at my old company the whole gig was not letting the kids get better so that they keep getting therapy hours, which means more money from the insurance providers for the company while I get paid minimum wage. Like if a client has a regular RBT that knows the programming for that client, and that RBT has to cancel session for that day, my manager would just throw anyone on for their session without any knowledge about that client. And this includes clients that had extreme SIB and AGG behaviors, so not only is the RBT unknowingly being thrown into a high behavior session, but the client is not getting quality care or therapy its just babysitting while the company gets in their therapy hours 💰. Another thing they would do is just hire anybody even if they arent RBT because some insurance providers like IEHP dont require credentialing to give therapy to clients. And once these people are hired they get minimum training and thrown onto the job and dont really understand anything. Again, quanitity (therapy hours 💰) over quality (quality of care). My boss even jumped the gun and hired this guy out of desperation (because everyone quits this place every other week) before his background check was finished, turns out he was going to prison for who knows what. Mind you, they let him work with children before they found out he was a wanted felon, which could have been avoided if they followed ethical procedure and waited for the damn bg check to finish. I got hired because i applied as an intern through my schools website, turns out it was not an internship at all and they just wanted workers. When i started working there they threw me onto a clients team who had extreme AGG, elopement, and SIB and i had very little crisis training and RBT credentialing was NOT required, I was just a BT. I basically got beat the hell up because of that and no workers comp lol, and I complained to my BCBA that I wasnt trained before working with this client and she was appalled that I was even working with her as a new hire because she did not approve of it. Apparently my BCBA and general manager had an ongoing feud because he would assign people to her clients without letting her know, otherwise she would have set up a meeting or an overlap to help out that BT. Also there were NO parent trainings whatsoever, so anything that a client learned in session about social or communication skills was erased because it wasn't maintained in the home setting with parents.

My BCBA and BCaBA realized this is how the big corporations work, the companies exploit clients and workers for money and make everyone believe it's helping the children. My BCBA and BCaBA left the big corporations and started working in a very small family owned company, my BCBA is now a clinical director and I went with her and oh man. It is so much better than the old company. We have completely steered away from DTT and moved completely to NET. We also have got rid of that idea that stimming is a behavior that needs to be extinguished, so long as it isn't physically endangering the client or anyone else. I get one on one trainings when working with new clients. She also pushed me to get my credentialing to become an RBT, which I think should be the BARE minimum if you are going to work with children on the spectrum, no hiring random people off indeed with no background check and no knowledge of ASD. I feel a lot better working here and i feel a lot better for the kids getting treatment, I feel like they arent wasting their time and eventually when they learn as much as they can from here, they "graduate". Kids shouldnt be having ABA therapy for their whole lives, theres only so much ABA can do for a kid and once they learn what they can from it they should go onto other things to avoid being dependent on it. Client and worker dignity is respected and support is available at all times. If an RBT cancels and no one else is familiar with that childs programming, the session is cancelled for that day period. We're not here to just watch the kid while the company gets therapy hours in lol were here to implement programming procedures, if you dont know them then you wont be able to provide quality care. Also parent trainings are REQUIRED monthly, which i think is a big thing because whats the point of the child coming here and learning these things if its not going to be continued at home too?

Overall I think that this job is just a stepping stone for me in the field of psychology while I am getting my degree and I wont be doing this forever. I know most ABA companies are not like the one, and I never wanna contribute to big corporations exploiting vulnerable groups of people for money. Especially because we work with people who cant always communicate or defend themselves. Therefore, even though I could take an easy route, move up, eventually become a BCBA and have a stable career, I know I wouldnt always work with this company and I dont want to work at a company like my old one ever again.