Pros
-(One of the)Supervisor(s) was punctual with meeting times and readily handed out resources prior to beginning therapy and meeting new families. Trained some on site, but mostly expected therapist to know what to do. -there is extensive training online for getting ABA therapy certificates, before you begin. but I would stress that not all therapists will know how to deal with children in real life situations because of such a variance in developmental needs. Examples include needing to work with children with autism yet also have medical and cognitive deficiencies for congenital reasons, and another who had an emotional disorder or sorts (depression, anger, overreacting) coupled with behavioral problems of becoming physically in danger to himself and those around him, and on top of that had developmental delays. -interview process is easy and subject to if the owners find you "likeable" with a brief check on whether you have worked with children
Cons
-When supervisor (referred to in pros section) left, the second supervisor did not at all know how to properly administer VBMAPP lessons and did not provide any guidance for any of the therapists which made our jobs more difficult! -the owners are young and definitely have blind spots when it comes to dealing with issues that arise within families that affect therapists and our working conditions, are reactive if there is any expression of improvement or a suggestion/comment is not positive. -there is a high turn over rate (so while you may be hired you won't want to stay for long); probably because you do not get paid for your time commuting to families' homes which can be either close or quite far (farthest I drove was 45min one way). You do not get paid for gas and while I was told by someone that I could try and get these to be included in tax return, I did that, and they would not accept it (mileage was recorded prior to/end of each session). -pay was low and inconsistent based on how many session I got to do during a week -payroll person is overworked since she did all new hire/current employee admin work, and frequently lost track of email threads or forgot about conversations we had entirely. If you make a mistake in confirming your hours prior to getting paid, you can assume and somehow you reported less hours than you worked, and you reported the clerical error, I NEVER HEARD FROM THEM. (Basically lost money.) -they will hire anyone and all get paid hourly and it was not much. Someone with no degree related to education or children was hired and in the same orientation as me, but I had a masters...discouraging.
