Saturday, August 23, 2008

Sad but True...

The mental health field is an unusual one. The longevity for someone working as a Case Manager is, on average, something like six months. The ones who stay longer usually become supervisors. I'm back in this field again after about a three-and-a-half year hiatus, and when I tell people that I worked as a Case Manager previously for about a year and a half, they usually seem pretty impressed. Even my direct supervisor (who was just promoted about two weeks ago - the same time I started), has only a year of experience.

Three other new Case Managers started with me (and that's just our site), there were two who had been working there only two weeks when we started, two people were working their last day, and we're expecting at least one new Case Manager on Monday - if that gives you any sort of indication of how often things change in this field.

In fact, the field is always changing and evolving, and then de-evolving, and then going back to the thing it started with, then trying something completely different, so those three years away mean that there's a steep learning curve for me.

However, it's nice to know that after about six months, I will probably have a good chance of a promotion if I were to apply. Which, of course, I plan on doing.

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