aba therapist

child development specialist

behavioral therapist

behavior technician

instructor

A Change in Trajectory

This company is very rewarding when it comes to working with children with autism. Watching them grow, learn and become more independent is very rewarding. Being a part of this growth and seeing how much the families appreciate you will always be the most rewarding part of this job. Being a part of this team not as much. Unless you become close friend with the supervisors or BCBAs or have a lot of experience your case load won’t be as big and they won’t consider you for new cases. The pay is good overall and they get you excited about travel and the benefits (how much they pay a mile and the time you take to drive), yet they schedule you to where you don’t qualify for travel. They tell you they offer benefits but they won’t schedule you enough hours to qualify for the benefits. I heard of an employee who got hurt on the job and two years in they haven’t done much to help with this individual’s injury that needs surgery. Some of the supervisors are great at giving constructive criticism yet others make you feel dumb when giving it, worst part is that sometimes it is in front of families. They expect you to not become “too close” and engage in conversations with the families yet the supervisors do just that. As a behavior instructor you won’t be shown appreciation. They have “holiday parties” but it’s actually a meeting and they give out like 4 $5 gift cards for games they do throughout the meeting. If you are in management, supervisor or BCBA you will get to participate in a huge company party with all the other office in LA, that comes with a lot of perks. They also celebrate each other’s birthdays, engagements, bridal showers, baby showers, that behavior instructors are not part of. There is also gossip in the office, between workers and sometimes even with the families about other employees. There are growing opportunities in the company. They help with your masters and to get certain certificates that they offer in ABA for behavior instructors. Overall this job was very rewarding when I looked back to my consumers progress but the company needs to find more ways to make their behavior instructors feel appreciated. 

A typical day at work is arriving at the house where the child that is receiving therapy lives. You must prepare your paperwork which is the goals that you are going to work on with the child. once that is finished you "play" with the child while you collect data. you do this by using your surroundings, that can be toys, pets, siblings, etc. towards end of session you record your data, and say goodbye to the child. 
   I have learned various things while working here at A Change in Trajectory. I have learned to be more patient due to the children having learning disabilities, having to make you own plans to gain the child's interest so i can gather the appropriate data, as well as following through on my instructions with the child. 
  Managements is great, whatever question I have they have an answer to, we discuss the goals that the child is going to work on and gives me feedback on my performance. 
   Coworkers I hardly see since therapy is 1:1, unless there is another child in the household that is receiving therapy as well then I will see my coworkers. 
    The hardest part of my job is to gain the child's trust and keep them focus on our goals. This means 
I have to get to know them and figure out what they like to do. For example, toys, coloring, reading, catching, running. 
     What I enjoy the most is knowing that I am making a difference in their lives and having the satisfaction of knowing that they are going to be able to survive out in the word because of my help.

Look for another job other than this one. The management sucks the office staff can’t do their jobs. If you do something wrong instead of helping you out they lash out at your in front of the child or just talk bad about you behind your back. Soon enough everyone in the office will know your mistakes and not want to work with you. Even with being back at work after covid they keep the same stupid tactics. The hours are very poor. Since it’s all up to the family if they want session or not. The polices make no sense you will be disciplined for calling out sick but a family can literally cancel 20 minutes before session and you want get paid. BIs get yelled at for not communicating with PCs but PCs can’t communicate with BIs. Make it make sense. Everyone is grown stop acting like you’re in middle school. I enjoyed my job when I first started working here but I soon realized that this job wasn’t reliable. The most common problem you will have working at this dump is the hours. I’ve cried in my car because of the way a PC had treated me. I’ve had a PC talk bad about me to a parent. I’ve also had a PC who was never their for my consumer never would update programs or do I’m home visits. I’m not sure how they are still in business by the way they treat their staff. 

While working for A Change in Trajectory a typical day consists of planning, strategies, and patience. The agency provided in home services to children with special needs. At the time my case was with a 4 year old boy with a mild autistic disorder. Before meeting him for our 3hr session I planned the night before to ensure that I kept him engaged while we reviewed tasks that would improve verbal and adaptive skills. I felt a great sense of accomplishment when I'd see progress being made. A child who once spoke using minimal words was now using complete sentences. The office staff along with my manager provided endless support and guidance. No question would go unanswered. The toughest part of the job was seeing parents not show interest in the skills being taught to their child and worse yet not apply them on a daily basis. In order to see progress we must work consistently as a team. It was a true joy to see the child happy and engaged throughout the session. Luckily in this case both parents were extremely supportive and it showed through the child's progress. To witness a child improve his or her life skills is a true joy. With hard work, patience and determination anything is possible.

I have worked for this company for a little over a year and I've learned a lot from this experience. The company offers decent and reoccurring training for staff and I've been lucky to have supervisors that are great at getting back to me with program related questions. If you want to pursue this line of work, I think ACT is a great place to start. The main downside and the reason I looking to leave the company simply has to do with the lack of good hours for bottom tier staff.  I'm barely capping out 26 hours per week. I get it, with this line of work, hours are hard to come by in general. But what really doesn't help is the policy regarding cancellations. I have at least one client cancel every couple weeks--more if a flu is going around--and so long as they cancel before I leave my house to drive to the home, I don't get paid. If you need a consistent pay check, either go for a program coordinator position or look for a job somewhere else. 

I would like to start off by saying I LOVE working with the kiddos. They are the reason why I enjoy what I do but some departments don't know how to communicate. On one side I have PCs and LPCs who are truly there for you but on the other side we have PCs and LPCs who only look out for their friends instead of being fair. With covid I understand that cuts have to be made but the way they are doing it isn't right. They only want to pay the bare minimum but want you to work at full capacity. They need to treat their workers better! The only reason why I stayed as long as I did was because of my LPC if more LPC's were like mine then more people would enjoy working here but the OWNER is only looking out for herself which sucks if you aren't someone important to her. If you are just looking for experience then this is a good place to get it but make if you want to grow then find a better place. 

Unless you are best friends with the PCs you can’t get new cases or get any recognition. The recognition is limited to keep up the good work or thank you for your hard work texts. They have perfect attendance raffles but no one knows how that works and one employee of the month when about 100+ people work for the company. They always go with people they already know and assign them cases. You constantly have empty spots in your schedule. I’ve sometimes worked 8 hours a week!! Your paycheck fluctuates every pay period. Which is terrible especially if you are depending on having a certain amount. Instead of hiring new people constantly, give other people with the empty spaces the hours. They also never replace cases. They’ll randomly take you off of a case and that’s it. Also the office staff is horrible. You email them a quick question and they never answer or acknowledge it.

This company was awful to work for, the pay was not a fair pay. The management and owner only valued their providers and treated everyone else like second class citizens. The people in the office are paid VERY poorly and have so many responsibilities. The BI’s have such high turn over  rate because they are not properly trained and just thrown out to the kids homes. If you are a parent who’s child is getting services please demand more training of staff, new staff at that. Also, the company only cared about making their money and that’s it… they would make staff make up hours where sometimes the kids were having 6 hour sessions! So impossible! The wages dispersed was just insane if you are not in management (which there is no way to advance in this company) you’re making penny's! Trust me don’t work here! You are not supported AT ALL!! ACT  START PAYING YOUR ADMINS/SCHEDULERS WHAT THEY DESERVE AND START VALUING YOUR BI’s!  

Amazing job to work at if you love working with kids. It’s also a great start up job for people that are interested in the field. You get to set up your own schedule which is awesome for someone that is in school. But the hours a very unreliable they constantly take your off of cases and you never know when it will be your last day with a certain kid. You have meetings every 3 months which are pointless most of the time. Staff treats you like kids during these meetings passing out candy and “prizes”.  You play games with groups of people or acting out behaviors. Most of the time the meetings are going over stuff people already know. Driving can be a hassle but you do get compensation for it. Most of the PCs are very unorganized and don’t update things. Some of them also have very bad communication.

overall it wasn’t a bad place to work, but they expect a lot from you. we do get trained, but it’s all very clinical. the in-person training was minimal, and honestly i felt rather plunged into fieldwork. the turnover is pretty bad because the job itself is not the best or most rewarding. it feels very strange to be telling kids not to express themselves in ways they feel comfortable doing — for example, we were supposed to train self-stimulatory behavior (aka stimming, which most commonly includes hand flapping, but can also manifest in other ways) out of the kids. it was really very strange — stimming is quite helpful in regulating autistic people’s nervous system and emotions. my case worker for one of my “consumers” had me try to force this young, speechless boy into talking. it was heartbreaking honestly. 

Top Job Titles	Average Salary
Aba therapist 40 salaries reported	$20.86 per hour
Child development specialist 36 salaries reported	$26.13 per hour
Behavioral therapist 61 salaries reported	$22.48 per hour
Behavior technician 56 salaries reported	$23.16 per hour
Instructor 27 salaries reported	$26.69 per hour

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