DURHAM MENTAL HEALTH SERVICES

The hardest part of your job working in mental health, should always be the clients, the illness, the struggle. It should never be management.
At DMHS the hardest part of your job will consistently be the management team. Across the agency, across programs, the management team will always be the biggest hurdle of your job, day in day out.
The majority of the front line staff are great dedicated staff, that succeed in providing great services to people. 
Sadly, they work in a culture of fear. Management is very anti-union and very vocal about that, luckily it is unionized, please take advantage of that! Show support to your union reps because they are working 2 full time jobs.
There are some great trainings made available to staff, and its a great opportunity to make a difference in peoples lives. However, the trade off is having to work for the management team, but at least its unionized.

Most employers treated workers better during the pandemic, DMHS is the only one I've heard of that did exponentially worse.  Management took advantage of the fact the emergency act overrode the collective agreement- they decline a majority of vacation requests, cut back on days they could book off (ie no weekends), make full-time staff work every stat holiday.  They changed schedules permanently with two weeks warning.  Prior to the pandemic, management was not good, but the pandemic has shown they really don't care about the employees and the union was the only reason they were even decent.   I've seen a manager pressure staff into working Christmas day while they're off for two weeks during the holidays.  It is incredibly hard to get a personal day unless its three months ahead.  Very, very poor work life balance.  There is one good manager who was a counsellor for years, the others forget you are human.

The clients are amazing and make it hard to leave.

I had worked for DMHS for 3 years. It was short period of time, but I have learned a lot from my position. I consider it as a good place for new graduates from the social work field to start their job in mental health field. Salary was not high, but reasonable. Benefit was very good with great health coverage and pension. Union representatives were very helpful when I had some issues with my first supervisor. The clients could be challenging but also rewarding to work with them. 

My first manager was not very good. She appeared friendly, but was not supportive to her staff when something happen at work. I had colleagues who left the job because of her. Later, I had a new supervisor, who was much better for sure. At least I had no issue with my second manager. 

Overall, I recommend this place for new people to start their career.

Fell in love with the agency during my placement as a student. Made it a personal goal to gain the experience necessary to become and employee. Was hired in 2018 and have no regrets. I love the opportunity to change my role and try other departments within the agency. Started out ad relief worker, transitioned quickly to permanent part time, and shortly after got full-time. I have worked as a residential counselor, and now am a crisis intervention worker. There are many other departments that I'm sure I will try out as my time with the agency grows. Great pension for my future, benefits are not terrible, paid time off for vacation and sick time. Love being a part of DMHS, and have enjoyed working with all the staff. Pretty sure DMHS will be my forever employer!!

Managing a 24 hour program was both challenging and inspiring. It was challenging because of the demands of the position and the nature of the work. Much time was spent managing the shift coverage and payroll requirements as well as ongoing coaching for all staff. The nature of the work (crisis intervention) and stress levels for staff demanded that attention be paid to workers to ensure a healthy work-life balance, provide a culture of safety, and build a dynamic crisis response team.
The hardest part of the job was meeting the workload demands.
The most enjoyable aspect of the job for me was to observe the care given to clients and to know that somehow I played a role in ensuring that caring was important.

DMHS was a short-lived but positive experience for me. I enjoyed working with really skilled workers, caring people, and a supportive team. Some issues with politics within the organization, but nothing outside of the norm. For the most part, most managers were supportive of team decisions, however, in some cases workers' recommendations were not supported by manager(s) and I fear that this could eventually result in workers being put in dangerous situations (e.g., injuries from clients).

Mental health us a terrible illness. As the Worker, you need to be mentally fit.
This  company caused me a lot of stress, making it hard to do my job. My supervisor was a bully. I wrote letters to the Managers about her. They did nothing then. They believed her.  I eventually had to quit. After many years, and other staff repeatedly complained, they finally let her go.
Lowe wage  and highly stressed job.

Not a great place to work. Staff are great but get burned out fast due to unskilled mamagent and unrealistic expectations designed to make the management teams jobs easier not to benifit the clients they serve. 

Clients are wonderful, management is not. 
Save yourself some time and stress and do not work at this agency.  It will suck the life out of you and leave you drained and unappreciated.  
HR is lacking experience
Managers follow their bosses, bottom line is money 
No opportunities to move around
Lots of pressure to cover shifts
part time and relief workers are not respected

Overall working for dmhs was a very positive experience. 
The lead staff are very kind and helpful to new staff. 
I have many positive memories. 
Learned a lot from the senior staff too, which are lessons I brought with me to my future work places. 

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