Mental health associates assist medical professionals in diagnosing and treating mental, developmental, and behavioral disorders in people. They work in hospitals, mental institutions, nursing homes, schools, and many more.
A big part of this job includes mediating between patients, nurses, and doctors. You will be responsible for helping patients with daily activities, such as hygiene routines, social programs, and the like. Occasionally you might be tasked with conducting therapy sessions or facilitating interventions as well.
Formal education is generally required to be considered for this position, like a degree in psychology or social work. Gaining experience in the field by doing internships or volunteering can also boost your chances of getting accepted to work at a relevant facility.
There is more than meets the eye when it comes to being a mental health associate. For example, did you know that they make an average of $16.13 an hour? That's $33,559 a year!
Between 2018 and 2028, the career is expected to grow 11% and produce 81,200 job opportunities across the U.S.
There are certain skills that many mental health associates have in order to accomplish their responsibilities. By taking a look through resumes, we were able to narrow down the most common skills for a person in this position. We discovered that a lot of resumes listed communication skills, emotional skills and organizational skills.
When it comes to the most important skills required to be a mental health associate, we found that a lot of resumes listed 12.7% of mental health associates included crisis intervention, while 9.7% of resumes included customer service, and 8.8% of resumes included treatment plans. Hard skills like these are helpful to have when it comes to performing essential job responsibilities.
When it comes to searching for a job, many search for a key term or phrase. Instead, it might be more helpful to search by industry, as you might be missing jobs that you never thought about in industries that you didn't even think offered positions related to the mental health associate job title. But what industry to start with? Most mental health associates actually find jobs in the health care and non profits industries.
If you're interested in becoming a mental health associate, one of the first things to consider is how much education you need. We've determined that 46.1% of mental health associates have a bachelor's degree. In terms of higher education levels, we found that 27.1% of mental health associates have master's degrees. Even though most mental health associates have a college degree, it's possible to become one with only a high school degree or GED.
Choosing the right major is always an important step when researching how to become a mental health associate. When we researched the most common majors for a mental health associate, we found that they most commonly earn bachelor's degree degrees or master's degree degrees. Other degrees that we often see on mental health associate resumes include associate degree degrees or high school diploma degrees.
You may find that experience in other jobs will help you become a mental health associate. In fact, many mental health associate jobs require experience in a role such as internship. Meanwhile, many mental health associates also have previous career experience in roles such as cashier or certified nursing assistant.
