Pros
Depending on the office that you work in, the environment can be completely different. Since the job itself sucks, co workers can ban together to make each day bearable. I learned a lot from This job.
Cons
Employees are not valued at all. The nature of this job is hard. The cases and the stories are hard to comprehend, but as a social worker you keep coming back because you care about the client. Bair does not provide you the opportunity to practice self care. If you work in a small office it is literally impossible to take a much needed personal day or vacation. Children get placed in the homes of terrible foster parents even when everyone at the agency knows that it will not work out. Kids get bounced around from home to home, within the agency, further traumatizing them. Terrible foster parents squeeze through the cracks and get children in their home even when they are not adequately trained. This leaves all the crisis de escalation and responsibility to fall on the case manager, who may not have the training to handle it either. There are kids whose lives suffer because they are placed with Bair. The agency thinks they are the best because they have one person in the whole agency that is confident in the training, but no one else is. I personally think of three kids every day since I left Bair, who would have better lives had they never encountered the foster parents that they had at the Bair foundation. I think that abstractly directors have a strong conviction to provide safe homes for children, but in reality it isn't happening all the time because the pressure on the intake department to license families even if they suck and will cause more problems for the children and agency. Workers are required to give up their personal lives to not only solve the problems of these vulnerable children, but also baby the terrible foster parents. This job will consume 100% of your life and you will barely get paid enough to cover your monthly bills. The health insurance is so expensive that you can afford to get sick and actually go to the doctor. I would recommend that social workers run as far away from Bair as they can. Do not apply here, you will regret it.
