Where to Find Employees for Rehab Clinics
When you hire the best staff, your patients receive the best treatments. But you need to know where to find employees. Here’s your guide.
Working to help others in need is a noble and very rewarding choice for your career or life’s work. People who live with addictions need help to break free from their vices from people who understand them and the addiction.
Finding great staff to work in the clinic may not be as easy as you think. There may be plenty of people willing to work there, but finding the best people goes a bit deeper.
Here we will focus on where to find employees best suited for the rehab clinic where you work. Rehab counselors are always in demand, so it’s great to have some tools to attract the best ones
Types of Rehab
Depending on what type of addiction you have and how severe it is will depend on the type of treatment you receive. There are clinics for detox, where you may be required to stay for an extended period of time.
There are group therapy sessions, where you attend meetings with people that are living with the same types of issues you are. These can be scheduled or simply allow you to attend when you want or need to.
There is individual counseling if that method works better for you. Many rehab clinics use a ‘step’ program, to help people recover at step at a time, and are proven to be very effective.
Each will have its own benefits and drawbacks, so you will need to work out what method works best for you. Where to find employees can be a vast and veritable pool.
What to Look for in Employees
If you are hiring for your clinic, where to find employees will also depend on what you are looking for. people enter into social work types of jobs for various reasons, and you need to be able to make sure you get the best.
Education
Dedication to one’s education means dedication in the person’s interest in other things. Find people with the right education, a bachelor’s degree at least, then masters, for clinic counselor.
Social work is a good base, then advanced education in psychology, counseling or even a medical field. The social work area is a good place if you are wondering where to find employees.
They need to be licensed or certified, and will also require a certain amount of field hours of clinical observation is also a requirement for them to obtain the license.
Experience
Any type of experience is obviously a bonus, but it can be hard to find great employees fresh out of university with much experience. However, that can be overlooked if they have other relatable skills.
Experience in other areas or life experience can bring a lot of required skills to the job. Direct experience may not be as important as a well-rounded individual willing to learn and grow.
Networking at rehab clinics is where to find employees. Education is great but you need a combination of learning and hands-on experience to fully appreciate the role of a rehab counselor.
Knowledge
Knowledge is different than education and has a lot to do People who have lived with their own addictions or lived through addiction recovery within their own family or loved ones can also be an invaluable asset.
Inside knowledge can be one of the biggest assets a person can bring, whether it is their own addiction or a loved one, it provides an empathy that cannot be taught at school.
Someone who has been there adds a much-needed voice of authority and is vital for the patient-counselor relationship. When the patient knows the counselor has ‘been there’, it opens up trust and lines of communication.
Compassion
This is another aspect that can not be taught and is an invaluable skill. The ability to listen, to care, to effectively communicate and to not judge is exactly the kind of personal skills you want to look for when hiring.
Patience, with excellent listening skills and the ability to communicate back to the patient, is an excellent skill and important for trust, compassion and continued effective treatment.
Where to Find Employees
Finding the right person to work at your rehab clinic may be a bit difficult. There are many factors that need to be considered and it will be difficult to find all the desired attributes in one person.
That is okay, as you like to have people with strengths and employees with room to grow and expand their skills and knowledge. What is lacking in one employee is an asset in another.
School
If you are okay with hiring new grads, a school that has a recognized program for counselors is a great place to start. It’s the logical starting point for where to find employees.
You can ask to sit in on a class or field study or practicum of a particular student, you can post jobs on an online job board for the clinic or you can attend an information day set up by the school and offer information for your services.
Online
Online job boards are an excellent method of where to find employees. You can place job postings on several sites, and many of those are shared by other job sites.
It is a good way to get the word out you are looking to hire and get a lot of interested applicants to send their information to you. The beauty of job boards online is that you can pinpoint areas where to find employees and what exactly you are looking for.
There are ways to word your and certain things to mention when looking for staff.
Rehab Meetings
People living with addictions attend meetings, and there is no shortage of them. These meetings often take place in community centers or public spaces, and these spaces have bulletin boards.
These meetings are often hosted by volunteers, or there may be people who are counselors there who are volunteering or trying to gain some knowledge or experience.
Many people who have overcome addictions go on to help other people with theirs. There may be a student there who still attends a meeting and is looking for work. The skills and knowledge that comes with this kind of experience are invaluable.
A quick check to find rehab centers in your area can open up many avenues of where to find employees.
What Do You Offer?
Rehab counselors are in demand, so how do you attract the best? Make your offer the best you can to attract the right people. Where to find employees that will be assets will depend on what you have to offer.
Make your clinic appealing
Take a really good look at your clinic. If you are having trouble keeping staff, find out why. If there are internal issues, infighting, wage disputes, you need to figure that all out.
There is always a way to improve your workplace and maybe that is a way you can draw excellent candidates for the job. By making them feel like their opinions and ideas matter, they will already feel valuable and like they are contributing.
Benefits Package
Offer what you can. People coming into a new position know they are not getting full dental and a corner office but you can certainly offer up some incentives to keep the competition at bay.
These benefits don’t always mean money. Due to the nature of the job, stress levels can run high. Offering paid time off for personal days, work from home options or fun staff activities off base are great perks to keep new and potential counselors interested.
Be Honest
Everyone wants to put their best foot forward, so be honest about your clinic and the clientele. Don’t ignore problems and concerns, but dress them as areas to improve and let the applicant know they will play a big part in that.
No one will expect perfection, but hiring the best people is only half the battle, keeping them there is where the real work begins. Honesty is where you find employees, willing to take you as you are.
A private rehab clinic will have different values than a publically funded one, and that can all come down to money. You may not be able to offer as much, so that needs to be on the table.
Always Forward
You are in the business of helping and healing, so where you find employees to aid you in that matters. caring, compassionate, great with communication and a willingness to learn are all things keep a clinic moving forward.
There may be many reasons that people want to work at a clinic, but it is up to you to pick the best ones for your clinic and your clinic’s needs.
Your number one concern is the patient and that means it is up to you to find the best possible care for them.
Providing a with caring and professional staff is the best way to start the healing process for people living with addictions.