First Real Job - Behavior Therapist Easterseals Southern California Employee Review

Great team to work with who are mission driven. A good balance of OBM, project management, training, and clinical work.

No cons, I just decided to pivot to a different field.

11 paid holidays, paid 2hr cancellations, bonuses throughout the year, $5250 tuition reimbursement, the potential to become one of the best ABA providers to receive ABA from and to work for.

The level up structure for behavior interventionists is misleading. BIs are moved up through “levels 1-3” every 6 months before becoming an RBT which happens after level 3 aka after almost 2 years.. In reality, this process is just working towards the bare minimum credential that most ABA companies require from day one or the company pays for this certification to be completed within their onboarding. Program Managers function in roles that are like BCBAs, including creating and modifying programs despite not being certified as BCBAs or even at times not having a masters in ABA or even worse no history of BI experience. Meanwhile, BCBAs function more as sign-off authorities. This creates a system where the person most qualified to provide the therapy is not involved, and the people delivering and shaping the therapy are not certified. This leads to sessions having cookie cutter programs and no socially significant progress being done to clients. It is not uncommon for 3-4hr sessions to feel more like extended babysitting. BIs experience moral injury and fear to speak up about the unethical structure taking place. We walk into this role not knowing any better and slowly but surely we all start learning something isn’t right the further we do our own research.