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Informational Interview: CONCERN North Central Region Director

Emilie Zuchowski

Department of Behavior and Social Sciences, Mansfield University

PSY 1151: Orientation to Psychology

Dr. Nicolle Mayo

September 23rd, 2020

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Informational Interview: CONCERN North Central Region Director

Jenny Bowen works full-time as the North Central Region Director at CONCERN. She

will be talking about the work she does and how she got to that point because I am interested in

working at an agency like CONCERN.

Ever since a young age, Jenny knew she wanted to help people, specifically young

children with disabilities or impairments. She babysat as a child, worked as a Teacher’s

Assistant, and worked at several other programs, such as Montessori, that helped kids in needs.

She originally started out at CONCERN as a TSS in 2004 and has since worked her way up to

follow her dreams of helping kids in need. She started gaining experience at the age of eighteen.

Although she has degrees in English, her skills that she learned in college helped her with the

skills that she needs to do her job. For example, she gained solid skills in communication and

persuasive arguing. Some more skills she talked about that are critical for a career at CONCERN

include things such as teamwork, independent work, engagement with coworkers, clients,

caseworkers, and family members. She also stressed the importance of being able to turn in

paperwork on time. She discussed about the different types of paperwork, such as progress notes,

assessment tools, reporting, discharge papers, etc. These types of paperwork are extremely

important to the job because they are proof to the state that what the employees are doing is

working. It is also important to insurance companies and any other people that pay the therapists.

As stated before, Jenny started working at CONCERN in 2004 as a TSS. She worked her

way up through the agency by working with her supervisors on what skills she could learn to

help herself grow. She moved from TSS to caseworker then caseworker to assistant to region

director, and then finally the region director. She made herself aware of positions and was
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always watching out for new openings. She also credits some of it to CONCERN because the

organization wants their employees to grow and develop because they do not want to have their

employees feel stagnant. Although she knows about the openings because she works there, she

recommended to people that are interested in jobs in many other ways. CONCERN tries to stay

up on the latest job sites, such as Indeed. They try to think of where college students would be

looking for jobs, which is usually online. They also change their advertising based on current

trends. They usually post jobs on their website and sometimes even in the newspaper. She

discussed how younger students tend to look for jobs on indeed or other online employment

sites. Older, more experienced people tend to look at the newspaper, but it is very expensive. She

would advise college students to be aware of what type of jobs they want and look into what they

are required to get for that job. She said college students she be aware of licensing requirements

and degree requirements prior to graduating. Also knowing the rate of pay is important. To work

at CONCERN, it is a very wide range for salaries. For her position, it can range from $55,000 to

$73,000 a year. The salary also depends on experience. If someone is starting out of college with

no experience, it can be $14 an hour. At the bachelor’s level, it can be $15 an hour and even

sometimes $25 an hour. For a full-time employee, it can be from $30,000 to $50,000. For

someone not full time, it can be from $25,000 to $30,000. She also mentioned how there is a

market rate analysis. For example, they analyze what the market is paying others. When they

receive a resume, they plug it into a document to come up with a salary because most of what

they pay people is based on their experience. Pay raises are also based on performance. For

example, the more effective the therapist, the more they get paid.

Because she is the region director, she supervises the supervisors. Her supervisor is the

Vice President of the agency. Her job is an important leadership role. If a supervisor cannot do
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their job or if they are short a supervisor, she takes over their responsibilities. For example, when

I conducted the interview, she had the third on call phone because someone else could not do it.

She also helps with family based mental health, crisis, and outpatient psychiatric help. For her,

on a typical working day she works Monday-Friday from 8:30 am to 4:30 pm. She works mainly

at the office in Wellsboro, but she is also expected to go to other offices and other areas or

meetings. For example, sometimes she has to go to the Sullivan and Potter county offices. She

also might have to go to meetings in other towns such as Lewisburg. She might also have to go

to homes, schools, or wherever someone is in need.

She discussed two different sides to the frustrating aspects of her career. From a

management standpoint, she gets frustrated when staff that are hired do not see certain ethics as

necessary. For example, an employee that messages clients on Facebook or employees that do

not turn in paperwork. State regulations are also very frustrating. From a client level, it is

frustrating to see a plan for someone, but they cannot follow through with that plan even though

they would be better off if they would stick to what the therapist wants them to do. On the other

side, she also had many more enjoyable aspects. From a management side, it is very rewarding to

set a goal, work towards it, and have it succeed. For example, bringing on a new program, work

with other employees and staff on it, get it started, and then have it work and help others. From a

client level, helping them, engaging with them, and helping them meet their goals is very

rewarding to see.

We closed off the interview with how her career impacts her. She said how her career

typically has a very positive impact on her. Her job makes her feel good. She also gets stressed,

but the stress was good and productive. It can become unhealthy when there is a supervisor

turnover and her responsibilities double. It also is frustrating to not be able to get everything
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done and also being on call. However, it does not make her want to leave her job. CONCERN

also treats their staff very good so they will not want to go somewhere else. Having more staff

helps lessen the stress on her.

Reflection

Overall, I really enjoyed this interview and I gathered a lot of insight for any future

careers I want to go into. I was very impressed to hear that CONCERN not only cares about their

clients, but also cares about the employees enough to make sure they are treated fairly. This is a

very important aspect to me when I think of future places of employment. Information that

distressed/discouraged me was the pay because I wish the salaries were a little bit higher, but that

is not too much of a worry to me as I thought it was going to be. The most useful thing was the

amount of experience and the rate of pay. I knew experience was important, but I did not realize

it impacted how much you go paid. I also found it useful to know how much experience is

needed to get into CONCERN.

I do see myself doing this work over a long period of time because much of what she

said she did was everything I wanted to do and everything she does sounds interesting to me. I

think the work environment will permit me to live the lifestyle I want, but I think the salary

range is something I need to keep in the back of my head. I’d like to make more, so I might

consider doing jobs on the side in edition to a job at CONCERN. I think finding a job

immediately after graduation is not realistic, especially with the coronavirus. I want to be able to

have a counseling type job in an era where I can meet face to face with a client. Also, many

places want to hire people with experience and because a lot of things are shut down, it will be

hard to gain experience with the regulations today. I am still interested in pursuing this career
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because even though it sounds overwhelming and scary at times, I want to be able to help all

kinds of people and feel the rewards of dedicating my life to helping others.