Pros
Get one year of experience and then move on.
Cons
Meaningless paper chasing. The well being of foster children is not at the core of this organization. In fact there were times when I did not feel comfortable with the foster homes that Bair "certifies." Some respite options were downright irresponsible and dishonest. There is more emphasis on placements and census numbers. Some foster homes are in it for the money and are not desirable placement options. The foundation caters more to the needs of the county than it does their own foster families and will throw a foster family “under the bus” before hearing and considering all viewpoints. Caseworkers are not provided with the necessary tools to support the families for which they serve. Paperwork and scheduled tasks are redundant but considered "king" in the responsibility of the caseworker regardless of the content or quality of the completed forms and tasks. Training is negligible. Employees must use their own personal cell phones without any reimbursement - this also prevents any work/life balance issues as foster families are constantly communicating with you in the evenings, weekends, holidays and vacations. After about 6-9 months into the job, management asks you to sign off on trainings you never received. Laptop computers crash and are poor performing and the proprietary software is excruciatingly slow adding unnecessary hours to complete work. Any continuing education/training after employment is cursory at best and sometimes a complete waste of time - time that could be better spent completing job responsibilities. Team building and game time meetings are “high school-ish” and a waste of time. Turnover - I witnessed 10 employees leave in one office location while I worked here. Caseload changes were constant. I spent much of my time "cleaning up" poor performing workers' caseloads only to have my caseload changed and to start the process all over. Some poor performing case workers who were not held accountable by management for reasons not understood. It is a female dominated job. Most men would never put up with the needless inefficiencies, lack of tools, poor pay, petty favoritism and redundant paperwork. As a whole, the foster care “system” is dysfunctional and messy with questionable ethics. Don’t contribute to it. You will not feel good about the role you are required to play within this system. For families interested in providing foster care, I personally would not recommend partnering with Bair.
