Pluspunten
This is a great place to gain experience as an intern in the areas of suicide prevention, crisis counseling and risk assessment. As a social work intern, your school is the authority and can protect you from the the unreasonable expectations that will likely be placed on you. The counselors doing the clinical work are great people to work with and learn from.
Minpunten
MHA used to be very well respected but in recent years has become pretty corrupt mostly due to upper management. Executive managers holding the same masters degree as counselors make 6 figures while counselors make 40k. The budget is way off and the books are definitely being cooked. Lower level staff are over worked and treated with total disrespect if not open contempt. Management is constantly in disputes with staff over illegal practices such as denying lunch break and sick and vacation time. The main focus is on numbers and money and the values of client centered care and best practice that once existed has totally evaporated. All of the good supervisors and managers have left in the last few years due to the toxic culture and ethical concerns over how much the quality of care has declined. It's interesting clinical experience but there is no clinical supervision, you can't obtain your LCSW and there is no real opportunity for advancement unless you want to do admin work. Burnout is very high and the good work done by staff is not appreciated. You have to work late hours, holidays and weekends.