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March 1, 2025

A Letter from a Behavioral Health Professional who Found their Working Family

Dear Reader,

Like any family dynamic, you have your ups and you have your downs. What distinguishes functionality is how the members react to those situations. When you are at 10%, you hope your family can supplement the other 90%; just as if you are at 100%, the hope is you support others through those situations. This concept can be applied to any organization and working team. Organizations may experience things like not meeting quarterly goals, unexpected turnover, and may have disagreements over policy changes, but how the team handles these hurdles defines a good organization.

When you work in a supportive working environment there is no hesitation to maintain transparency or ask for help. It just comes naturally. When there is a problem, you feel comfortable approaching your leadership for guidance or leaning on coworkers to problem-solve.

According to the Pew Research Center, as of March 2023, 49% of Americans stated they were satisfied with their jobs*, which means that more than half of the country is not content with their current occupation. So it begs the question, why? For some, it’s financial reasons, for others it's workplace toxicity or work-life balance, and for some it's not finding meaning in their work.

A good program will do its best to implement systems that address these issues, starting with leadership. Dr. Christian Peonsgen shared a diagram of a concept called Servant Leadership where it takes the traditional leadership hierarchy and flips it upside down

Good programs will incentivize loyalty with appreciation of employees’ dedication and hard work through things like bonuses, raises, and solid benefit packages, and they will do their best to meet market value regarding their salary. Your morals and ethics will never feel compromised from organizational decisions. A good program will actively listen to employees’ concerns and prioritize their needs to ensure they are met. When these needs are not met, an individual may be engrossed in a toxic workplace environment. Moreover, when they are not appreciated or respected by their team it can leave lasting trauma and lead to turnover.

When applying these concepts to the behavioral health field specifically, it is even more crucial for organizations to excel at caring for their staff. The behavioral health field is physically and emotionally demanding where the demand of services greatly outweighs the supply of treatment professionals. Often employment requires long hours, unsustainable caseloads, high pressure work environments, and a wage that does not fairly reflect the amount of work needed. Employees will work with individuals struggling with their mental and physical wellbeing while also struggling with their own. This begs the next question: why do folks do it? The simple answer is humanity. As Albert Einstein said, “Only a life lived in service to others is worth living.”

For some, the need and drive to help others overrides all else and is intrinsic. This is the case especially if those individuals are a part of vulnerable populations who have not been given the same chances and opportunities, whether in poverty, the young, the mature adult, the cognitively impaired, the mentally ill, the physically disabled, or the neurodivergent. They often make for the most complex and difficult cases. If it is natural for behavioral health professionals to provide this genuine care given some of these barriers, it should be natural for organizations, whether a facility, hospital, residential treatment center, outpatient counseling center, or other, to ensure they do their best in fostering quality care to those same employees. It is reflective of the care the organization provides their patients and clients.

Upon reflecting on my own work environment, I am certain I have found my working family, and I work for the best program and most incredible team. Everyone involved, staff and residents alike, receives the same genuine care and respect, and it can be seen day to day. Hopewell is not just a treatment program for residents, it’s a transformative holistic healing experience for staff included. You believe in the mission, you see the vision, and you resonate with the core values. The support of our team outweighs any hurdles, and that instilled intrinsic feeling of meaning drives you to do all you can to get individuals struggling with mental health the care they need and deserve. Meaningful work and community are fundamental to Hopewell’s therapeutic treatment. They are also fundamental to a good program.

Hopewell puts these values into practice by ensuring our basic needs are met from good benefits so we can maintain our own health and wellbeing, they encourage you to take your hard earned PTO, they offer options of flex time for working longer hours, they do their best to balance caseloads so clinicians can maintain individualized client centered care, they create committees for our ideas to not only be heard but put into changeable actions, they provide training and opportunities for professional growth to give us the tools for success, and they show appreciation in fair wages and celebrations. They invest in you, so you invest in them. That is what a good program can do for you, and I hope above all else you find your working family because when you do, you’ll know it.

Sincerest regards from Hopewell Farm,

Rachel McDonald

Sources:

*Pew Research Center: How Americans View Their Jobs | Pew Research Center

** Servant Leadership Diagram: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/christianpoensgen_great-leaders-dont-command-but-serve-activity-7288541128520257536-ctzu?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_desktop&rcm=ACoAACBK3K8BahP7hY7KGbEA7SDP_-JzMFgr-7g