Pros
-Good amount of school placement options across quite a few states
Cons
Stepping Stones group acquired the company I previously worked for - EBS Healthcare. I worked for Stepping Stones Group for a year after having moved to a new state; and then left. I was very disappointed with Stepping Stones group’s pay, benefits, and large health insurance deductions taken from each biweekly paycheck. I was especially disappointed in their lack of support whenever I had questions or concerns. Because I moved to a new state, I needed alot of help in the beginning of the year on familiarizing with the new documentation , IEP procedures, and help with basic things like getting support to have a room to do therapy in. I asked the school I worked at and then reached out to Stepping stones to talk to my school so that I could have a space to work. It took like 3 weeks to have a consistent area to do therapy in. Every once in a while, someone would occupy that room and I was lucky to continue to play the game of “find a place to do therapy in” all over again. I also needed their support in the beginning of the year to get my school ID and IEP login, so that I could look at the student’s IEP’s prior to working with them. It took 4-5 weeks for me to get a login to view IEP’s despite asking the AP at my school and Stepping Stones to see if there was a way to get a school login faster. A very nice therapist from another school helped me get the IEP info that I needed. Throughout all of this, I had no support from stepping stones group. It was the most frustrating start to a school year ever. I tried contacting a stepping stones regional manager to ask questions since I was new to the state. She didn’t help me at all. When I called her, she would frequently not pick up, and say “text me” rather than call. I didn’t bother reaching out anymore for help since it was pretty clear she didn’t want to help. She couldn’t be bothered with a phone call. Ridiculous. In stark contrast, my previous company EBS Healthcare was the best contract company I ever worked for. They helped me out in a tough situation from a previous contract company. They had amazing support in the form of regional managers who would do their best to answer any questions about documentation, policy and procedure, assistance with difficult students etc. EBS Healthcare was the only contract company that made me feel like they cared and helped me to grow so much for the few years I worked with them. Not only did their regional managers answer calls and their HR reps called to see how the job was going, the regional managers would drive to whatever school placement you were at and helped you with any issue you had. They even held half-day workshops to go over everything step-by-step. They were very knowledgeable and never made me feel dumb when answering questions or providing assistance. EBS Healthcare’s support helped me to learn how to work more effectively with the ASD population, which was a population I would feel nervous engaging with because of their difficult behaviors. My EBS manager gave me great visual aids and helped set me up to be a better therapist. I never got a chance to thanks EBS Healthcare for giving me unmatched support and helping me feel more comfortable working with a tough population. It was such a sad disgraceful day when I learned that EBS was taken over by Stepping Stones Group. My hopes that Stepping Stones Group would be similar to EBS Healthcare were quickly extinguished. They are nowhere near as personal as EBS, and provide hardly a fraction of the support, finesse, and love that EBS Healthcare had as a company towards their employees. Faretheewell, EBS Healthcare. I had no choice but to leave Stepping Stones Group when I realized that nothing of what made EBS Healthcare special was inherent in Stepping Stones Group. The speech language pathology world lost a truly wonderful contract company, that really did their best for their employees. Stepping Stones Group can only provide mediocrity with a sham PR that responds to messages as if they care to improve.
