Hi everyone,
I am wondering if anyone has any experience being a mental health technician in a psychiatric hospital/facility? I need clinical experience that pays, as I am supporting myself. I also have an interest in psychiatry, so I thought this would be a good option to get clinical experience while also making money and fulfilling my interests. I have watched some videos on youtube about the job and read job descriptions about it but was wondering if anyone on here could further elaborate on what it is like? Would you say it is a high quality clinical experience? Why or why not?
Also, I have volunteered at a hospital in the Pediatric ICU and currently work with kids who have autism, so I am familiar working with people who are either very sick or developmentally disabled.
Thanks for any help!
Hey, I’m volunteering at a children’s inpatient psychiatric unit alongside a number of psych techs each shift. The general rule for judging if the activity qualifies is to my knowledge whether you can smell the patient. Let me assure you that psych techs do smell the patient, maybe more than they sometimes wished. Their duties are to serve the kids food, to help them get ready for whatever activity (in the morning out of bed, to school, to go on the playground, to go potty,…), to keep the ward clean, to keep the patient and the coworkers safe. For all I’ve seen it can get repetitive, as there are always some kids ‘on status’, meaning the kids need a psych tech in arm’s length at all times to keep them safe. The techs have a great team spirit though, so that’s always fun. They all are college educated and underwent some special training of sorts.
Hope that helps!