A few months ago I was bitter and angry and tired and stressed out and pissed. (you may remember my entry tirade about the burbs.) That was when I worked at a place called Optimist Youth Homes and Family Services (OYHFS)in Highland Park, CA as an Outpatient Therapist (note: this is not their fault as they are mere victims of a larger system that takes advantage of its workers) and they had me driving to the BURBS, and all over the world.
I'll try to make a long story short here. In 1995 I graduated from San Francisco State University with a BA in Clinical Psychology. Can't do much with it, even as a residential counselor, outreach worker, or therapist's assistant you can, if you're lucky make $12 an hour. So, after having a slew of counseling jobs, non-profit jobs, and administrative jobs which left me disgruntled and bitter I went back to school to get my Masters in Clinical Psychology in 2002. I graduated in 2002 with that MA in my little hands, but going into the field of Psychology is like a death sentence, to do any real work (i.e where your judgement actually matters and counts) and to make any real money your graduate work may not be a simple two year process, you are looking at a minimum 4-year process. I could've gotten PhD or PsyD (Doctorate of Psychology) in that time, although those programs are more like 6 to 8 years, and regardless you have to get licensed after completing your degree, which means that first you have to complete a shitload of hours (3,000 hours in California for MA and PhD levels) during which time you are referred to as in Intern,(hours are the actual hours in which you have direct contact with the client in which you discuss your clients with a supervisor...)in order to even sit for a licensing exam. It takes about 3 years to complete 3000 hours, but usually more. During that time, as an intern, you are lucky to make $15 an hour. I kid you not. This is California, where a new home costs a half a million dollars, and interns with graduate degrees make $15 an hour. This field prides itself as a helping profession, and we make $15 an hour unlicensed? That's bound to make anyone crazy.
The thing with OYHFS was that I was licensed when I was working there, not when I started but shortly thereafter. I was making more than my unlicensed cohorts- granted- but I was lied to when I took the job.
Ok, actually, let me back up just a tad. There is a trend in the field of social services and mental health (in California at least that I know of), and that trend is this: HOME VISITS. Read: going to the client's home to provide mental health services. The mentality is this: many of our clients are low low income, with no means of transportation, so expecting them to drive, or take the bus for a weekly appointment is expecting too much. OK. Understood, only because lower income and education levels think mental services equate "your crazy," so yes, much less likely to show up for a therapy session. There is also the belief that therapy works better in the client's domain, in their territory, in their home, and the therapist gets to see the true real-life home environment and incorporate other family members as needed, since they are already there. All true, indeed. My first job as an intern was at a Foster Family Agency called Secure Transitions, as a Social Worker, it was a bottom of the line job, and I was collecting my hours so I coughed it up as paying my dues. This is where I was introduced to the notion of home visits. (Actually, one of my pre-graduate school social-services jobs in San Francisco was traveling by bus with developmentally disabled client's but it wasn't considered clinical since there was no real counseling or psychotherapy involved.... or was it because they were DD?...hmmm....) So, anyway when I was hired at this foster family agency, I told the director, "I don't wanna drive too far, only in LA." For the 1st year they stuck to their guns, I was seeing clients in South Central LA, or Inglewood was as far as I went, still that's only about 11 miles from my home. Then it slowly started, first I was given homes in Carson, then Gardena (all close to Compton and a good 20 miles from my home), then finally Palmdale (in the high desert of Antelope Valley, 58 goddamn miles from my house!) That was my last year there, and the last straw. Is it legal to send someone to Palmdale, 60 miles from the office? Yes, my supervisor informed me, anything within 200 miles is legal. YIKES. At some point I had taken a part-time job as a therapist a school in Compton thinking it was in my vicinity but soon realized it was too far, and one thing for sure I relearned, I am not a commuter, (I also worked part-time at a clinic in South Central LA, to supplement my income, and to get more hours, and since it was only 6 miles from my house AND the clients came to me so it also gave me some traditional therapy experience. That was a perfect job except the pay and it was only a part-time clinic that was closed in the mornings.) Finally after 3 years of slaving away as a Social Worker working with amazing teenage girls at the foster family agency I left, (at the same time I also quit the clinic.) I was done with my hours, about to take the licensing exam and knew I needed a change. That's when I ended up at OYHFS.
OYHFS is in Highland Park, which is basically South Pasadena, which is north east of Hollywood where I live. So instead of traveling all over the barren south bay along the 110 south to cities like Carson, Inglewood, Gardena and Compton I was happy to be traveling north again through the pretty green and windy stretch of the 110 north freeway where there is foliage and hills and Spanish bridges and architecture. OYHFS told me they would try to give me clients in between my home and the OYHFS offices. LIE. They told me after I got licensed I would make "a couple hundred dollars more per pay check." LIE. I was given clients in Glendora (32 miles north east of Hollywood,) San Dimas at 35 north east of Hollywood, El Monte 20 miles south east of Hollywood, SouthGate which is 20 miles south of Hollywood and they were about to give me Whittier which is about 40 miles away from Hollywood when I finally left and said I had had enough. Not only were these cities extremely far but with the exception of Glendora and San Dimas, these cities were not even close to each other, which meant I was driving all over Los Angeles County. They just assumed we would be OK with driving all over Los Angeles, not in a company car, but in our own cars, jeopardizing our health and our sanity. NO JOKE. Not to mention the mileage reimbursement with the cost of gas the way it is these days did not even cover the actual cost of gas, let alone wear and tear on our cars, our psyches and our souls. hell no it didn't. And, like I said before I am not a commuter. Plus the pay, they laughed at me when I wanted more money for my license, they had originally misquoted me and on my offer letter I had overlooked the measly increase. They're defense, "You shouldn't ave signed the offer letter." It took me 6 months to leave that job. 6 months before I was finally able to say screw this and screw you. 6 months of my life. I didn't even give them 2 weeks notice.
Why did it take me 6 months to leave? Because you start building rapport with your clients. You cannot just abandon your clients. We are ethically bound by laws that remind us this is unethical, and these kids we work with, many are in foster care, and by abandoning them we only do them more harm than good. They already have difficulty developing appropriate attachment, and having healthy relationships because they are being moved around so much from home to home, they have a difficult time trusting people and we're supposed to be helping them? No. We're not doing them any good. We get into the helping profession because we want to advocate for those who cannot advocate for themselves, who lack the resources and the strength to do what we find easy, to help everyone lead more fulfilling healthier and happy lives in the face of poverty, hunger, and deprivation, but honestly what good are we after having driven 35 miles in the scorching heat through Los Angeles traffic, bitter and angry. No good at all.
Then there is medi-cal and DMH (Department of Mental Health) who are at the root of all these problems. The billing requirements for therapists at these institutions like OYHFS are ridiculous. Billing requirements=QUOTAS that have to be met, like sales people almost. Because Medi-cal only reimburses for certain services we have a minimum of such "services" that we must meet and provide on a weekly basis. The system basically sucks, because in order to honestly meet these quotas we'd have to work like 50 to 60 hours a week, so interns burn out, the turn over rate is high, and who suffers the most? The clients, the very people who need the help the most, the ones who we are supposed to help get the short end of the stick. The whole system sucks. And it never made sense to me, why was I driving out to South Gate once a week for one kid, what about all the millions of children closer to me and in=between. How cost effective is this really?
I quit. I felt bad, and to this day feel bad for there were children on my caseload who I felt liked me, looked forward to our hour together and have very few other stable people in their life. I should've left sooner to avoid them getting attached to me, but there is this idea that we should at least work somewhere for 1 year. This idea sucks because it forces people to remain in shitty circumstances, shitty jobs. Ultimately, I did 6 months. 6 months of my life. 6 months of these clients lives wasted because they too have to start over, and all I can say is at least I made some good friends there.
I now work elsewhere, somewhere closer to home to begin with. North Hollywood is only 8 miles from Hollywood, and although still in the "burbs" of strip malls and chain restaurants, where I still have to deal with a different mentality altogether at least the driving is minimal in comparison. My quality of life is much better. I still deal with Medi-cal and DMH, and billing quotas but I'm also being appropriately compensated for my license and the bottom line is that I am driving way less. When my practice in West Hollywood takes off then I'll really be out of the burbs and not driving at all. Hopefully. But, I'm in no hurry to abandon any more kids.
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