If you are a parent or potential employee, heed my warning below…read more..
If I could give Crossroad zero stars, I would. This is the worst behavioral-health job I have ever worked, and calling this place dysfunctional is generous.
Crossroad is chronically understaffed, chaotic, filthy, and, in my experience, completely mismanaged. I have seen mice, broken doors, classrooms with ceiling tiles missing and insulation, wiring, and pipes exposed, amongst many other complaints about code safety. I have been left out of ratio with multiple high-needs children in active dangerous behaviors by a supervisor after a kid got dragged outside, called for backup that didn't come, been cut and bruised, and watched children fight, destroy classrooms, pull fire alarms, climb into ceilings, elope, and escape the property.
I have witnessed police being called when children act out with "getting back in ratio" discussed as part of the reason. I have personally heard police express serious concerns about Crossroad and say they were reporting what they witnessed. The treatment of some of these children is fucking appalling. I have personally witnessed staff shove children, drag children, give drugs to children, threaten them with bodily harm, make restraints hurt as much as they could with children screaming in pain while being held down by a laughing staff, sit on a child, threaten and intimidate children, deliberately antagonize them, and turn behavioral crises into power struggles. I heard staff use a homophobic slur toward a gay child. I have watched children be singled out, mocked, body-shamed, continuously insulted and bullied, and called fat for laughs. This included a child struggling with suicidality.
I PERSONALLY WITNESSED A STAFF MEMBER TELL A CHILD TO COMMIT SUICIDE.
That sentence alone should tell you how rotten the culture can become here. These are traumatized children receiving behavioral-health services, not punching bags for frustrated adults. If you cannot regulate yourself without humiliating, threatening, discriminating against, or putting your hands on a child, you have absolutely no business working with vulnerable children.
The staff culture can be just as disgusting. Employees gossip about coworkers, form cliques, try to turn people against each other, and people who are different have become targets. There have literally been staff who quit because of being bullied and harassed. Administration frequently seems nowhere to be found while frontline staff are drowning. Turnover is unsurprising. I have even heard teachers discussing striking because they are so fed up.
I was also told about multiple DCS reports/investigations involving Crossroad. I cannot independently verify their number or status, so I will not pretend I can. What I CAN speak about is what I witnessed with my own eyes, and that was bad enough.
Crossroad's treatment of me personally was the final nail in the coffin. I warned them that I was experiencing serious physical symptoms, including chest pain and feeling faint, and notified them of a long and ongoing heart problem, and said I should not be placed on a physically demanding unit. They put me there anyway. I deteriorated, an ambulance was called, and I ended up in the ER. A week afterward, i get pulled into administration, and they had told me that "concerns about my ability to physically break up fights" (rumors about me and my medical information) meant I was "not doing my job."
This place is a fucking disaster. The children deserve better. The decent employees desperately trying to hold this place together deserve better. Behavioral-health work is difficult, but difficulty does NOT excuse understaffing, humiliation, discrimination, unsafe conditions, or gross mistreatment of children.
I would never recommend Crossroad as an employer OR company based on my experience, and the serious things I witnessed involving children belong in the hands of outside authorities, not buried inside this organization.
Crossroad doesn't need more excuses. It needs accountability.
