Complaint Review: Adolescent Growth Inc.

I used to work at Adolescent Growth and know that it is an awful place.  I can't speak for all the staff, but the people I worked with genuinely cared for our "clients".  I still have a wall of art at home from the teens who passed through.  The problem is with the owners, who are only in the business to sell it off in a few years.

They only pay minimum wage for work that requires at least a Bachelor's (and has cost me my health on several occasions) and give us no benefits.  Unhappy workers means that if your kid runs away (which is THEIR fault, not OURS...CA law prohibits us locking them in), we aren't gonna run 5 blocks to try and catch them.  We just call the police.

We are kept on a super tight budget, which often means meals are incomplete or just ridiculous (PB+J enchiladas).  The thermostat is locked by the owners and one day, I remember it being in the upper 80s in the house.  At night.  At least a dozen times, we were not given enough toilet paper or paper towels and had to just "make due".

The therapy room isn't at all insulated or separate, so if a client is speaking at all loudly, everyone else knows their business.  And with teenage girls...that can get dangerous, as well as straight-up unethical.  The classroom is in the garage.  It's ridiculously hot during the day and I am pretty positive that it's a code violation.

Another issue is that group sessions took place in Koreatown.  So we would have to drive from either Sherman Oaks or Commerce every weekday and then on weekends, Sherman Oaks and Koreatown would have to drive all the way to Commerce.  Besides being a huge waste of gas, being stuck in the car for an hour is not terribly therapeutic.  And the group sessions were co-ed, so of course, no one really shared intimately or they faced teasing by the boys.

I feel like I could list the issues endlessly.  I don't know how the owners are even screwing it up this much.  Even as a recent grad, you can see that the environment is not very healthy or productive.

I'm saving the worst offense for last:  Bleeding insurances dry and the resulting tragedies.  I saw quite a few clients that didn't need to stay beyond 2 weeks (and the primary therapist even concurred with the staffs' conclusion), yet the kids were kept sometimes as long as 8 weeks when nothing was to be gained.  In one boy's case, he actually got worse after the initial 2-week mark that he seemed to really understand why he was there.  He ended up being kept way longer and actually regressing in therapy due to their greediness.  Bleeding insurances is one thing, but to not even consider the kids that are getting caught in the system when they are truly ready to be free is the true crime.

All in all, I wouldn't work here again.  I wouldn't ever recommend it for teenagers seeking help.  I wouldn't recommend it to their parents either.