behavioral specialist

board certified behavior analyst

entry level behavior technician

behavior technician

registered behavior technician

Center for Social Dynamics

I just graduated from college with a degree in communications. I applied for the job on indeed because I thought it would be a good experience working with people with disabilities. I was super excited to work with CSD.

During the interview process, I clearly stated what days I didn't want to work but I felt obligated to say yes to everything because the person interviewing me said "could you just say your available to work from 8am-8pm. Most of our kids availability is in the evening."

Once I got the job, the training process was very long and they had a bunch of new hires. The training was done online which I thought was useless given the field we are in requires hands on training. 

Once I started working with clients, they were super strict about not changing your schedule for the first 90 days. Which was an issue for me because my availability did change. The scheduling team was not understanding about that. They didn't tell me that I would be assigned a client via telehealth. I was under the impression that all my clients would be in person. I didn't have a company laptop to conduct the session or a private office in my house. They were trying to force me to take the client even though I would be breaking HIPPA protocols by using my personal laptop. They were even trying to get me to do a quick training on telehealth sessions last minute. Everything was so rushed and I never felt prepared for anything even though I would ask for help. 

Overall, I felt like I was on my own to figure stuff out. I felt like I was being thrown to the wolves because my supervisors were never at my sessions in person unless they had to be for paperwork. I was conducting sessions on my own even though I didn't have behavior specialist credentials yet. Anytime there is a misunderstanding, they are quick to blame you without taking any kind of responsibility for not properly training or teaching you things. My biggest issue was that they did not communicate properly. They expected you to just understand what they were talking about. There is also way too many people in charge so it gets confusing on who you should ask for help. 

Working with them didn't feel like working on a team. Things were either their way or the highway. Even when I did try to voice my concerns with the person hired to manage miscommunication and conflicts, they talked over me the entire time and still blamed me for not understand how their system works. I had only been working there for a month and I didn't like speaking to them because they would talk to me like I was inferior The only good part was working with the kids and seeing them happy because you're playing with them. This company cares more about profit than they do about helping the clients. Even the clients families were dissatisfied  with the company. 

They treat their behavior specialist like property rather than employees.

It's a good company, and the mission statement is sound, they definitely really sold it when I read the job description and did the interview. Once the interview was done I was so excited to go to work, however within the first 2 months me and other co-workers experienced burnout. They did do paid training and everything but after that they just throw you straight into the fire and basically tell you to figure it out on your own. 

There was no good, stable communication between the scheduler, employees and families, often times the employees would relay an update to the scheduler, at least a week in advance, but still nothing changed. My time at CSD was fun filled only foe the clientele I worked with, but CSD as a company, as much as it pains me to say, is unprofessional and all over the place. While I was there, they had maybe 3 BCBA's taking on a lot of caseloads which in turn hurt the BCBA's because of burnout, but it also hurt us employees because we needed to be supervised for 5% of our work time at least each month, I barely got supervised every few months and it was a huge let down because I couldn't the help I needed whenever I had questions or needed help difussing a situation, I had to figure it out on my own and it hurt for the clients as because there data sheet wasn't being updated even though RBT's were getting plenty of data for it to be updated. And that's another thing, when us RBT's need help, 99% of the time, we did not get the help we needed from the higher ups for a multitude of reasons but my time there was as follows: get hired, go through training, get first few clients, then get through into the fire, try figure out how to survive the fire, and have burnout for months at time. 

Another things that was a huge let was drive time reimbursement. For the amount of driving that I had to do going from home all the way to Thorton, then to Westminster, then to Highlands Ranch... I got jack s*** in mileage reimbursement. It wasn't until i talked with the Regional Director about quitting the first time, that the reimbursement changed. 

I personally don't recommend going to this company, because it's so unprofessional, and unorganized that you literally will wonder if it's okay for you to quit within two months of your hire date, that's what happened with me. If you like working with kids and having support and problem solving, then I recommend looking for a different company. Granted each company is different and has different qualities, just try to do as much research as possible before applying. Apply at your own risk.

I want to start by saying the company does have some great perks. The Dreams Come True Program will fully or partially cover any degree if you work 25 hours a week. Sick leave apart from PTO, and the wages and mileage reimbursement are decent. 

That said, the company takes liberties with your time and your clients' time, and if you're part time, makes you work holidays. Including Thanksgiving and Christmas. Yes, they will Grinch your Christmas and attempt to Grinch your clients' Christmas, too. I had to ask 5 different people about major holidays before getting a straight answer — seemed like no one in admin wanted to admit that they expect you to pressure your clients into sessions and work on Christmas. You could go to just about any other company and have holidays off, while getting paid about the same hourly rate as a starting BT — BTs are always in high demand. Not recommended for parents, students, or anyone with another job. Add that benefits won't kick in for 6 months if you're full-time. I'm not even sure if this is legal or just the bare minimum in ACA terms. 

The business itself is all over the place. There is a different form for everything - PTO, sick leave, client time off, change of availability, so...many...forms, and they don't tell you where to find them in training. There is also redundancy in training. For example, I signed on with a recent CPR cert and was asked to download it by HR only to have to take another CPR training with CSD. 

Add that there is ALWAYS another meeting to attend. For BTs with experience, be prepared for a lot of review with POD meetings. These random extra meetings are also constantly during the day when you're scheduled with clients. You sacrifice your Christmas for this company, but no one in admin is going to sacrifice their time off so you can attend an oh so important meeting that doesn't involve your clients at all. 

Overall, I am planning to leave as soon as I'm able. Do yourself a favor and look somewhere else if you want work-life balance, to be treated like a person rather than another cog in the machine, and if you want to have Christmas without actively requesting it off and using your hard-earned PTO. 


The staff and supervisor are incompetent. Behavioral Specialists are given only 3 days of training before they are thrown into the field. As a result, they oftentimes don’t know what they’re doing when they enter the kiddo’s homes.  With fast (and easy) growth within the company, the company can easily promote incompetent staff. 

Incompetent management combined with their abuse of power makes it frustrating to do our job. I had a supervisor who made excuses about her absence in my kiddo’s sessions; and even when she did overlap, she was on her phone! Another clinical director blamed us for our kiddo’s issues. Upper management is usually unwilling to admit that they’re wrong because they don’t think there is anything else they need to learn. 

I have seen CSD admit new clients even when we cannot staff the existing clients. Parents end up waiting months for a BS to come to their homes and they are often subs who are new and inexperienced. There are times when I would be asked to sub but was told that I would not be paid overtime due to the fact that they’re just trying to make up hours for the kid. I refused because if that child is not on my regular schedule, it should be considered overtime. 

We are definitely overworked and underpaid; only benefit was the 2 sick days PER year. I would receive texts from my supervisor at 11 pm at night and even when I was on my UNPAID vacation! I typically end work at 8 pm and the last thing I want to think about is work before I head to bed. My life does not revolve around work. 

There is also a high turnover rate for clinical directors and most (if not all) are not BCBA which I think is a bit suspicious. 

There are a lot of changes that CSD needs to make and only time will tell how far this company will go.

This company is disorganized from the top to the bottom. We have lost a lot of great workers due to management using so much overhead that they end of laying off a lot of great workers and think they are doing everyone a favor. There is so much lackluster performance in management and no concept of leadership. There is a term called ETHOS the company uses but management lacks. There are managers there that collect a paycheck and when you tell them what's going on in the organization, they do not even investigate and they all cover for each other. 

Training is not adequate and job descriptions are not being upfront with what is expected. There is a high turnover within this organization and training updates and information is not accurate. A colleague of mine quit because they forgot he needed to be certified for the RBT license and threatened to pull him off his cases if he didn't complete it. 

There is no regard for the amount of work being done by clinicians and CSCs. It is horrific for CSCs as they are responsible for driving numbers and some have left because all management cares about are those numbers. They are overworked and some admitted to never taking a lunch. 

There is no communication and management does not ask about employee feedback because they know the truth will come out that management mismanages the budget frequently and there is no gumption in what they stand for. There are so many management positions and very few workers to do the needed work. This organization will be run to the ground eventually due to management. 

This company only cares about billable hours.  They often ask for feedback from employees but never seem to take any of it, seems to be an exercise to pretend as if they care about their employees. Way too much overhead and bloat, and those running the company aren’t even BCBAs that actually understand the job. Those that are BCBAs “at the top” don’t have their own caseloads and so they have little to no idea what is actually happening on the ground. The clinicians that are doing the actual work are amazing for the most part, those that are not are typically thrown into a role with inadequate training.  “The rat is never wrong”, so it’s not really their fault.  CSD provides no actual assistance to their clinicians besides empty platitudes and vague ideas to improve things that are never executed properly.  A lot of admin people on extreme power trips, and their insistence on relying on tech instead of solving nuanced problems in an earnest manner is concerning to say the least. This all inevitably does trickle down to how kids are being served, and they are impacted ultimately.  The idea of “BHAG” is a way to push for more hours to be billed while allowing for some light gaslighting of how it’s for the kids, and not their bottom line.  

Management - stop trying to grow so much and actually listen to staff and make changes.  Stop accepting more clients when we don’t have enough staff for current clients. Morale is terrible and your staff know more of what is going on than you realize. And why aren’t all staff carrying some sort of caseload? At all levels. If you can’t, you shouldn’t have your job. 

The children that you work with are absolutely amazing and the parents are just as great! You go into children's home do you have to change to their environment but no one was ever negative towards me. The managers, supervisors, and clinical directors were all super nice! I am actually still friends with one of my supervisors and have all of my supervisors and clinical directors as references because they’re just good people. They really care about the kids. However, on the other end there is low pay, little to no benefits based on the hours you work, horrible upper upper management. There is an EXTREMELY high turnover rate based on how draining it can be. You’re thrown into people’s homes without knowing what to do. The clinical directors really try but it’s hard when they are overloaded with cases. You learn as you go but can be intimidating at first. I worked there for two years and there was only two-three people in my company that was the same when I started. You get very easily burnt out as you’re sessions are 2-4 hours in peoples home all over the area you cover. I’ve been assigned to clients an hour away from me as there was no one available in the area. You have to drive everywhere and use your own personal devices with little compensation. You can work from any time from 8am to 8pm and the clients can be spread out in terms of area and time of session.

It's tough to find a good ABA company to work for. This company will pay you as much as they can but not for your work. The bulk of the focus was always on how many billable hours you're able to do. The management will say it's a supportive culture and you can always contribute but really everyone here barely gets trained and when you ask for support everyone has no clue what to do. There are the few who are amazing at their job and then 90 percent of them have no idea what ABA is or the basic concepts of ABA. None of the behavior specialists are RBTs thus not adequately being supervised by a BCBA at least 5%. The midlevels will supervise very few of them are great at ABA concepts. If you want to contribute they'll let you, but only as a special training instead of revamping the whole thing. They consistently only schedule clients for 2-4 hours even if it's super unethical because the BACB says anything less than 10 is not helpful to clients, receiving ABA therapy. These clients are not receiving quality services. Stay far away from this place. I'm not sure how they've continued with unethical practices. This may have just been the region that I worked at but overall I could not believe what was happening here. 

The company has no respect for employee or client time, obligations, or wellness. Benefits are average and take a long time go into effect - 6 months. Employees are expected to work holidays (even Christmas) and weekends. The company will reprimand you for canceling for excusable reasons, such as staying home sick (with COVID, even) or car trouble. CSD is highly disorganized and inefficient and only seems to stay on top of things like cancellations, appointment conversions, and meeting attendance, however, have forgotten mileage reimbursement on at least my checks several times (I do in-home support). HR, payroll, and the TRUE team are slow to follow up if they follow up at all. Meetings and trainings typically fall during times when behavior technicians are scheduled to work with clients; I don't know if this is because they want to avoid paying employees seeking additional training, because they didn't think it through. The company generally seems oblivious to the needs of its employees AND its clients, and overworks and overwhelms the lives of both. 

One more note: if you want a realistic view of what it's like to work for CSD as a behavior technician/specialist, look only at reviews by those with this job title. There has been an influx of 5-star reviews from folks in admin and recruiting — people who have holidays off, regular schedules, often work remotely almost exclusively, have healthcare benefits, and don't work directly with client. 

Back when I was hired we had an amazing in-person training program alongside a 40-hour online training. A few months after I was hired, CSD scrapped the in-person program and switched solely to the online training. So, for some new-hires where this was their first ever job out of high school, their first in-person training was with clients (not a lot of parents appreciate new-hires working with their kids).
As mid-level supervisors, we were expected to take on the brunt of both clinical and administrative work. 
Mid-level staff can expect managing 20-25 clients at one time, creating their treatments plans and writing 90%+ of all their insurance reports. Work/life balance was practically nonexistent where most of your mental resources are dominated by your clients’ needs (btw, the clients were probably the best part about the job). 
Most BCBAs are remote; I would be working with clients in person while carrying my phone around and dealing with physically challenging behaviors from clients with no in-person support.
People were nice and respectable for the most part, but no matter how hard regional managers would try, toxicity and favoritism reigned heavily. Heavily to the point where there would be large gaps in communication within treatment teams, leaving key team members out of important decisions. 
Overall, CSD is trying to grow too quickly before it can properly support what they currently have. 

Top Job Titles	Average Salary
Behavioral specialist 1106 salaries reported	$22.79 per hour
Board certified behavior analyst 426 salaries reported	$88,497 per year
Entry level behavior technician 32 salaries reported	$22.50 per hour
Behavior technician 50 salaries reported	$22.20 per hour
Registered behavior technician 86 salaries reported	$22.90 per hour

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