frequently down, adding unnecessary stress and time to an already overloaded workload. I am convinced the charting system was created and is being managed by a group of high schoolers in their tech class.
Even though the organization encourages taking PTO as a form of self-care, it often feels pointless in practice. You have to do a significant amount of prep work just to take time off — including getting coverage, finishing documentation ahead of time, and coordinating cases — and when you return, you're buried in catch-up tasks with even tighter deadlines. Instead of feeling rested, taking PTO often leaves you more stressed than if you had just worked through it.
While you're in the field trying to juggle all of this, leadership is rarely present. Supervisors work remotely, maintain firm personal boundaries (like picking up their kids or attending personal appointments), yet expect FCC's and clinicians to have virtually none. The double standard is stark and frustrating. They tell everyone how important it is to have boundaries until they need you to do something. Your evenings will be gone.
Upper management appears to be completely disconnected from what frontline staff are experiencing. While some leaders may have once worked in clinical or case management roles, those experiences were clearly years ago — and the job has changed drastically since then. The expectations are higher, the documentation is far more demanding, the caseloads are heavier, and the clients’ needs are far more complex (which they remind us of often). Despite this, leadership continues to operate as if nothing has changed. Decisions are made without understanding the real-world impact on those of us doing the actual work. There’s very little field presence, no meaningful feedback loop, and little effort to truly understand what support is needed.
Caseloads continue to grow until you're completely maxed out, with little regard for burnout or work-life balance. Retention is clearly a problem, and unfortunately, it doesn’t seem to be a priority for leadership. The support feels minimal, and often, it’s hard not to feel like just a body filling a role so others don’t have to.
If you have children or a family, be aware: this job will demand so much of your time and energy that you’ll rarely see them. Maintaining work-life balance here is extremely difficult, especially for parents.
The organization constantly emphasizes the importance of mental health and family stability — for clients. But ironically, the same values are not extended to their own staff. Many employees are struggling with their own mental health and family responsibilities as a direct result of the job's demands, yet there is little meaningful support, flexibility, or understanding provided. It feels hypocritical to promote work-life balance and self-care externally, while internally pushing staff to their limits.
Ultimately, while the work itself—helping others—is meaningful, it comes at the cost of your own wellbeing and family time. Unless major changes are made in management, workload distribution, and support systems, this will continue to be a high-turnover, high-stress environment.
