Feeling disrespected and unsupported :(

Specialties Psychiatric

Published

I have some wonderful mental health associates but I also have some that are very lazy and disresptful. At my facility, RN's are constantly told that we are in charge of the unit and we are responsible for everything that goes on in the unit but management apparently does not tell mental health associates that. As a result I have several MHA's who get very angry and hostile when I ask them to "please ask an RN before you leave the unit" and God forbid I tell them to please keep it down when patients are asleep or get onto an MHA for sleeping in the hall. I am often told "you are not my boss!' "Worry about yourself!" or " I'm not a child that I need to ask your permission!" I'm so tired of being treated this way by some of my staff (these certain MHA's treat all the nurses this way not just me). I do my best to be a role model on my unit. I faithful round, I make sure all my MHA's get a break and if we are short I help the MHA who is working. Do nurses at other facilities have the authority to write up or send home MHA's? I feel like I have a lot of responsibility but very little authority.

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Specializes in CICU, Telemetry.

Keep specific records of what you said to whom, at what time, with what witnesses, and what their response was. They'll hate you and think you're a narc, but you're already not getting any respect from them, so what do you have to lose? Your boss will have a hard time acting on generalized ' they're all so rude and disrespectful' but when you say 'on 10/23/16 at 8pm I asked Sally to please lower her voice so that she would not wake the patients, and she responded with 'you're not the boss of me, I'll do what I want'. Works best if you can arrange another staff member who agrees with you or if you're on a unit with video monitoring. Send your boss enough of those and they'll have to act, especially if you send them as emails with read receipts. If your boss does nothing after several complaints, send all correspondence to the next higher-up and so on.

You've tried being nice and respectful. It didn't work. No more Ms. Nice Guy.

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Can you make it a safety issue? If they leave the unit without handing off check sheets, or fall asleep while on a 1:1, that is a fireable offense, at least any place I have ever worked. Seems like a part of your job title should include supervising the techs and give you some leverage. I would document, file incident reports for safety issues, and get some feedback from your manager. Does he or she manage the techs too? Sorry you are going through this, Psych floors operate so much better when everyone works as a team :-/

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The workplace atmosphere that you describe is quite common across many units in many establishments. As long as management refuses to back the first line supervisor in disciplinary situations, the supervisor's hands are tied. The associates know that they can get away with this behavior and will continue to act this way until management chooses to change. Continue to do your job with appropriate written follow up. If it becomes too distressing to you, you may need to find another job with the hopes that management at the new job is not helpless when it comes to supervising the workers.

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Specializes in Outpatient Psychiatry.

Welcome to nursing, home of managers without power.

What is a MH associate? Like a minimum wage aid? How stupid is that title. Man, I hate PC.

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Specializes in Leadership, Psych, HomeCare, Amb. Care.

It definitely begins with leadership. They need to set the tone and expectation. I hope the OP has been escalating these issues up the chain of command. My expectations of staff include letting the charge nurse know when leaving unit and anyone asleep or not making proper rounds would be severely disciplined. Both are significant safety issues that can't be ignored.

The workplace atmosphere that you describe is quite common across many units in many establishments. As long as management refuses to back the first line supervisor in disciplinary situations, the supervisor's hands are tied. The associates know that they can get away with this behavior and will continue to act this way until management chooses to change.
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Thank you all for your replies. A MHA, mental health associate, is a psychiatric aide/tech. They do rounds, give out snack, take vitals and get toiletries and towels for the patients. I once reported a tech who repeatedly slept and he was spoken to but he was not disciplined in any way and he retaliated against me by letting patients (I'm female) get dangerously close to me on the psych intensive care unit which has the most psychotic and or aggressive patients AND he told other MHA's that I was racist and tried to get him fired which made work very uncomfortable for awhile. It of course has nothing to do with race & is about me being responsible for the safety of my patients which requires MHAs who stay awake and on the unit . That MHA does not sleep in my presence anymore but he refuses to ask when he leaves the unit. I'm not a control freak but because of MHA's not communicating with the nurses there have been times that there have been no MHAs on the unit and only one nurse which is unacceptable. It's discouraging to know this is how it is at other places too.

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Specializes in Psych (25 years), Medical (15 years).

I feel your pain, DepressedPsychRN. Welcome to AN.com and the psych nursing forum. And, hopefully, your username is not one which will always convey your status.

You've got some great advice from the other posters. Oceanblue's safety issue is paramount. Caliotter's follow through is good advice. And so on...

It makes for an uncomfortable working environment to have to deal with such behaviors you're having to deal with, but we're not here to win a popularity contest- we're here for patient welfare. I know you know that, DPRN.

Being assertive, consistent, and objective will get you through these stormy seas. You will prevail. It's a long, rough row to hoe, but your integrity is paramount. Once you give integrity up, everything else, as has been said, is a piece of cake.

The very best to you, DPRN. As virtual supporters, we'll be here for you.

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Specializes in GENERAL.

Yes this scenario has been going on for years.

When I worked at a Georgia Regional mental health facility the MHAs and myself worked together as a team. We respected each other and had each other's backs.

The lead MHA was a taciturn man of few words but vigilant for outbreaks of mischief and potentially lurking dangerous situations. He also worked with me as at the time my experience in mental health was limited.

I relate my experience only to contrast it with yours as a way to possibly offer you validation that- you're right! This situation is not good, not therapeutic for the patients or the care givers.

There is an us against them mentality promulgated by the entrenched workers who feel entittled and need to maintain the status quo. After all they've seen the nurses come and go and they're still there.

Since you sound like a reasonable non-dictatorial person, my suggestion would be to try to identify the one person of reason among the MHAs who can give you some insight into what the individual and group grievances are and let everyone know that in any mental health facility the mental health of the staff is as important as anyone's.

Don't worry about being dissed, it's a pecking order. Show your mettle. Be just, kind and firm where you have to be for good colleague, employee and patient relations. And know that changing the culture will be a trial and error experience and will take time.

Even if the recalcitrant need to be clobbered now and then.

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Specializes in GENERAL.
Welcome to nursing, home of managers without power.

What is a MH associate? Like a minimum wage aid? How stupid is that title. Man, I hate PC.

PsycheGuy expresses the conscienceness of real.

As a result, I often feel compelled to reset my personal BSometer back to zero.

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Specializes in Hospice, corrections, psychiatry, rehab, LTC.

I worked with one in my first job who believed that because she had a BA in psychology, she ought to be supervising the nursing staff. She kept going on about how much more education she had than the nurses. I finally got tired of it and took her aside. As it happened, I have a BA in psychology myself, and it qualified me for nothing (the reason why I went to nursing school years later). I asked her what she was licensed to practice. Silence. I told her that the nurses who she believed that she should supervise were licensed by the state to practice their professions, and by law they had to be supervised by other nurses.

This woman definitely had an inflated sense of her own worth, and she fancied herself to be a therapist. She targeted young females who were admitted to the unit. We never found out exactly what she said to them, but once she had a private conversation with them, she was the only staff person on the unit who they would talk to. She was finally fired for giving unauthorized referrals to patients. One former patient called the unit to complain that her insurance didn't pay for her aftercare. Some research revealed that we didn't refer her to the place where she went, but this tech had told her to go there.

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Welcome to nursing, home of managers without power.

What is a MH associate? Like a minimum wage aid? How stupid is that title. Man, I hate PC.

I like this guy, let's give him a promotion.

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