aba therapist

registered behavior technician

board certified behavior analyst

behavior technician

special education teacher

Helping Hands Family

On paper, the work you do is meaningful and can sometimes be very fun. There are options to work in the community, at schools, at homes, or stay at the clinic with your clients. From what I've seen, management is very much accommodating for people who may prefer one setting over another. No matter what, we figure something out. Some days, you will go home feeling amazing. Proud of the work you did and proud of progress your client has made. Most days, however, you'll come home exhausted and stressed out. The job is not meant to be an easy one. We work with children with autism which means we have to work with a lot of maladaptive behaviors. In some cases, you will feel supported by your supervisors and other staff. In other cases, you will feel like you're drowning and will probably feel like crying. It can be emotionally draining, as well as emotionally fulfilling.

There are opportunities to "level up" as an RBT which comes with a raise and helps you feel confident in your role. You can also become a lead RBT for your clinic which requires a sufficient amount of diligent work and each clinic can only have 1 or 2. We are given some compensation for CEU's but not much. There also isn't really much of a push for us to use it so it kind of is a waste since we aren't usually presented with opportunities. I would say management does care about employee growth but there are times when it feels like a means to end. In some ways, being promoted feels like your just helping the company boost their stats. Nonetheless, if you are a hard worker you will be recognized for it. 

You are able to meet a ton of people and network within the field. Many of the employees are in a fellowship program wherein they are working towards becoming BCBA's and working alongside them while they are still an RBT is a valuable experience. Speaking of the fellows, however, they need a lot more support. In some cases, fellows are begging for hours because management is failing them. In other cases, they are working many hours overtime that they are not getting paid for. The benefits of the fellowship program is fair, at best. Although it seems the general consensus is being contractually obligated to remain at the company after their schooling is done is not favorable. Another instance of management most likely helping their image. If the contract wasn't there, I think most fellows would leave a lot sooner which wouldn't look good for the company. 

There is a lot of fair treatment for employees handling life's challenges. If you are planning to move, there are so many clinics that they will happily offer for you to move clinics and you don't have to worry about looking for a new job. If there is need for an extended leave of absence, they are very understanding. Although they can't pay for all the time you're out, you still have a job whenever you're ready to come back. It is also true, however, that pretty much everyone is riding the line of burnout. BCBA's have caseloads that are unrealistically daunting. It negatively affects the services the kids are getting but they can't help it when they are given so many kids at once. Supervision is usually them just sitting on their computers trying to catch up on work and the RBT's are not getting sufficient supervision. RBT's are expected to have 80% of their weekly hours be billable time but when kids cancel and there are no opportunities for coverage, it can be hard to figure out how to get your hours for the week. On one hand I disagree with employees having to scratch the bottom of the barrel for hours, but on the other hand I also recognize that some employees would take advantage of admin time and do very little work but document several hours of work. We are sometimes rewarded with lunches but that's kind of it. RBT's are also expected to work one Saturday per month, which originally was completely optional but now has become seemingly mandatory. We are given lunch breaks but they just make things more complicated because it sometimes splits your note into two but you also have the choice to deny your lunch break if you have a client that you can eat with.

Most of the people you will work with are... fine. People are generally friendly. Most are immature, however. The nature of the job lends itself to be appealing mostly to a younger demographic, and mostly women. This leads to a lot of catty discussions, gossiping, whispering behind backs, and blatant disrespect to others. Most people are far more concerned about socializing while they are with a client than they are about actually doing their job. When they are confronted about it and told to do their job, they get defensive instead of just doing it. In a lot of cases it seems like the people don't really care about the work they are doing and are just here for the pay check. Many times I have walked into a room with another RBT and they are on their phone, not attending to their client. If you keep yourself out of it, it's not an issue however. 

PTO at this company is a joke. We don't get a lot to begin with but to make matters worse, there are no sick days. Working with kids guarantees that you will be getting sick often, but rather than giving us sick days we have no choice but to use our PTO. Which means no real time to yourself. It also means if you get sick and don't have anymore PTO, you either go to work sick or get yourself into the negative with PTO which just continues into an endless cycle. You are expected to use PTO for pretty much everything, If a client calls off and you already met your hours for the week, great. But if you are asked to cover someone during that time slot, you are expected to say yes. Them asking you is really just a courtesy. You can say yes if you want and you'll get paid for it anyway, but if you said no you would then be expected to use PTO for that time even though you already met your hours and that session was never your responsibility to begin with. Also, we are given 2 restricted floating holidays for the year and they are not even paid. 

TLDR: The good: Kids are awesome, the Certification is well-paced. The RBT staff have each other's backs. 
The BAD: Most of the supervision staff are not good leaders/communicators, advancement is difficult, Abrupt changes to programming and scheduling cause a lot of turmoil. 
----
I'll begin with the pros:
The training to become certified as an RBT is superior to most companies. They let you learn over the course of several weeks even with shadowing other RBT's before applying your knowledge to the test. 

The kids are incredible and you learn so much working with them. 

The RBT staff are often looking out for each other and helping in any way they can. They will always root for you and do what they can to make sure you succeed. Every single RBT or Fellow that came through was amazing and responded well to a team mindset.

The CONS: 
My biggest complaint is that 3 of the 4 current Supervisors (excluding Dylan because they're amazing) have incredibly poor communication skills and often spring changes upon children's programming, parental scheduling and RBT schedules without ample notice. The most egregious (and recent) change was when every single RBT got a late email on a Friday night that their entire schedules will be changing, effective Monday. Parents were not notified that their child's usual RBT would not be there to see them. Schools were not notified of changes until a new RBT arrived or they'd be notified the morning of a new arrival, and many RBT's were put into sessions with children they had no prior experience working with, and often without supervision (which is required when you work with a kid for the first time). 

Another red flag is that there are current RBT's working for Monroeville's office who are afraid to voice concerns about programming, scheduling and other issues because they witnessed other staff get reprimanded for voicing concerns, one of which left an office crying. I advocated strongly for everyone leading up to my departure, which was also met with resistance.  

I gave a 3-week notice due to my dissatisfaction with the workplace; Towards the end of my first week out, they removed my access to my Teams Account, Outlook account, and YouTube account (which were all used for scheduling, meetings, and reinforcement for the kids, among other things). This effectively crippled my ability to do a chunk of my work, and there was no notification ahead of time that it was happening, (leading back to the abrupt changes and poor communication.) 
I could go on about how surreptitious and sinister things got when I began advocating for other RBT's ... and I could rage about how they surveille your Teams messages and silence you if you check in with each other... and I could prattle on about how they simply will not offer overtime unless their backs are against the wall (which also messes with your janky schedule) but I'll just move on to one final point: The company overall.

Most of my review is particularly about what happened at the Monroeville office; although, from what I recall, the surrounding Pittsburgh offices are also in peril. This is apparent because they had to constantly pull our supervision staff and Front office admin to other clinics because they couldn't keep staff. I can't speak to why, but just be advised about it. 
The company projects a positive outlook on how to approach ABA, and I believe Fali (The CEO) has the best interest in how to do that; however, I believe that the "rapid expansion" side of the business is showing its flaws. The Pittsburgh region is a nightmare, nobody is reaching their max billable hours, and too many clinics are opening too quickly without a full staff to even run it. They often bring more children in the clinics than they have RBT's with available hours. 
They are a company that is approximately 5 years old (after a 2 company merger) and honestly, it shows that they are still figuring things out. 

Final verdict: I think they have the right idea in so many ways, but their execution is poor. As for Monroeville's office, The RBT's are incredible, I believe the BCBA's hearts are in the right place (but one of them has terrible execution of planning and communication skills), The Front office admin (PSS) and the current Clinical Director are incredibly cynical, secretive, and don't accept criticism well, despite the rule that RBT's have to accept critique and smile as it happens. 

Perhaps look elsewhere for RBT positions while they figure themselves out? I hear PBS is hiring. 




This used to be the best place. Everyone communicated and the needs of the children we serviced came first. Then new people took over and let all the original team go and let tons of us providers go. We would email the new supervisor over and over asking for cases and help. She doesn’t respond. I have proof I’ve sent 30 emails to her asking for help and cases to show unemployment! 30 emails, no response. They took clients from people who have worked here for 10 plus years and assigned them to new staff who were taking less money. They even had the nerve to email me saying I was paid too much due to an error by the previous supervisor and I owed them money back! No time sheet or job description to show me the mistake, just asked me to pay it back! We used to get supervision from the BCBA’s for us who were rbt’s and others trying to become bcbas. That ended. When we asked about it the bcbas would either scream at us or just not respond. I would never suggest any one send their child to these people or recommend anyone work here.  This place is a joke. They are always “eagerly hiring” because they either lay you off or everyone quits. Stay far away from this place! They force these “required trainings” but don’t pay you. When you ask to get paid for a 2 hour training they tell you that you should care more and not need to be paid. I contacted dept of labor and because they didn’t say it was mandatory they don’t have to pay. Shady work practices! Telling staff the training is required instead of mandatory to get out of paying hourly providers! Go to achieve beyond. They aren’t awesome to work for but they care about the children. This place cares about billing insurance companies even if the service wasn’t actually provided. The original owner clearly sold her soul to the devil! I hope it was worth the extra cash she has!

Company is actively and rapidly changing, and its not for the better. When I started The company had great benefits for tuition repayment, an amazing continue education programs. The Company actively cared about its employees allowing time off as needed and within reason without arguments about weather you had PTO. Management and cooperate office had open communication with employees and offered fun support, and freedom of expression as business casual with uniform requirements. Actively They cut the tuition repayment as a whole, the continued education program is impossible to get into, they no longer allow you to go into negative PTO, and have actively made it impossible to take off. And they changed the uniforms to itchy T-shirts that shrink after one wash on cold. The location I was working at had Cliques and drama that untimely was to the point where the in house brand ambassador would only celebrate people they were friends with. The scheduler, Director, and RBT Brand ambassador/lead RBT all would leave without warning to go out to lunch together so if a problem would arise they were all unreachable. They would also allow their friends to go against Company policy approving PTO hours that people did not have. Overall it became a toxic environment that has resulted in high turn over rates. HR also does not respond to employees, and finding contact information for HR is near impossible because it is not located in any signage throughout their buildings.

I really enjoyed my coworkers and director. I absolutely love the work, and did not expect to fall in love with behavior analysis. The kids are wonderful and the only reason I've stayed beyond the first 3 months. But ultimately they demand way too much for the level of pay they offer. You're expected to be available 10 hours a day M - F and 6 hours a day on Saturdays. Completely unattainable job for anyone with kids or any kind of life outside of work. Breaks should happen but they don't. And there's either too many kids and not enough RBTs, or too few cases and too many RBTs. 

The new handbook they recently rolled out has some ridiculous rules and the overall culture seems great on the surface but us extremely toxic deep down. The higher ups are extremely out of touch and expect complete perfection and the rating system does not allow for anything less than that or else you get poor reviews and reprimands. Manipulation tactics are guided as employee appreciation. 

It may be better as a BCBA, but as an RBT it's really easy to see why the turnover rate is pretty high-- underpaid and underappreciated (and then gaslighted about the lives were changing...) it's a great place to get a starting knowledge of behavior analysis, and probably a great job for college students who don't need the benefits or have monthly bills to pay.

When I started at the company I loved it. The clinic is beautiful, people are happy and everyone is very supportive. A big plus is the BCBAs are always there or available when they rarely aren't, also all of them are GREAT! HHF is a good company for a first time therapist, learning about the field, or a part time job, but not so much if you're looking for something stable. Now, it does have some very important cons. If you want the full time don't believe for a second you will be even close to getting full time hours, it can take months. It's also extremely confusing how they keep on hiring when there are many "full time" therapists that don't have their full time hours (they'll say it's because of your availability when they knew your availability before hiring you and still signed you as a full time). Another BIG con is that being a board registered therapist and putting in the hard work simply doesn't matter to management. Know that you can get your case (hours) taken away from you at any given moment to give them to new hires who in most cases aren't even board registered, which is unbelievable and not only a con for the employee but most importantly for the client who will now be with someone who barely knows what they're doing or what ABA is all about. 

Full-time hours are advertised as 36 hours minimum direct client-facing, these hours are not guaranteed for RBTs. Helping Hands Family will not supplement the hours unless you receive at least 31 hours of direct client care, THEN you would get the extra 5 hours of admin time. I had a coworker with an 18-hour work week. The job is not easy and RBTs do not need ANY additional stress whatsoever. There are companies such as Ally that have salary for RBTs and Verbal Beginnings is rated higher than Helping Hands Family. I believe these companies are way better choices. Please beware. I wish I could have stayed if I was actually supported. I would have transferred to the Baltimore/Federal-Hill location that opens the week of August 13, 2025. 

HHF cares a lot about the image they project but ultimately they are not an especially trustworthy company. Clients were hit with surprise bills, frequent policy changes make it hard for staff to know where they stand, training and onboarding varies wildly between staff members, disciplinary procedures aren't followed so surprise termination without prior feedback is a possibility. Inconsistent treatment among staff members is an unfortunate reality. Management alternates between micromanaging and unavailable. If you ask for support you may be met with really prompt and clear direction or you might get a non-answer and then get in trouble for not doing things correctly.  This company is growing fast and has a lot of lovely ideas, but ultimately they aren't offering anything that can't be obtained at another company. Management does not take feedback well, so I'm not optimistic about their ability to learn from their mistakes. I would especially warn against this company to people who need a strong work life balance because they're a caregiver, someone with a chronic condition or are going through a transitional period. 

What is the best part of working at the company?
While I loved my case load, there was a major issues with management favoring certain people and bullying amongst both the RBT’s and sometimes even BCBA’s. Favoritism played a big factor in the issue with bullying/harassment as well. The company itself showed no dedication to its RBT’s, offering small punitive raises after requiring several, sometimes difficult, tasks to earn those rather small raises for example most raises were less than 50 cents (most of the time it was even less unless you got lucky) and the average pay was not even close to a livable pay so you had to work over 40 hours to be able to even afford life (there is no room to grow unless you wish to become a fellow). Sometimes even the company’s head leadership was rather unfeeling to RBT’s attempts to bring up issues within the company such as sick policy for children, raises, or holidays. 

What is the most stressful part about working at the company?
The pay was pathetic and the work environment itself was hostile. 

What is the work environment and culture like at the company?
Stressful and frustrating due to lack of communication and understanding.

I had excellent experience at HHF a BCBA. My clinical director was extremely supportive which is a core value of mine as a BCBA and she was wonderful to work with which is why I loved it so much. It is a team like approach and I always felt like I was able to personalize my approach while taking feedback with my clinical directors expectations. Also I felt the technicians were well trained and I didn’t feel drained on feeling like I had to constantly train, I was able to focus on the kiddos and programming for their needs. Only cons included that BCBAs adhere to the 40 hour work week and less autonomy in my work schedule. I also didn’t love that bonuses were dependent on productivity aka going above and beyond billable hours. I never once saw the bonus even though I was there for my scheduled hours most days. As a BCBA I feel that I am productive most of the day, bonuses should be behavior based as it is an ABA company. Overall a very clinically sound company with excellent training and support (especially the Woodbridge team) Highly recommend especially for new BCBAs :)

Top Job Titles	Average Salary
Aba therapist 45 salaries reported	$20.94 per hour
Registered behavior technician 14 salaries reported	$19.61 per hour
Board certified behavior analyst 5 salaries reported	$88,500 per year
Behavior technician 77 salaries reported	$19.44 per hour
Special education teacher 3 salaries reported	$55.00 per hour

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