youth worker

senior youth worker

case manager

area manager

administrative officer

Safe Places for Children

Very toxic work culture, limited support especially when case managers who are the on call support is on shift at different house and cannot answer easily. Lots of back stabbing, talking behind each others back, and favouritism from management.
Incompetent management who do not have relevant degrees and therefore lack the necessary leadership skills required to manage team members and young people. 
TCI is not implemented effectively nor accurately, very clear they do it for the funding. The company often does not enforce consequences so often the kids do what they want, and then Youth workers are blamed for kids not following routines. example, if the kids dont go to school, they can watch TV all day, then youth workers are blamed for not enforcing strict enough expectations to get them to school. 

A lot of inconsistencies of professional expectations among case managers, therefore, all houses operate vastly differently. What is okay and fine at one house, is completely not okay at another. This becomes very problematic if you go between numerous houses. 
You get a case induction about the child before you work at any house, however, they do not explain house routine and rules, so a lot of opportunity to get in trouble because you did not enforce a consequence or expectation even though you were never aware of it. and visa versa, you may be at house where there are no rules or firm expectations, and it can become confusing on how situations are dealt with. 
Nothing is in writing, so if at team meetings something is discussed, and then you forget about it, or become confused or want to double check something, there is nothing to reference back to. and If you do make a mistake, they say, it was discussed at the team meeting, you  should remember. Putting a lot of pressure on you to remember absolutely everything 
The pay sucks, do not be fooled, its a salary, and the hours bank is a rort. They often cancel other shifts so you don't go over hours, or they intentionally do not roster you enough hours so you're forced to pick up shifts when people call in sick. 
Also if  you have time off because you're sick, they do not use your sick leave, instead let your hours bank go into the negative, so you owe them a makeup shift. 
Most of what is said in the training is misleading, and often what is taught is not reflected in the actual practices. They say you do a shadow shift at a house you will most likely work at, this is completely false. Shadow shifts are done at easy houses with chill kids, so you do witness anything out of control or violent. You are then put into your house with minimal support or guidance, as the youth worker handing over wants to get off shift. 

During training, they put a lot of emphasis on matching, this is not the case, multiple case managers informed me new workers are just put at houses with availability and if it works, great, if it doesn't, and you get assaulted or have multiple incidents they move you along to another house, and blame 'bad matching', you were never matched in the first place. 
The rosters are hard, doing multiple 24 hour shifts a week. They also consider the day you finish a shift, a day off, even though you have worked a few hours in the morning, and because of this, they often roster you on the very next day, so no work life balance. 


This is the kind of company I would expect to see outed on 60 minutes or A Current Affair.

A typical shift is at least 24 hours long. They say you can go to bed from 10pm until 6am - that rarely happens. You're either still up dealing with heightened, aggressive young people or tackling shift and incident reports. If you're up til 2am dealing with incidents.. you don't get paid for that time. If you haven't slept more than 2 or 3 hours, you won't get someone come to take over. You'll still be expected to complete your shift and make good judgment calls whilst severely fatigued.

They make great speeches about supporting staff, strategies to avoid burning out staff and so on... it's all talk and when it comes to the crunch, nothing is followed through.. it never happens.  Management use and abuse staff. 

The kids - the poor kids are so traumatised, their behaviour is often extremely aggressive and yes, many will actually assault you. You spend your day getting verbally abused, threatened and it will break you down eventually. You can expect to walk away from this job traumatised yourself. 

My entire training group had quit within 3 or 4 months. Worst job I have ever had.

I suspect the 5 star reviews on here are from management trying to do damage control.

In all honesty, this is the worst work enviornment ive seen coming from multiple shift work industries and fields of work. 

- 24hr shifts, only paid for 16hrs as your meant to sleep for 8hrs but if you are woken up in that 8hr time you arent paid, you are given poor excuses around the EBA, lack of empathy and sympathy from managers, and unless you score lucky with a good house of kids it you never get the 8hrs.
- underpaid, honestly for what you do, you are 3 jobs in one (Babysitter, counsellor and parent). You will do everything as if you are a parent and a babysitter/carer for a kid from whatever they demand or need, and counselling for any issues they have and provide support for bare minimum wages. 60k-80k. for a multiple inclusive role this should be closer to 80-100k.
- higher management do not care for the kids, instead only care for the numbers and profit which sacrifices the quality of care for the kids, and do not spend enough time matching persoanlities to kids to ensure a good fit for the home. it is filled with excuses and poor reasoning for structural changes or situations
- MASSIVE lack of support in incidents or high risk situations unless you are LUCKY enough to get a good case manager which currently there is only one in my experience, the rest give bullcrap reasonings from the EBA putting the worker at risk and in danger. 

Unfortunately, my overall experience with this organisation was not so great. I suspect why they keep advertising for staff is they have a retention issue.

The training was very good to start. However when you actually start working within the organisation, it didnt take long to realise how bad the culture and organisation actually is.

The pay is terrible, they have watered down or removed just about all benefits from the original award. Ontop of this there is alot expected of you for nothing, long hours and an expectation you will be oncall 24x7. Should you not be available, when they call you with 15minutes notice, the staff will try and punish you. You are expected to be flexible but they refuse to be, its almost impossible to get holidays approved.

Part of the job is dealing with youth who are often verbally and or physically agressive. Even when you follow protocol, procedure and training the staff will still blame you for issues, you get very little support and often arrogant responses from staff. 

Apart from the initial training the whole organisation is not very professional, with a nasty culture possibly due to stress. Working with some of the youth can be rewarding but not enough to put up with the rest of the issues.

Amazing induction but that’s where it stops. Working with children and young people who come from extremely traumatized backgrounds. Shifts are 24 hours (you sleep 10pm-6am and are not paid during this time. That is, you are expected to stay up and support a young person if they’re escalated or in a crisis and not be paid for this time). Sometimes after a long shift, you are expected to stay back because management cannot find cover and they do not come in to cover you, despite them being on-call. All staff are burnt out and overworked. You are exposed to physical assault and verbal abuse on daily basis however the work with the young people can be extremely rewarding. Boundaries and self-care is a must. Easy opportunity to get internally promoted despite only being there for a few months. This is because there is a high turnover of staff and unfortunately, this promotes nepotism. Lack of support from management even after experiencing a critical incident. Work culture can be clicky. 

Every day was different with new challenges and children to assist anthe Justice System d guide.
24hr shifts - wake up start the morning routine of the house, assist youth to be ready for school, study, workplacement or community service.
Collect all youth in afternoon from activities to return home to complete afternoon routine including Homework, house work and dinner prep

Night timeroutine completed and ready for bed.

I learnt a lot about cultures, and the Justice System. I extended my knowledge and experience in being open and non judgemental

Co-workers can be very supportive and some not so much as the job stress did get to a lot of staff

The hardest part of my job is the hours away from my own Family and the times youth would assult me

The Most enjoyable part of my job was watching the youth grow, mature and experience a loving clean house with activities and rewards.
The conselling and rehabilitation side of this work was very rewarding as I am very sympathetic and aware of people's individual needs.

Safe Places is a fantastic place to work. Don’t get me wrong, it can be extremely challenging, they take on the extremely traumatised, high risk kids, the work is not for everyone but the training is brilliant, the pay is very good, you get 6 weeks of annual leave per year, you can pick up extra shifts to build your hours up for extra pay outs or more time off if needed, it is usually very rewarding and the support you get is second to none. There is also so much opportunity to progress into senior roles and management, most employees from case managers up state managers and CEO started there as a youth worker and worked their way up so they understand what their youth workers go through and plenty of support is offered, no one that asks for more support is ever turned down. I have worked in many residential settings (aged care, disability, youth work) and this is by far the best place I have ever worked! 

In this organisation you are working with some of the most trauma affected children and young people that are in the care of the Department. While some of them will lash out at times it is rewarding to get the 'little wins' like having a young person brush their teeth every day and to see the transition of them is what is most rewarding.
The shifts can sometimes feel long but that is also what gives the work life balance. I like that most weeks I only work 2 or 3 days and that gives me time to spend with my family and do the things that I love. I can even choose to work a few extra shifts to build up my hours and have an extra week off and still get paid.
They paid for my Cert IV in Child, Youth and Family Intervention which I need. No other employer pays for this.
Whenever you have a bad shift there is always support available either internally or externally.
If anyone wants to get into youth work this is a great organisation to get your start.

Working with high risk children is a challenging work and I enjoy working with challenging children but it is not paid well and your security is not really taken to account when working in the communities.

I have learned to manage my time and safety well in the past 10 years of working in these type of work and I enjoy the challengers and rapport building I gain with other people and their family.

it is very rewarding to see that they make changers in life and even thou at times those changers are only baby steps but it is a beginning to making positive changers in their life.

The toughest bit about the job is the weekends and night call outs but because your passion about children's safety and positive development, I switch to strength base approach and tackle not only the odd hours but also the negative response from the client you will be working with in that case scenario.

This company is so dodgy. Beware and don’t apply. HR in Phillipines, can’t apeak english. 
Surely this place will be shut down. 100% funded by department of child protection. But a not for profit organisation. 
Government dodge - even offering $500 if you refer a friend to work there, so desperate for staff. 
Unethical employment process, told one thing, induction in warehouse, management employ as case manager, job advertised as case manager employed as youth worker, mislead and lied to. Told to park car away from houses, down the street, to avoid personal cars being damaged by consumers, no personal phones, no duress alarms for safety, no exit safety in homes, one to one care model with critical incidence ever day. No overtime or penalty rates. Works out to be a pay rate 19 per hour because so many hours are expected. Do not get paid for awake time diring sleep shift. 
Not sure how this company is allowed to operate actually. Poor kids under the care of theses people.120 working hour fortnight

Top Job Titles	Average Salary
Youth worker 6 salaries reported	$86,804 per year
Senior youth worker 3 salaries reported	$86,000 per year
Case manager 3 salaries reported	$79,422 per year
Area manager 1 salary reported	$98,318 per year
Administrative officer 1 salary reported	$48,071 per year

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