June 22, 2025 • 52 mins
ABA on Tap is so proud to spend some time with the illustrious Portia James. (Part 2 of 2)
As a visionary, a powerhouse of a leader, and a pioneer for women and people of color in her field, Portia James has been shaking conference room tables for nearly two decades. She shares bold perspectives on the lack of representation for black leadership in the workplace and how it impacts decision-making and strategic execution at the executive level. She is one of few Behavior Analysts to have been featured in both Forbes and Harvard Business Review.
Portia is a sought-after Board Certified Behavior Analyst and Organizational Behavior Management specialist who helps black Behavior Analysts launch and scale companies that thrive. As the founder and CEO of Behavior Genius, she has served hundreds of staff and families impacted by Autism.
Portia is a wife to an MMA fighter (of course she is!) and mother of 3 dynamic children, a travel junkie, and a red wine enthusiast. Portia serves up a flight of bold and complex flavors. Sip this one slowly and carefully. Don't forget to swirl, take in the bouquet, and always analyze responsibly.
iLearn-ABA --- your CEU source!iLearn-ABA is a learning platform designed by BCBAs, for BCBAs and related professionals.
Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
SPEAKER_04 (00:00):
Welcome to ABA on Tap, where our goal is to find
(00:14):
the best recipe to brew thesmoothest, coldest, and best
tasting ABA around.
I'm Dan Lowry with Mike Rubio,and join us on our journey as we
look back into the ingredientsto form the best concoction of
ABA on tap.
In this podcast, we will talkabout the history of the ABA
(00:35):
brew, how much to consume toachieve the optimum buzz while
not getting too drunk, and therecommended pairings to bring to
the table.
So without further ado, sitback, relax, and always analyze
responsibly.
Thank you.
SPEAKER_03 (00:52):
All right, all right.
This is your ever-great-for-carehost, Mike Rubio.
Welcome to ABA on Tap.
This is part two of a verydynamic conversation with Portia
James.
Enjoy.
I'm almost at a loss for wordsright now with all the ideas
(01:16):
that you're giving me.
falls way short along with thedifficulty of collaborative
(01:39):
treatment.
And wow, I mean, it's reallylayered and a lot of things that
with careful planning, you couldweave through and create some
good systems.
Might take a little time, mightbe a little frustrating, but
you're really providing a lot ofinspiration.
A lot of good questions too,where those things fall short.
You mentioned quality serviceprovision and either people not
(01:59):
getting it or they're not beingenough providers.
I know that certain regions inSouthern California.
So we've got the Hakumbas andCampos here in San Diego County.
And I know that plenty of thosekids go because it's just hard
as providers to get out theregiven the logistics.
So I mean, there's just so muchwork to do.
(02:20):
If we think about insurance,we're talking about parents
calling us and saying, yeah, wecall somewhere else.
There's a six to eight monthwaiting list.
We've got a lot of turnover withRBTs.
So I'm going kind of on the veinof what you were saying, Portia,
quality provision and thenenough of it, which is lacking.
These are the problems thatwe're facing in our field.
(02:42):
Talk to us about solutions thatyou employ, solutions that you
try to encourage people toemploy.
These are important questions.
You're right.
People need these services.
There aren't a lot of us.
There's a revolving door as faras RBTs are concerned a lot of
the times because it's hard tomaintain.
I think you've got some goodideas toward those ends.
SPEAKER_00 (03:04):
Yeah.
Yeah.
I do.
SPEAKER_04 (03:07):
I knew you did.
SPEAKER_00 (03:08):
We had it.
SPEAKER_04 (03:10):
And you have a background in a little bit of
OBM, too, right?
So,
SPEAKER_01 (03:13):
perfect.
A little bit, yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (03:14):
Yeah, this is a good segue.
SPEAKER_03 (03:15):
We've talked about the systemic issues now.
We're going to spend the nexthour talking about the
solutions.
SPEAKER_00 (03:21):
Yeah, I've carried a certification in organizational
behavior management for the last10 years.
Fantastic.
But I feel like it goes to newlevels for me.
It just unlocked for me allkinds of things that we can
think about that we just don'tthink about in ABA.
(03:44):
Service delivery is going tohave to shift.
ABA is going to shift.
How ABA looks right now is goingto shift.
We can either be behind it andbe crying and closing our doors,
or we can get ahead of it andrealize that the shift is
coming.
So here's the secret.
Well, this is the part that youput on the...
on the uh the ad all right wegot our title
SPEAKER_03 (04:07):
for the episode it's coming here we are and
SPEAKER_04 (04:10):
the good thing is that um that this we usually
split the episodes into twoparts so this is right as we'll
split into the second part sowe're like hey if you want to
hear the secret come listen toepisode two
SPEAKER_03 (04:20):
oh give us the secret wow dan you've already
given me the editing secret tooperfect let's draw this out a
little bit longer drum roll whatelse can we do
SPEAKER_00 (04:29):
all right
SPEAKER_03 (04:29):
without further ado the secret
SPEAKER_00 (04:31):
yeah yeah i think the secret is going to be to
really providing high qualitybehavioral services is going to
be to diversify funding, notjust diversify what types of
insurance funders you're willingto work with or able to work
with, but to diversify theentire gambit of payers who
(04:52):
could potentially help you helpus to get this work done.
And also connect us with kidswho are may not otherwise
receive ABA services.
So this has multiple layers.
So let me just start from thequestion that you asked about
the RBT turnover situation.
So we have a staff issue whereRBT, it's not just a turnover.
(05:18):
Since COVID, we've also just hadan employment issue.
just as employers.
SPEAKER_04 (05:24):
For sure, for
SPEAKER_00 (05:24):
sure.
Nobody wants to really come towork, right?
So for me, I work nights andweekends because that's the only
time I could work outside ofcollege, right?
And so I appreciated being ableto work nights and weekends, and
it was never an issue for me.
Now, these people are like, wedon't want to work any nights.
We don't want to work anyweekends.
We want to work.
We want to get paid forfull-time pay, but we're only
(05:46):
available from 1 to 5 p.m.
every day.
UNKNOWN (05:50):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (05:50):
And so we really have a problem.
I think the issue that we have,because ABA is a growing field,
people are getting into it.
either because it's popular orbecause it's sustainable and
everyone knows they'll have ajob in the future, or because
it's trending on social mediaright now.
I'm not sure why people aregetting into it.
SPEAKER_04 (06:11):
They'll have a job.
It might not be a good job, butit's a job.
SPEAKER_00 (06:15):
Yeah, yeah.
It may be questionable as towhether they want the job if
they'll have one.
But one thing is that if we candiversify funders that we work
with, that we're willing to workwith.
We can just be a little bit moreexpansive.
So by expansive, what I mean isthat a lot of funding right now
(06:35):
is going away from, we serve alot of Medi-Cal, Medicaid
families.
So funding is going away fromMedi-Cal.
We don't know how that's goingto impact the families that we
serve, but we did literallyreceive a video last year from
the CEO of our biggest funder,IHP, And they said, just get
(06:55):
ready.
Like the administration ispotentially passing down some
changes that are going to impactwhether or not your families
will have access to Medi-Calinsurance.
And if that happens, you maylose clients.
Now, for me, I'm like, OK, as aprovider.
(07:15):
losing clients depending on howmany i mean is it all is it half
like at what point will we haveto close our doors or lay
everybody off if this doeshappen
SPEAKER_01 (07:24):
right stressful
SPEAKER_00 (07:25):
um yeah so the first thing is like well have
commercial insurance as well asa part of your service delivery
line so that you're not justputting all your eggs in one
basket right and that's whatanyone would say diversify your
funding which is fine yeah butwhen we stay with insurance um
we are bound by the rules of thescience or of that insurance
(07:46):
provider, which means that if wedo wanna be more creative about
the type of services that we'regonna provide, we can only
create within this box if westay within this box of working
with insurance vendors.
But that money is leavingMedi-Cal and where it's going is
toward law enforcement,government agencies like
Department of DevelopmentalServices, Department of Child
(08:08):
and Family Services, That is whoare the county.
That's where the money is going.
That's where, and if weunderstand this, if we
understand local politicsenough, which I don't, but my
pastor is the commissioner forSan Bernardino County.
So he talks about thisregularly.
This is what he's passionateabout.
So the money is going to thesegovernment funded agencies and
(08:30):
they are being given billions ofdollars to And they have to
spend it with community-basedorganizations that provide the
exact type of services that weprovide.
We call it ABA.
They may call it wraparound.
They may call it some type offamily support service.
They may call it consumer familyservices.
And it includes parent training,behavioral supports in place,
(08:55):
school district support, all ofthat.
But they're paying it in grantsand they're writing big checks.
for people like us who alreadyhave the skill to be able to tap
into those funds and developprograms that will not only
serve kids with autism, but thatwill serve any child or family
who is dealing with a behavioralneed because their job is to
(09:18):
keep kids out of the system.
And also, we care to keep kidsout of the system as well,
right?
They don't want the kids goingto jail.
They don't want the kids to behomeless.
They have all the statisticsabout prison, homelessness, Kids
going into the system becausethey're in foster care, things
like that.
And they're trying to preventthat.
So they want to put in placebehavioral support services for
(09:41):
the family that will help toreduce these numbers.
And so they have that goal.
But the problem is they don'thave ABA services.
providers who are willing tostep outside of the box of let's
just have an ABA company andserve kids who don't have autism
or serve kids.
We can use ABA as a tool, as ascience that we know how to use,
(10:02):
but we can serve the community.
So if we start thinking mycurrent strategy, this is where
the secret is.
Think about how we can serve thecommunity that we live in or
that we're serving.
What really does the communityneed?
And also what resources,financial resources already
exist in the community that wecan tap into and use ABA as how
(10:24):
we're going to execute theseservices.
We can go and do a social skillsprogram right now and say we're
going to have a sports team forat-risk children And we're going
to be teaching them how to doall of the behavioral stuff,
right?
We're going to teach them how tofollow instructions in a group.
We're going to teach them how totake turns.
We're going to teach them how tofollow the rules.
(10:45):
Just whatever it is, we're goingto teach them this.
But because it's acommunity-based program, we have
some kids who are in thisprogram and their insurance pays
for it.
We have some kids who are inthis program and the Department
of Developmental Services paysfor it or the regional pays for
this.
And it's one program, but nowyou can serve a wider range of
clients because the other caveatto this is that we know that
(11:08):
here, at least in San BernardinoCounty, in every county, there's
the forgotten ones.
There's the underserved,underrepresented people, kids.
And so if the underrepresentedkids, the statistic is this.
Kids who are black and brown arediagnosed an average of three
(11:28):
years later than white children.
If that matters to you, and itshould matter to everyone from a
heart space, but even from theperspective of just a business
owner, when you understand thecommunity that you serve now,
the community we serve isprimarily black and brown,
right?
So they're underserved, butthey're actually very highly
(11:49):
represented here and stillunderserved.
But if we understand thatstatistic that They're diagnosed
an average of three years later.
Guess what?
ABA doesn't get those kidsbecause insurance isn't going to
pay for it until they get thatdiagnosis.
So the diagnosis now becomes aprivilege.
So all the kids that don't havethe diagnosis that are either
misdiagnosed or undiagnosed,they're not getting ABA therapy.
(12:12):
So we're missing out on a wholegroup of kids who need
behavioral services because onlyone in five of those types of
children get the behavioralservices they need.
We're missing out on serving allthose kids.
Right.
(12:44):
group of kids that probably doneed ABA and probably do have
autism.
But again, we can't control thesystem or the rate at which
they're able to get diagnosed.
Although we can try, we can hirepeople in-house to do
diagnostics so that we pull kidsinto our pipeline, right?
And make sure that they'regetting diagnosed as early as
possible.
That's one strategy, but also wecan open ourselves up to stop
(13:08):
building ABA companies and startserving at-risk children,
whether they're developmentallyor socially at risk.
Now we have a whole gambit ofprograms and services that we
can build that serve thecommunity.
And I think all of us, none ofus become an ABA, well, I don't
want to say none of us, manypeople do become ABA providers
for the money.
(13:28):
But for clinician-owned ABAcompanies like mine, I didn't
become an ABA provider for themoney.
First of all, there wasn'tenough at any level I've ever
been at.
It was never enough money to dowhat I was doing in autism.
And it's not enough money rightnow, even as an owner.
I'm here for community.
I'm here because this is theplatform, the vehicle that I
(13:49):
use.
But my intention is to serve mycommunity.
And that's always been myintention.
I have a heart for community anda heart for people.
And so...
It took me years to come to thisconclusion because I did what
I've seen before in autism.
I didn't want to be a pioneer.
I didn't want to build a companyand programs and services that
no one's ever seen.
(14:10):
It's very difficult to dobecause even my team will combat
me on whether or not this isethical.
UNKNOWN (14:16):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (14:17):
Because it doesn't look like what they learned.
It's not just DTT at a table.
Anything outside the box is justuncomfortable for people.
And that's their competence.
I'm like, increase yourcompetence because there's all
kinds of ABA skills.
Come on, Portia.
You
SPEAKER_04 (14:31):
can't do ABA without the IKEA table.
Come on now.
You can't do
SPEAKER_00 (14:34):
it.
I mean, you must have it.
A little white chair and alittle white table or it's not
ABA.
And you have to say do this a
SPEAKER_03 (14:39):
certain amount of times.
And good job.
SPEAKER_00 (14:42):
You do.
And you must always do the rightfive.
SPEAKER_03 (14:45):
Come on, Portia.
You're getting crazy on us here.
No, continue.
So, yeah, let's talk about someof those innovations, some of
those out-of-the-box things.
You're speaking some reallyimportant stuff that I know our
listeners hopefully will takeaway from and be inspired.
This is exactly what we need tobe thinking about.
I'm going to go with it.
Maybe since 2012 here inCalifornia, people have thought
(15:06):
about money with the insurancemandate a little bit more.
But I'm going to go with whatyou said.
I don't think anybody at thebeginning gets into this for
money, especially not– peoplelike us who have been in as long
as we have, we like what we do.
Now, if we can see a littlefinancial success, we're not
going to turn it down, but it'sgot to be with that ethical
practice.
It's got to be with that senseof community.
(15:28):
I love what you're talking aboutwith going outside of the scope
of autism services.
So tell us more.
SPEAKER_04 (15:34):
Well, that's something you've been
pioneering.
I got
SPEAKER_03 (15:37):
to pass it to Mike real quick.
The behavioral pediatrics piece,I'm sure you've heard of it.
I think that that's maybe aroute that also fits into what
you're speaking to in terms ofgoing to some of these
pediatricians that are seeingthese Medi-Cal patients and
saying, hey, a lot of whatyou're being told is probably
behavioral and we might be ableto help.
(15:59):
Now, there is no insuranceprovision for that right now,
but that's where your greaterpoint comes in in terms of
looking outside of the box ofresources that we're tapping
into.
So the idea that there could bea grant to help to implement
behavioral pediatrics withpediatricians, with Medi-Cal
patients who wouldn't be able todo the private pay for the
service, but the grant might beable to pave the way there.
(16:23):
So that's the kind of stuffyou're talking about.
SPEAKER_00 (16:25):
Yeah, yeah.
And even just things that helpgoing back to parenting and the
things that they deal with.
I think like low hanging fruitis like, where are the parents
missing out on like the life ofa parent?
Being a parent is so muchresponsibility.
There are very few moments oflike, pride and fun and usually
those are connected with seeingour children be able to be in
(16:46):
community with their peers goingto a basketball game or taking
our child to girl scouts or youknow these things that there
aren't really places forneurodiverse children to um not
only exist but to actually likeenjoy first of all um but to be
successful in and so for exampleum We had a few parents that
(17:08):
were saying, you know, yoursocial skills program is great,
but like I have a daughter andI'm just concerned that there
aren't very many girls in there.
And I was like, yeah, I nevereven thought of that because
under a certain age, girls andboys are all the same.
The same to me, like eight,eight and under, they're all
(17:46):
kind of the same.
Oh, that's fun.
Yeah.
(18:15):
And we do exactly what the GirlScouts do.
They have their own curriculum.
They have their own.
We just do all of that.
And then we record data.
And each one of these kids havegoals.
And we target their goals.
We have a behavior technicianwho comes in.
Right now, I run it myself.
So we have a behavior analyst, abehavior technician, and a
(18:35):
parent volunteer.
And they come in, the three ofus, we work together to make
sure that it's Girl Scouts, it'sfun, they get the parents get
the full experience, but make itbehavior analytic, right.
And what we've noticed is thatnot only are these kids making
great progress, but ourutilization, our contract
fulfillment for Girl Scouts isalmost at 100%.
It is significantly higher thanour contract fulfillment for our
(19:01):
small groups in our treatmentcenter or in home.
And I think the connection thereis parent, these parents have
been working Wanting a place fortheir kids to fit into and
belong.
Every, every child, every womanand mother is like, I always
wanted to be a Girl Scout or Iused to be a Girl Scout.
And so we unlocked that part,that experiential piece where
the parent gets to watch theirchild enjoy going hiking and
(19:23):
visiting the fire department andhaving, you know, learning the
Girl Scout law and earningpatches.
These are experiences that theseparents should naturally,
they're entitled to have becausewe all have them, but they're
excluded from the experiencesbecause their children aren't
able to fit into them.
And so we unlocked like anemotional piece in our parents
(19:43):
of like, wow, my kid gets to bea part of something that I
didn't know if she would everfit in there.
Right.
And so that's what it means.
Like the importance of justbeing responsive to the family
and to the community and Andthen using the science to bring
about the desires of the peoplethat we serve, that's how we get
buy-in.
Now, getting buy-in from my teamhasn't been super easy because
(20:05):
autism.
But on that side, what I'velearned is we have put up posts
for not ABA experience people.
We have started recruitingpeople outside of ABA.
You guys don't like it?
That's fine.
We now recruit people who havegroup therapy experience, summer
camp experience.
(20:25):
They've worked in classrooms andthey are more fit.
to work in our social emotionallearning program, because it's
not foreign to them.
And then we can teach them thescience through establishing
better training, bettertraining, you know, processes
and things like that.
So just really going all the wayoutside of the box, but figuring
(20:46):
out what really is the problem,taking the the ABA hat off,
keeping the BCBA hat on, becausethat's who I am.
But I've been I've been doingthat for half my life.
But taking the ABA hat off andgoing, what else is out here and
allowing ABA to be a toolinstead of a prison for
ourselves, our teams, and ourfamilies is going to be what's
(21:08):
going to help us to move inanother direction and be ahead
of the curve before ABA startsto change maybe in ways that we
won't be able to control.
Yeah.
SPEAKER_04 (21:21):
That is awesome.
When you say take the ABA hatoff, are we taking the ABA hat
off or are we taking the autismhat off?
Because I think we're stillusing the ABA hat, just not in
the way
SPEAKER_00 (21:31):
that we use it under the autism.
Yeah, I take the ABA hat off tothink about programming.
I'm like, I don't want to be inthe field of ABA.
I want to think about whatreally is the need.
The need is these kids areengaging in behavior problems
because they're foster kids.
They have no parents.
But you're right.
It's just, okay, what kind ofservices are required?
Well, ABA clinical therapy.
(21:52):
Well, some of these kids don'tneed ABA.
ABA clinical therapy in the waythat ABA shows up every day.
Um, but there are, so, you know,there, there it's little things
like just teaching my team theimportance or the significance
of recording first trial data.
They're like, well, we don'tknow if this is enough data.
We don't know if this is ABA.
I'm like, well, it is.
(22:13):
That's how I, where I learnedit.
Um, but in this setting, we loststaff at our
SPEAKER_04 (22:21):
previous job over arguments about data.
SPEAKER_00 (22:24):
Yeah.
Yeah, it's just like first trialdata is, it is a behavior
analytic strategy to use datacollection method.
And then of course the personwho's in their master's program
trying to school me, right,after 20 years.
And I'm like, when I'mexplaining myself, like, you
know, there's a whole list ofABA tools that we just don't
SPEAKER_03 (22:42):
use.
This guy even got a complaintonce.
SPEAKER_04 (22:44):
Oh yeah, I got complained to the board because
yeah, we had a disgruntled staffthat we were saying that you
don't have to take 10 trial datafor every single data point.
It's acceptable.
Maybe you have four trials.
Maybe you have one trial.
Do I really have to ask thisindividual 15 times what their
(23:05):
name is for them to be
SPEAKER_01 (23:07):
confident?
That's why they're annoyed withus and they're having tantrums.
SPEAKER_03 (23:12):
Right.
We get annoyed with our kidswhen they ask us questions
repetitively and then we do thisdiscrete trial thing and do the
exact same thing back.
And then we wonder why they'rehaving a tantrum.
SPEAKER_00 (23:20):
I had a kid who literally...
two discrete trials.
I had a kid who was like, um,I'm frustrated because I already
answered that question.
And I was like, valid point.
I love it.
I love it.
Valid.
Like we taught this kid how tocommunicate that.
SPEAKER_04 (23:36):
But until you answer it 10 times across three
sessions, across three, uh,three RBTs in three different
environments, you have to do itin lake.
Yeah.
You have to do it in outerspace.
Then standing on your head.
SPEAKER_00 (23:49):
Yeah.
So it's like, I mean, no, Inever took the science hat off.
I I leave the ABA hat on always.
That's how I view life.
But I do take ABA, the field,the industry, the rigid piece.
Like, let's not just think onlyabout, let's just think about
people.
And let's think about communityand their needs.
And then when we go to supporttheir needs, we're going to use
(24:10):
ABA because that's what we'retrained to do.
It's just been easier and it'sopened up a much wider range of
services.
And I think that once this getsoff the ground, it allows us to
be more competitive as wellbecause everyone's not serving
the community.
Most ABA companies are justserving autism.
And so I took autism off of mywebsite.
(24:33):
I completely off.
I took ABA, the word ABA off ofmy website and out of my hiring
posts because I don't evenreally want people with ABA
experience and no heart forpeople.
And people with ABA experiencedo not have heart for the
community.
They've spent so much time beingrobots that I don't know what
they're passionate about outsideof ABA.
(24:54):
And we're trying to serve peopleAnd that's been a really big
game changer for us.
SPEAKER_04 (25:01):
That's why I really appreciate this guy because his
background is in childdevelopment.
So, so much of us in ABA, wedon't understand child
development.
We understand behavior.
So, he understands what that'slike.
Let me pass it to you, Mike.
SPEAKER_03 (25:13):
Well, there's so much to talk about here.
So, we went through a period.
We went through an early startintervention revival about...
eight years ago, where I saidthere's no way...
We're not going to do thisdiscrete trial thing in early
intervention.
Yes, there'll be learningtrials, but they're just going
to happen in a verychild-directed, play-based...
(25:34):
open-ended manner um and we wentthrough a a bit of a phase uh to
your point and you know veryinspiring to hear you talk about
it where we also said we don'twant people to have aba
experience because they're goingto come in with a certain
training and we all had toabandon that training too so i
went from um working in theseidyllic child development
(25:58):
settings right thesedevelopmental lab settings at
universities where everything isperfect and child directed and i
got really good at working withuh the older four and five year
old boys that run in the wolfpacks and they terrorize the
little girl dyads and i gotreally good at making them sit
down at snack time and enoughthat um you know my mentors
there were like hey we lovehaving you here man you would do
(26:21):
really good at like a non-publicsetting or somewhere outside.
And I remember, ah, well, thankyou.
That's good advancement for me.
I can make more money.
This is great.
You know, so I go to my firstjob at that non-public school
and it's like, wow, these kids Iwas working with over here got
all this enrichment in theirenvironment and all this stuff.
And I'm coming into this settingand it's bare walls.
(26:43):
And now with, to be fair, withgood reason, these are the kids
that behaviorally were throwingthese things.
But the answer was not to takethe stimulus completely away,
which now, leaves theenvironment devoid of learning
how to actually use thatstimulus.
Imagine that.
So it's a real quandary, right?
And so you're speaking to somereally important points here.
As you now hire people thatdon't, fairly some people could
(27:05):
say, don't have experience, howdoes that change your training?
Don't give all your secretsaway, but give us a little bit
of an insight as to how thenyou're shaping and molding these
minds to then provideABA-related services, knowing
that that experience, they'recoming in with a different
mindset.
And I think that's a reallyimportant thing for us to
(27:25):
consider.
So thank you in advance.
SPEAKER_00 (27:27):
Yeah, I think what I found is that it is easier
because ABA is scientific andrigid and linear for the most
part.
The strategies are pretty easyto use.
They're easy to learn.
They're counterintuitive.
I think for most people, um,cause they're not nurturing, but
for the most part, but they'reeasy to teach, um, the
strategies, they make sense,right?
(27:47):
Like it's very ABC.
Um, what's hard to teach islike, do you, um, do you like
children?
Um, do you know how
SPEAKER_03 (27:56):
to work with children?
Do you know
SPEAKER_00 (27:58):
how to play?
Yeah.
Can you play?
Like, are you interesting?
Um, those things are hard toteach.
Um, even just, you know,integrity showing up on time,
like, you know, so it's Like wehave to hire for the things that
we can't teach.
And then I have just found thatteaching people how to use ABA
is, is so much easier when theyalready know how to engage with
(28:20):
the child in the first place.
We're hiring people that went toschool to learn about ABA and
then you put them with a childand they just look like they're
dancing with two left feet.
They don't look equippedwhatsoever because they're so
busy trying to see the childthrough this lens of ABA instead
of just being with the child,enjoying the child, having fun
with the child, getting to knowthe child, and then...
(28:42):
knowing how to use thestrategies, how to present the
SD in a naturalistic setting.
Well, they already know how towork with kids in a naturalistic
setting.
Cause they've been on fieldtrips with kids.
They've been in classrooms onthe playground.
Like they've already been giveninstructions in naturalistic
group settings for years.
Cause that's what you do whenyou work in a classroom.
But now we're saying, write itdown when you do it, do it like
(29:04):
this, right?
Pager prompts a little bit.
That's easy.
And I think that that's really,that's the, That's my
hypothesis.
My hypothesis is that this isnew for us.
This is an old idea that Ifinally pulled the trigger on in
the last like 30 to 45 days.
And so actually what'sinteresting is we just changed
all the titles of the jobs andthe job descriptions to be
(29:25):
centered on group therapy andnot on ABA.
We took out the word behavior,behavior therapist, like all of
that, just took it out.
Within two weeks, we received 86applications.
And when I tell you 86applications for a behavior
technician type of job, we callit learning support special.
And when you put learning inthere, then all the people who
worked at school, they're like,Oh, I know how to do that.
(29:46):
I've been a paraprofessional.
And if you put group, you know,right.
If you put social, emotionallearning, then all the camp
counselors are like, Oh, I've,I've done that before.
So we've also gotten, I think ahigher level of, we have people
with bachelor's degrees applyingfor the behavior technician
position because of the way thatit's worded to match what their
(30:06):
experience is, where they reallycan't get jobs because the
bachelor's degree is kind oflike obsolete now in certain
fields.
Um, so child developmentbachelor, people with bachelors
in child development, they'relooking for something.
They don't just want to work ina preschool.
Um, so we're like, well, hey,come, come help us, you know,
create, build social emotionallearning programs.
We, um, plan on putting inplace, you know, small groups
(30:26):
and, and special interest groupsfor kids and things like that.
And we're going to use ABA to,as the teaching method, but
we're not going to call thewhole entire thing ABA.
Um, we're just, I don't thinkthat's how we should do
anything.
We should be using ABA as areally good method of teaching.
And so that that I think is it'sgoing to there's going to be
(30:47):
parents who are going to Googlesearch ABA and they're not going
to find us.
So I recognize that, too.
But also there's going to bemore parents are Googling
regular stuff because they'resick of ABA.
So they're Googling clubs andGirl Scouts and sports and
things that they want that theythink are going to be fulfilling
for their child and their familyinstead of draining.
(31:09):
And that's where they're goingto find us.
SPEAKER_01 (31:12):
Wow.
SPEAKER_03 (31:13):
I've got a million ideas.
We vibe with that so much,Portia.
Go ahead, Mike.
No, no.
You're giving us a millionideas.
And I like the way you put it,too.
So it does come out in terms ofthis is one of the foundational
principles we're using.
It doesn't need to be a part ofour title.
SPEAKER_00 (31:32):
Yeah.
I sat in tears over dinner withmy husband a couple months ago,
and I said, I don't even...
I don't even know how to saythis because I guess I'm in the
ABA cult, but I'm just going tosay this thing, why it was so
hard for me to say.
But what I said was, I neverwanted to build an ABA company.
And now my company has become anABA company.
(31:53):
I don't want to work for an ABAcompany if I were to stop owning
this company.
And I never intended to build anABA company.
And I then very next week, I satwith my brand manager, my
marketing director, and I said,take the word ABA out.
This is not an ABA company.
We are a social emotionallearning program for children,
(32:15):
for neurodiverse children, aninclusive social emotional
learning program.
And so That's what people arelooking for.
No one's old.
People are only looking for ABAbecause the science has told
them that that's the only proventreatment for kids with autism.
But and so we dress it up and weput a, you know, a tie on it and
(32:37):
button the top button all theway up.
And then these kids have to losea portion of their life to have
ABA.
But what if we just let themhave life?
And we are brilliant enough andrisky enough to just let them
have life and live life and doall the things kids and their
families want to do.
But when we come, I'm a behavioranalyst.
I can't come to the partywithout ABA in my pocket.
(33:00):
There's no way.
It's more natural to me than,than most things.
And so, but we are teaching thespecific teaching method that we
use is ABA.
And that takes the sting off ofit too, because the family's, A
lot of these families have hadABA for years and they've been
harmed by ABA.
And that's not what they'relooking for.
(33:20):
They're looking for somethingelse.
Or what about when we referthese kids out as, you know, out
of the ABA?
Yeah, they don't really need ABAanymore.
And all the parents that arelike, OK, well, they need
something.
What else is there?
Yeah, I don't know.
We don't even have somewhere torefer them because there are no
social, you know, sociallysignificant parents.
programs just out there to say,you're going to go from ABA, but
(33:42):
we're going to take you overhere to this.
And what is it that you want tosee your kids doing?
Oh, you want them doing sports?
You want them involved in clubsor whatever it is?
Well, I know a company that theyspecialize actually in providing
those community services thatyou're looking for.
And they are also trained andthey specialize in using ABA.
Um, to help the kids besuccessful.
(34:03):
That's the company I want to be.
I don't want to be the ABAcompany that once we can no
longer do DTTF table, we got torefer them.
We got to just end services andgraduate these parents and the
parents are never ready becausewe never really scratched their
need.
Yeah.
No matter how much work we dothere, they still have social
needs and the social piece isthe part that I think, um, ABA
(34:24):
has not
SPEAKER_03 (34:32):
mastered because it's too naturalistic.
(34:53):
in terms of what we envision ascontrol, as instructional
control, even experimentalcontrol.
We like to say here on ABA ontap from the lab to the living
room, right?
We're taking something that wasverified in the lab.
We don't have experimentalcontrol on somebody's living
room, somebody's house, theChuck E.
Cheese.
That's out the window.
We're working on the fact thatthat was empirically validated
(35:15):
in the lab, that it can beapplicable with much less
control.
We can make it work here.
And so back to your point, howdoes that naturalistic piece
come in and and really guide usin terms of a very, you know, a
very parsimonious science iswhat it is.
And maybe we overcomplicated attimes with this notion of
instructional control.
(35:36):
We want to give you plenty oftime to talk more about Behavior
Genius.
I know that you've got some,part of that vision is very
personal to community, verypersonal to women business
owners and empowering certaincommunities that maybe face very
unique challenges.
I want to open the floor for youto speak to that because I know
you're passionate about that.
And yeah, I want to make sure wehave enough time to cover that.
SPEAKER_00 (35:59):
Yeah.
Um, yeah, I, I, I became verypassionate about the, the
matters outside, like inside andoutside of just the ABA box.
Um, when I, so I've been in thisindustry for all of this time,
my last, um, job was, um, I wasthe director of, um, clinical
(36:25):
operations for, um, a companythat had 16, I oversaw 16
clinical directors across 14different States.
Um, and yeah, and my job wasactually, it was fun.
My job was after I had grown myregion, my, the Inland empire
(36:45):
region really rapidly as aclinical director.
I was given the opportunity tosee if I could do that in all
these other regions, in allthese other states.
So I had to learn about thedemographic and the different
variables in other states.
You were somewhat punished forbeing good at
SPEAKER_03 (37:01):
your job, right?
You were good at your job, sothey just gave you a ton more
work.
Good for you.
SPEAKER_00 (37:04):
There you go.
Try this out, right?
Yeah.
It scratched my OBM brain, and Ithink it gave me the confidence
to know that I could even run anABA company if I wanted to, or
any company.
And so, but...
Um, yeah, I was there doing thatand I was having some success.
Um, I really got heavily intodata, um, at the organizational
(37:29):
level.
And that's when I got to uselike this OBM.
I pulled out that and I waslike, all right, I'm studying.
I even did the six Sigmacertification coursework and
she's really interested in that.
And, um, And very abruptly, Ihad complained about pay.
There was a white man who wasworking in a lateral position to
(37:51):
me who was being paid$60,000above my salary.
And I brought this concern up tomy manager who escalated the
concern to HR.
They called me into a meeting totalk about it.
And...
They said that they'd look intoit.
And after that meeting, I waslocked out of my email by the
(38:12):
time I got back to my car.
I was not formally terminated,but I did start to receive text
messages from my team letting meknow that they got the news.
They didn't know what was goingon.
They were hoping that I did iton my own terms.
And I was like, what?
Yeah.
And you asked me for my techback, my laptop.
(38:34):
Like I wasn't getting in troublein this conversation.
Um, and so that was hard.
I took four months off and Iconsulted, um, on the side for a
while.
I was already running behaviorgenius as a, um, As a
consultant, I was consulting inadult residential homes at that
time.
And I had one consultant who wasdoing the work because there's
no way I could have been doingthat direct work while I was
(38:57):
doing my job.
And so I did that myself, wentback into adult residential just
enough to be able to take sometime off because I did not want
to get back into ABA.
But it was the only thing, Imean, for 15 years, the only
thing I knew how to do besidestables, which I would gladly do
if I could do that for, youknow, on my own schedule and for
(39:18):
the same amount of the same pay.
Been there for
SPEAKER_04 (39:21):
sure.
SPEAKER_00 (39:22):
Yeah, I loved it actually.
And so I took it really hardbecause I learned right then
that it didn't matter how well Ishowed up.
I had never been in trouble atwork, never had a write-up ever.
I'm like the teacher's pet ofemployees.
And so for me, I had done somuch work and made, and I knew
(39:42):
that even just the financialgains that that company was able
to make because of the way thatI stood in that position.
But what I learned was that itreally didn't matter.
Like at any given time, I couldbe completely erased.
And they would rather riskfinancial loss than to, you
(40:04):
know, the financial loss of menot being there than maybe the
potential loss that they mayhave thought that they were
threatened with by, by mycomplaint.
And so, um, I decided to startbehavior genius as a social
emotional learning programbecause I was afraid to go back
to work.
Um, and I like to, I think it'simportant to be honest about
(40:26):
that because I get a lot oflike, I have a, I have a, um,
following online and, um, And Ihave a community that I built
around me.
And I think it's reallyimportant for people to know
that it wasn't the courage in methat caused me to start my
business.
It was the fear, the fear ofwhat would happen if I went back
(40:50):
to work in ABA and what couldhappen.
And so I went back and forth forfour months.
I was unemployed, not because Icouldn't just go apply anywhere
and be a BCBA, but I just didn'twant to do that.
And also the position that I hadis not common to behavior
analysts.
So to go back into the field asa BCBA felt like really outside
(41:10):
of alignment with myprofessional development with
where I was.
So I was looking for differentpositions.
And at the end of the day, Ijust was afraid to go back to
work because I feel like I haddone everything not necessarily
right, but everything accordingto what...
There's a lot of masking, beinga Black woman in a position of
leadership, a lot of masking whoI really was, a lot of showing
(41:33):
up and code switching or showingup in ways that people would be
comfortable with just myexistence in the workplace.
I've been the only Black womanor the only woman or the only
Black person in leadership atjust about every company I'd
ever worked at.
And so It was really hardbecause I worked really hard to
fit into their box of how Ineeded to show up to be accepted
(41:57):
and for them to be comfortable.
And it didn't matter.
And I did that well.
I showed up well for them.
And it didn't matter.
At the end of the day, I couldbe just eliminated.
Um, without even a conversation,I had good relationships with
the people that I worked for andwith.
Um, so because that was so hardto take, I decided to build my
(42:23):
own and was like, I mean, shoot,I'm taking a risk either way.
I didn't have any money, but anopportunity fell onto my plate
and I said, okay, I'm, I'm goingto do social skills program and
it'll just be me.
And my husband had lost his jobthat year.
His gym closed down.
Oh, wow.
This is 2020.
Yeah, it's 2020.
SPEAKER_03 (42:41):
And that's COVID.
SPEAKER_01 (42:42):
Wow.
SPEAKER_00 (42:43):
It was COVID.
Yeah.
So it was just a really hardtime for us.
We had a newborn and the twogirls.
And so I was like, quit your joband trust me, you know, like,
what do you think about justdoing this?
And so we started a socialskills program and I was like,
we'll just get like 15 kids.
That'll be enough.
I literally on paper was like,that'll be enough to make my
salary back if it's just me andyou.
(43:04):
You be the behavior technician.
I'll teach you everything youneed to know.
And so what happened was becauseit was, you know, because I knew
how to do ABA, like traditionalABA, I asked a I asked to just
only do social skills group.
And they said, well, theinsurance said, well, you have
to do all the codes.
We don't, we don't know.
You're the one that assessesthem.
(43:25):
I'm like, yeah, that doesn'tmake sense.
You're the one that assesseswhether or not they're eligible
for group therapy.
So I was like, okay.
So I actually had a friend whoneeded ABA therapy for her
child.
And she said, Hey, I know youonly want to do social skills
group.
And my, my daughter really needsit desperately.
And I was like, okay, good.
Cause I, I didn't want to gothat route, but I need the
money.
So I was like, I'll, I'll do it.
(43:46):
Um, humbly I will accept, um,and we'll help your baby.
And she, she became our firstclient.
Um, so this is definitely afamily owned business.
We painted our own walls and,you know, and, um, what I
realized is that once I, at somepoint about a year in, I
developed the confident, Istarted looking out into the
community.
How can we serve the community?
What's happening?
(44:06):
I started, um, being reallyaware of, what happens for black
and brown families and whetheror not they're well represented
even in ABA and even in autism.
And I started having theseconversations about how we can
serve these families.
We had a demographic that saidthat 66% of our families were
Spanish speaking and only 8%were white.
(44:29):
So I was like, well, we need toserve the 92% with intention.
Like we serve everybody, but weneed to be really intentional
about the unique needs of thepopulation we serve.
I had a mass when I startedhaving these conversations and
being more myself and beinghonest, um, I had a mass, um,
loss, multiple members of myteam quit.
Um, they made up lies about me.
(44:49):
One of them was a friend of minefrom junior high school.
She's kind of with theringleader.
So they probably believe like,if we can believe what she's
saying about her as a friend,then, um, you know, if she's
saying it, it's probably true.
And so, um, That was hard.
I lost probably...
We were really small.
I might have had 40 teammembers.
We lost 12 within a two-monthspan.
(45:12):
And I realized that nobodyreally liked me.
They liked the avatar that I wasbringing to the party to make
people comfortable.
And so...
I went radical.
I went on the other side.
I cried for months.
I didn't know what I was goingto do, but
SPEAKER_01 (45:31):
I
SPEAKER_00 (45:32):
went on the other side and I wrote about this
story in my book, Radical OBM.
And I just became, I went allthe way the other direction.
And I said, I'm only going toexist for this population.
And I'm only going to serveprimarily, right?
I'm only going to talk about theimportance of serving this
population.
And even when I consult andcoach people in business, I'm
(45:54):
only going to coach people.
Black women founders, becausethat's who's underrepresented.
That's who needs the help.
That's who nobody's coming tosave or asking their opinions.
I'm only going to talk aboutfamilies who don't have the
language, and I'm going to makesure that the language barriers
are not a deterrent or a barrierto service delivery at my
(46:15):
company.
I've After several years, my momand my sister convinced me to
put my face on my website.
And they're like, when familiescome here, they need to know
that a Black woman made thisbecause there's safety in
community when people know whoyou are.
And so all of this conversationnow, of course, I'm I've been
(46:35):
asked to speak at ABAconferences.
I've ventured out even to otherbusiness conferences and
podcasts and things like thatthat are not necessarily about
ABA, just talking about DEI,which was not my intention, but
just telling my story andtalking about kind of what it
has been like building a companythat serves people, that serves
(47:00):
diverse people, not only interms of our families, but our
team.
We have a very diverse team.
Our team matches actually thefamilies that we serve.
We don't intend to intend for itto be so like it's right on the
money.
80% of our families or 89% ofour families are black and
brown.
89% of our team members areblack and brown as
SPEAKER_01 (47:20):
well.
SPEAKER_00 (47:21):
And so we have great representation.
But I started to just say, youknow what?
I want to make sure that ifpeople don't like me, they don't
like me for who I actually am.
And if people don't actuallylike me for who I am, then those
are my people, right?
And so that's where the who Iserve started to become really
important.
And of course, we don't rejectwhite families, white children,
(47:45):
white employees.
And we don't make them feelbelittled or small.
But the ones that feelcomfortable in this space are
the ones that are comfortablebeing in real community with
people.
all different types of people.
And so, yeah, it's helped me to,I've grown a lot personally.
And I have a different standardfor what we're going to provide
(48:08):
to the families that we servebecause our mission, we changed
our mission.
It was something about autism.
I don't even remember what itwas the other day.
I was trying to think about it.
I don't even remember what itwas.
(48:34):
And so, yeah, that's my that'smy my brother would say my
villain origin story.
SPEAKER_03 (48:43):
This is perfect.
What a great message you'repromoting.
You're sustaining.
You're disseminating at a timewhere I think without.
traipsing into that, where Ithink it's ever important that
you're upholding the messageyou're upholding.
I think there's a lot for peopleto decipher and consider.
(49:03):
There's a lot of politicalpolarization around some of the
things that you're speakingabout.
And again, we commend you.
Very inspired by what you'resaying.
And we agree.
We agree.
We've taken a million ideas fromwhat, as business owners,
starting up, we're only a fewmonths into operations and we've
been building for a year, but alot of the things you're talking
(49:26):
about have changed my view interms of how we're gonna work
with certain funding sources,access certain arenas that just
didn't seem to make sensefiscally, but in terms of
serving the community, that'swhere it really, I think that's
where the real wealth comes in,right?
And being able to providequality services to as many
people as need them And knowingthat there are people out there
(49:48):
that need them that aren't goingto have easy access.
So, Mr.
Dan, anything
SPEAKER_04 (49:53):
from you?
it sounded like you had somereally dark times there when you
were unemployed or even beforethat, when you had the career,
but you were masking, youweren't being your true self.
Um, and without those darktimes, you wouldn't be able to
(50:16):
be where you're at now.
And that is, that is really,really inspiring.
So even if it seems like you're,you know, your options are
limited, like you reallypersevered and, um, you can
build back stronger and it seemslike you really built back
stronger and were able to findyour true voice so thank you for
sharing that and for ourlisteners thank you for sharing
that to them as well becausethat was very very inspiring
SPEAKER_03 (50:39):
you're ever efficient in true form we are at
exactly the time we need to beand given that my lunch break is
almost over and the boss is herehe gets on me about being late
Portia we could we could talk toyou for another two hours
another four hours we will haveyou back on thank you Maybe
we'll delve a little bit moreinto your book and take some
(51:01):
time for you to expound on thatto our listeners.
We can't thank you enough foryour time.
If you could just take anotherminute or so to promote anything
you want to promote and tellpeople where they can find you,
websites or whatnot, go for it.
SPEAKER_00 (51:16):
oh yes behaviorgenius.com is for
families that's where you canfind learn more about our social
emotional learning model andclinicians I'm always open to
share the wealth I think we allneed to move in this fashion
together I can be foundpersonally I spend most of my
time when I'm not in email mostof my time I spend on Instagram
I'm not a LinkedIn girly so ittakes me a while to get back but
(51:38):
I'm at Miss PortiaM-I-S-S-P-O-R-T-I-A Radical OBM
is available on Amazon Bye.
And it's good that people loveit.
I'm so proud of it.
I am working on a new project.
So I'll have another book.
I'm hoping by the end of thisyear to launch my second book.
So stay connected so that youcan be first to know.
(52:01):
Thank you guys so much.
SPEAKER_03 (52:02):
We'd love to have you back when that's ready so
you can talk about it andpromote it.
Again, best of luck with allyour ventures.
If anything that we can do foryou in the future, you know
where to find us.
I like to do a little synopsishere in closing for our tagline.
So things I took away from ourconversation I'm going to say
serve the community, let themhave life, and
SPEAKER_04 (52:22):
always analyze responsibly.
SPEAKER_03 (52:24):
Cheers, Portia.
Thank you so much.
SPEAKER_00 (52:25):
Thank you.
SPEAKER_02 (52:27):
Bye-bye.
ABA on Tap is recorded live andunfiltered.
We're done for today.
You don't have to go home, butyou can't stay here.
See you next time.
Welcome to ABA on Tap, where our goal is to find
(00:14):
the best recipe to brew thesmoothest, coldest, and best
tasting ABA around.
I'm Dan Lowry with Mike Rubio,and join us on our journey as we
look back into the ingredientsto form the best concoction of
ABA on tap.
In this podcast, we will talkabout the history of the ABA
(00:35):
brew, how much to consume toachieve the optimum buzz while
not getting too drunk, and therecommended pairings to bring to
the table.
So without further ado, sitback, relax, and always analyze
responsibly.
Thank you.
SPEAKER_03 (00:52):
All right, all right.
This is your ever-great-for-carehost, Mike Rubio.
Welcome to ABA on Tap.
This is part two of a verydynamic conversation with Portia
James.
Enjoy.
I'm almost at a loss for wordsright now with all the ideas
(01:16):
that you're giving me.
falls way short along with thedifficulty of collaborative
(01:39):
treatment.
And wow, I mean, it's reallylayered and a lot of things that
with careful planning, you couldweave through and create some
good systems.
Might take a little time, mightbe a little frustrating, but
you're really providing a lot ofinspiration.
A lot of good questions too,where those things fall short.
You mentioned quality serviceprovision and either people not
(01:59):
getting it or they're not beingenough providers.
I know that certain regions inSouthern California.
So we've got the Hakumbas andCampos here in San Diego County.
And I know that plenty of thosekids go because it's just hard
as providers to get out theregiven the logistics.
So I mean, there's just so muchwork to do.
(02:20):
If we think about insurance,we're talking about parents
calling us and saying, yeah, wecall somewhere else.
There's a six to eight monthwaiting list.
We've got a lot of turnover withRBTs.
So I'm going kind of on the veinof what you were saying, Portia,
quality provision and thenenough of it, which is lacking.
These are the problems thatwe're facing in our field.
(02:42):
Talk to us about solutions thatyou employ, solutions that you
try to encourage people toemploy.
These are important questions.
You're right.
People need these services.
There aren't a lot of us.
There's a revolving door as faras RBTs are concerned a lot of
the times because it's hard tomaintain.
I think you've got some goodideas toward those ends.
SPEAKER_00 (03:04):
Yeah.
Yeah.
I do.
SPEAKER_04 (03:07):
I knew you did.
SPEAKER_00 (03:08):
We had it.
SPEAKER_04 (03:10):
And you have a background in a little bit of
OBM, too, right?
So,
SPEAKER_01 (03:13):
perfect.
A little bit, yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (03:14):
Yeah, this is a good segue.
SPEAKER_03 (03:15):
We've talked about the systemic issues now.
We're going to spend the nexthour talking about the
solutions.
SPEAKER_00 (03:21):
Yeah, I've carried a certification in organizational
behavior management for the last10 years.
Fantastic.
But I feel like it goes to newlevels for me.
It just unlocked for me allkinds of things that we can
think about that we just don'tthink about in ABA.
(03:44):
Service delivery is going tohave to shift.
ABA is going to shift.
How ABA looks right now is goingto shift.
We can either be behind it andbe crying and closing our doors,
or we can get ahead of it andrealize that the shift is
coming.
So here's the secret.
Well, this is the part that youput on the...
on the uh the ad all right wegot our title
SPEAKER_03 (04:07):
for the episode it's coming here we are and
SPEAKER_04 (04:10):
the good thing is that um that this we usually
split the episodes into twoparts so this is right as we'll
split into the second part sowe're like hey if you want to
hear the secret come listen toepisode two
SPEAKER_03 (04:20):
oh give us the secret wow dan you've already
given me the editing secret tooperfect let's draw this out a
little bit longer drum roll whatelse can we do
SPEAKER_00 (04:29):
all right
SPEAKER_03 (04:29):
without further ado the secret
SPEAKER_00 (04:31):
yeah yeah i think the secret is going to be to
really providing high qualitybehavioral services is going to
be to diversify funding, notjust diversify what types of
insurance funders you're willingto work with or able to work
with, but to diversify theentire gambit of payers who
(04:52):
could potentially help you helpus to get this work done.
And also connect us with kidswho are may not otherwise
receive ABA services.
So this has multiple layers.
So let me just start from thequestion that you asked about
the RBT turnover situation.
So we have a staff issue whereRBT, it's not just a turnover.
(05:18):
Since COVID, we've also just hadan employment issue.
just as employers.
SPEAKER_04 (05:24):
For sure, for
SPEAKER_00 (05:24):
sure.
Nobody wants to really come towork, right?
So for me, I work nights andweekends because that's the only
time I could work outside ofcollege, right?
And so I appreciated being ableto work nights and weekends, and
it was never an issue for me.
Now, these people are like, wedon't want to work any nights.
We don't want to work anyweekends.
We want to work.
We want to get paid forfull-time pay, but we're only
(05:46):
available from 1 to 5 p.m.
every day.
UNKNOWN (05:50):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (05:50):
And so we really have a problem.
I think the issue that we have,because ABA is a growing field,
people are getting into it.
either because it's popular orbecause it's sustainable and
everyone knows they'll have ajob in the future, or because
it's trending on social mediaright now.
I'm not sure why people aregetting into it.
SPEAKER_04 (06:11):
They'll have a job.
It might not be a good job, butit's a job.
SPEAKER_00 (06:15):
Yeah, yeah.
It may be questionable as towhether they want the job if
they'll have one.
But one thing is that if we candiversify funders that we work
with, that we're willing to workwith.
We can just be a little bit moreexpansive.
So by expansive, what I mean isthat a lot of funding right now
(06:35):
is going away from, we serve alot of Medi-Cal, Medicaid
families.
So funding is going away fromMedi-Cal.
We don't know how that's goingto impact the families that we
serve, but we did literallyreceive a video last year from
the CEO of our biggest funder,IHP, And they said, just get
(06:55):
ready.
Like the administration ispotentially passing down some
changes that are going to impactwhether or not your families
will have access to Medi-Calinsurance.
And if that happens, you maylose clients.
Now, for me, I'm like, OK, as aprovider.
(07:15):
losing clients depending on howmany i mean is it all is it half
like at what point will we haveto close our doors or lay
everybody off if this doeshappen
SPEAKER_01 (07:24):
right stressful
SPEAKER_00 (07:25):
um yeah so the first thing is like well have
commercial insurance as well asa part of your service delivery
line so that you're not justputting all your eggs in one
basket right and that's whatanyone would say diversify your
funding which is fine yeah butwhen we stay with insurance um
we are bound by the rules of thescience or of that insurance
(07:46):
provider, which means that if wedo wanna be more creative about
the type of services that we'regonna provide, we can only
create within this box if westay within this box of working
with insurance vendors.
But that money is leavingMedi-Cal and where it's going is
toward law enforcement,government agencies like
Department of DevelopmentalServices, Department of Child
(08:08):
and Family Services, That is whoare the county.
That's where the money is going.
That's where, and if weunderstand this, if we
understand local politicsenough, which I don't, but my
pastor is the commissioner forSan Bernardino County.
So he talks about thisregularly.
This is what he's passionateabout.
So the money is going to thesegovernment funded agencies and
(08:30):
they are being given billions ofdollars to And they have to
spend it with community-basedorganizations that provide the
exact type of services that weprovide.
We call it ABA.
They may call it wraparound.
They may call it some type offamily support service.
They may call it consumer familyservices.
And it includes parent training,behavioral supports in place,
(08:55):
school district support, all ofthat.
But they're paying it in grantsand they're writing big checks.
for people like us who alreadyhave the skill to be able to tap
into those funds and developprograms that will not only
serve kids with autism, but thatwill serve any child or family
who is dealing with a behavioralneed because their job is to
(09:18):
keep kids out of the system.
And also, we care to keep kidsout of the system as well,
right?
They don't want the kids goingto jail.
They don't want the kids to behomeless.
They have all the statisticsabout prison, homelessness, Kids
going into the system becausethey're in foster care, things
like that.
And they're trying to preventthat.
So they want to put in placebehavioral support services for
(09:41):
the family that will help toreduce these numbers.
And so they have that goal.
But the problem is they don'thave ABA services.
providers who are willing tostep outside of the box of let's
just have an ABA company andserve kids who don't have autism
or serve kids.
We can use ABA as a tool, as ascience that we know how to use,
(10:02):
but we can serve the community.
So if we start thinking mycurrent strategy, this is where
the secret is.
Think about how we can serve thecommunity that we live in or
that we're serving.
What really does the communityneed?
And also what resources,financial resources already
exist in the community that wecan tap into and use ABA as how
(10:24):
we're going to execute theseservices.
We can go and do a social skillsprogram right now and say we're
going to have a sports team forat-risk children And we're going
to be teaching them how to doall of the behavioral stuff,
right?
We're going to teach them how tofollow instructions in a group.
We're going to teach them how totake turns.
We're going to teach them how tofollow the rules.
(10:45):
Just whatever it is, we're goingto teach them this.
But because it's acommunity-based program, we have
some kids who are in thisprogram and their insurance pays
for it.
We have some kids who are inthis program and the Department
of Developmental Services paysfor it or the regional pays for
this.
And it's one program, but nowyou can serve a wider range of
clients because the other caveatto this is that we know that
(11:08):
here, at least in San BernardinoCounty, in every county, there's
the forgotten ones.
There's the underserved,underrepresented people, kids.
And so if the underrepresentedkids, the statistic is this.
Kids who are black and brown arediagnosed an average of three
(11:28):
years later than white children.
If that matters to you, and itshould matter to everyone from a
heart space, but even from theperspective of just a business
owner, when you understand thecommunity that you serve now,
the community we serve isprimarily black and brown,
right?
So they're underserved, butthey're actually very highly
(11:49):
represented here and stillunderserved.
But if we understand thatstatistic that They're diagnosed
an average of three years later.
Guess what?
ABA doesn't get those kidsbecause insurance isn't going to
pay for it until they get thatdiagnosis.
So the diagnosis now becomes aprivilege.
So all the kids that don't havethe diagnosis that are either
misdiagnosed or undiagnosed,they're not getting ABA therapy.
(12:12):
So we're missing out on a wholegroup of kids who need
behavioral services because onlyone in five of those types of
children get the behavioralservices they need.
We're missing out on serving allthose kids.
Right.
(12:44):
group of kids that probably doneed ABA and probably do have
autism.
But again, we can't control thesystem or the rate at which
they're able to get diagnosed.
Although we can try, we can hirepeople in-house to do
diagnostics so that we pull kidsinto our pipeline, right?
And make sure that they'regetting diagnosed as early as
possible.
That's one strategy, but also wecan open ourselves up to stop
(13:08):
building ABA companies and startserving at-risk children,
whether they're developmentallyor socially at risk.
Now we have a whole gambit ofprograms and services that we
can build that serve thecommunity.
And I think all of us, none ofus become an ABA, well, I don't
want to say none of us, manypeople do become ABA providers
for the money.
(13:28):
But for clinician-owned ABAcompanies like mine, I didn't
become an ABA provider for themoney.
First of all, there wasn'tenough at any level I've ever
been at.
It was never enough money to dowhat I was doing in autism.
And it's not enough money rightnow, even as an owner.
I'm here for community.
I'm here because this is theplatform, the vehicle that I
(13:49):
use.
But my intention is to serve mycommunity.
And that's always been myintention.
I have a heart for community anda heart for people.
And so...
It took me years to come to thisconclusion because I did what
I've seen before in autism.
I didn't want to be a pioneer.
I didn't want to build a companyand programs and services that
no one's ever seen.
(14:10):
It's very difficult to dobecause even my team will combat
me on whether or not this isethical.
UNKNOWN (14:16):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (14:17):
Because it doesn't look like what they learned.
It's not just DTT at a table.
Anything outside the box is justuncomfortable for people.
And that's their competence.
I'm like, increase yourcompetence because there's all
kinds of ABA skills.
Come on, Portia.
You
SPEAKER_04 (14:31):
can't do ABA without the IKEA table.
Come on now.
You can't do
SPEAKER_00 (14:34):
it.
I mean, you must have it.
A little white chair and alittle white table or it's not
ABA.
And you have to say do this a
SPEAKER_03 (14:39):
certain amount of times.
And good job.
SPEAKER_00 (14:42):
You do.
And you must always do the rightfive.
SPEAKER_03 (14:45):
Come on, Portia.
You're getting crazy on us here.
No, continue.
So, yeah, let's talk about someof those innovations, some of
those out-of-the-box things.
You're speaking some reallyimportant stuff that I know our
listeners hopefully will takeaway from and be inspired.
This is exactly what we need tobe thinking about.
I'm going to go with it.
Maybe since 2012 here inCalifornia, people have thought
(15:06):
about money with the insurancemandate a little bit more.
But I'm going to go with whatyou said.
I don't think anybody at thebeginning gets into this for
money, especially not– peoplelike us who have been in as long
as we have, we like what we do.
Now, if we can see a littlefinancial success, we're not
going to turn it down, but it'sgot to be with that ethical
practice.
It's got to be with that senseof community.
(15:28):
I love what you're talking aboutwith going outside of the scope
of autism services.
So tell us more.
SPEAKER_04 (15:34):
Well, that's something you've been
pioneering.
I got
SPEAKER_03 (15:37):
to pass it to Mike real quick.
The behavioral pediatrics piece,I'm sure you've heard of it.
I think that that's maybe aroute that also fits into what
you're speaking to in terms ofgoing to some of these
pediatricians that are seeingthese Medi-Cal patients and
saying, hey, a lot of whatyou're being told is probably
behavioral and we might be ableto help.
(15:59):
Now, there is no insuranceprovision for that right now,
but that's where your greaterpoint comes in in terms of
looking outside of the box ofresources that we're tapping
into.
So the idea that there could bea grant to help to implement
behavioral pediatrics withpediatricians, with Medi-Cal
patients who wouldn't be able todo the private pay for the
service, but the grant might beable to pave the way there.
(16:23):
So that's the kind of stuffyou're talking about.
SPEAKER_00 (16:25):
Yeah, yeah.
And even just things that helpgoing back to parenting and the
things that they deal with.
I think like low hanging fruitis like, where are the parents
missing out on like the life ofa parent?
Being a parent is so muchresponsibility.
There are very few moments oflike, pride and fun and usually
those are connected with seeingour children be able to be in
(16:46):
community with their peers goingto a basketball game or taking
our child to girl scouts or youknow these things that there
aren't really places forneurodiverse children to um not
only exist but to actually likeenjoy first of all um but to be
successful in and so for exampleum We had a few parents that
(17:08):
were saying, you know, yoursocial skills program is great,
but like I have a daughter andI'm just concerned that there
aren't very many girls in there.
And I was like, yeah, I nevereven thought of that because
under a certain age, girls andboys are all the same.
The same to me, like eight,eight and under, they're all
(17:46):
kind of the same.
Oh, that's fun.
Yeah.
(18:15):
And we do exactly what the GirlScouts do.
They have their own curriculum.
They have their own.
We just do all of that.
And then we record data.
And each one of these kids havegoals.
And we target their goals.
We have a behavior technicianwho comes in.
Right now, I run it myself.
So we have a behavior analyst, abehavior technician, and a
(18:35):
parent volunteer.
And they come in, the three ofus, we work together to make
sure that it's Girl Scouts, it'sfun, they get the parents get
the full experience, but make itbehavior analytic, right.
And what we've noticed is thatnot only are these kids making
great progress, but ourutilization, our contract
fulfillment for Girl Scouts isalmost at 100%.
It is significantly higher thanour contract fulfillment for our
(19:01):
small groups in our treatmentcenter or in home.
And I think the connection thereis parent, these parents have
been working Wanting a place fortheir kids to fit into and
belong.
Every, every child, every womanand mother is like, I always
wanted to be a Girl Scout or Iused to be a Girl Scout.
And so we unlocked that part,that experiential piece where
the parent gets to watch theirchild enjoy going hiking and
(19:23):
visiting the fire department andhaving, you know, learning the
Girl Scout law and earningpatches.
These are experiences that theseparents should naturally,
they're entitled to have becausewe all have them, but they're
excluded from the experiencesbecause their children aren't
able to fit into them.
And so we unlocked like anemotional piece in our parents
(19:43):
of like, wow, my kid gets to bea part of something that I
didn't know if she would everfit in there.
Right.
And so that's what it means.
Like the importance of justbeing responsive to the family
and to the community and Andthen using the science to bring
about the desires of the peoplethat we serve, that's how we get
buy-in.
Now, getting buy-in from my teamhasn't been super easy because
(20:05):
autism.
But on that side, what I'velearned is we have put up posts
for not ABA experience people.
We have started recruitingpeople outside of ABA.
You guys don't like it?
That's fine.
We now recruit people who havegroup therapy experience, summer
camp experience.
(20:25):
They've worked in classrooms andthey are more fit.
to work in our social emotionallearning program, because it's
not foreign to them.
And then we can teach them thescience through establishing
better training, bettertraining, you know, processes
and things like that.
So just really going all the wayoutside of the box, but figuring
(20:46):
out what really is the problem,taking the the ABA hat off,
keeping the BCBA hat on, becausethat's who I am.
But I've been I've been doingthat for half my life.
But taking the ABA hat off andgoing, what else is out here and
allowing ABA to be a toolinstead of a prison for
ourselves, our teams, and ourfamilies is going to be what's
(21:08):
going to help us to move inanother direction and be ahead
of the curve before ABA startsto change maybe in ways that we
won't be able to control.
Yeah.
SPEAKER_04 (21:21):
That is awesome.
When you say take the ABA hatoff, are we taking the ABA hat
off or are we taking the autismhat off?
Because I think we're stillusing the ABA hat, just not in
the way
SPEAKER_00 (21:31):
that we use it under the autism.
Yeah, I take the ABA hat off tothink about programming.
I'm like, I don't want to be inthe field of ABA.
I want to think about whatreally is the need.
The need is these kids areengaging in behavior problems
because they're foster kids.
They have no parents.
But you're right.
It's just, okay, what kind ofservices are required?
Well, ABA clinical therapy.
(21:52):
Well, some of these kids don'tneed ABA.
ABA clinical therapy in the waythat ABA shows up every day.
Um, but there are, so, you know,there, there it's little things
like just teaching my team theimportance or the significance
of recording first trial data.
They're like, well, we don'tknow if this is enough data.
We don't know if this is ABA.
I'm like, well, it is.
(22:13):
That's how I, where I learnedit.
Um, but in this setting, we loststaff at our
SPEAKER_04 (22:21):
previous job over arguments about data.
SPEAKER_00 (22:24):
Yeah.
Yeah, it's just like first trialdata is, it is a behavior
analytic strategy to use datacollection method.
And then of course the personwho's in their master's program
trying to school me, right,after 20 years.
And I'm like, when I'mexplaining myself, like, you
know, there's a whole list ofABA tools that we just don't
SPEAKER_03 (22:42):
use.
This guy even got a complaintonce.
SPEAKER_04 (22:44):
Oh yeah, I got complained to the board because
yeah, we had a disgruntled staffthat we were saying that you
don't have to take 10 trial datafor every single data point.
It's acceptable.
Maybe you have four trials.
Maybe you have one trial.
Do I really have to ask thisindividual 15 times what their
(23:05):
name is for them to be
SPEAKER_01 (23:07):
confident?
That's why they're annoyed withus and they're having tantrums.
SPEAKER_03 (23:12):
Right.
We get annoyed with our kidswhen they ask us questions
repetitively and then we do thisdiscrete trial thing and do the
exact same thing back.
And then we wonder why they'rehaving a tantrum.
SPEAKER_00 (23:20):
I had a kid who literally...
two discrete trials.
I had a kid who was like, um,I'm frustrated because I already
answered that question.
And I was like, valid point.
I love it.
I love it.
Valid.
Like we taught this kid how tocommunicate that.
SPEAKER_04 (23:36):
But until you answer it 10 times across three
sessions, across three, uh,three RBTs in three different
environments, you have to do itin lake.
Yeah.
You have to do it in outerspace.
Then standing on your head.
SPEAKER_00 (23:49):
Yeah.
So it's like, I mean, no, Inever took the science hat off.
I I leave the ABA hat on always.
That's how I view life.
But I do take ABA, the field,the industry, the rigid piece.
Like, let's not just think onlyabout, let's just think about
people.
And let's think about communityand their needs.
And then when we go to supporttheir needs, we're going to use
(24:10):
ABA because that's what we'retrained to do.
It's just been easier and it'sopened up a much wider range of
services.
And I think that once this getsoff the ground, it allows us to
be more competitive as wellbecause everyone's not serving
the community.
Most ABA companies are justserving autism.
And so I took autism off of mywebsite.
(24:33):
I completely off.
I took ABA, the word ABA off ofmy website and out of my hiring
posts because I don't evenreally want people with ABA
experience and no heart forpeople.
And people with ABA experiencedo not have heart for the
community.
They've spent so much time beingrobots that I don't know what
they're passionate about outsideof ABA.
(24:54):
And we're trying to serve peopleAnd that's been a really big
game changer for us.
SPEAKER_04 (25:01):
That's why I really appreciate this guy because his
background is in childdevelopment.
So, so much of us in ABA, wedon't understand child
development.
We understand behavior.
So, he understands what that'slike.
Let me pass it to you, Mike.
SPEAKER_03 (25:13):
Well, there's so much to talk about here.
So, we went through a period.
We went through an early startintervention revival about...
eight years ago, where I saidthere's no way...
We're not going to do thisdiscrete trial thing in early
intervention.
Yes, there'll be learningtrials, but they're just going
to happen in a verychild-directed, play-based...
(25:34):
open-ended manner um and we wentthrough a a bit of a phase uh to
your point and you know veryinspiring to hear you talk about
it where we also said we don'twant people to have aba
experience because they're goingto come in with a certain
training and we all had toabandon that training too so i
went from um working in theseidyllic child development
(25:58):
settings right thesedevelopmental lab settings at
universities where everything isperfect and child directed and i
got really good at working withuh the older four and five year
old boys that run in the wolfpacks and they terrorize the
little girl dyads and i gotreally good at making them sit
down at snack time and enoughthat um you know my mentors
there were like hey we lovehaving you here man you would do
(26:21):
really good at like a non-publicsetting or somewhere outside.
And I remember, ah, well, thankyou.
That's good advancement for me.
I can make more money.
This is great.
You know, so I go to my firstjob at that non-public school
and it's like, wow, these kids Iwas working with over here got
all this enrichment in theirenvironment and all this stuff.
And I'm coming into this settingand it's bare walls.
(26:43):
And now with, to be fair, withgood reason, these are the kids
that behaviorally were throwingthese things.
But the answer was not to takethe stimulus completely away,
which now, leaves theenvironment devoid of learning
how to actually use thatstimulus.
Imagine that.
So it's a real quandary, right?
And so you're speaking to somereally important points here.
As you now hire people thatdon't, fairly some people could
(27:05):
say, don't have experience, howdoes that change your training?
Don't give all your secretsaway, but give us a little bit
of an insight as to how thenyou're shaping and molding these
minds to then provideABA-related services, knowing
that that experience, they'recoming in with a different
mindset.
And I think that's a reallyimportant thing for us to
(27:25):
consider.
So thank you in advance.
SPEAKER_00 (27:27):
Yeah, I think what I found is that it is easier
because ABA is scientific andrigid and linear for the most
part.
The strategies are pretty easyto use.
They're easy to learn.
They're counterintuitive.
I think for most people, um,cause they're not nurturing, but
for the most part, but they'reeasy to teach, um, the
strategies, they make sense,right?
(27:47):
Like it's very ABC.
Um, what's hard to teach islike, do you, um, do you like
children?
Um, do you know how
SPEAKER_03 (27:56):
to work with children?
Do you know
SPEAKER_00 (27:58):
how to play?
Yeah.
Can you play?
Like, are you interesting?
Um, those things are hard toteach.
Um, even just, you know,integrity showing up on time,
like, you know, so it's Like wehave to hire for the things that
we can't teach.
And then I have just found thatteaching people how to use ABA
is, is so much easier when theyalready know how to engage with
(28:20):
the child in the first place.
We're hiring people that went toschool to learn about ABA and
then you put them with a childand they just look like they're
dancing with two left feet.
They don't look equippedwhatsoever because they're so
busy trying to see the childthrough this lens of ABA instead
of just being with the child,enjoying the child, having fun
with the child, getting to knowthe child, and then...
(28:42):
knowing how to use thestrategies, how to present the
SD in a naturalistic setting.
Well, they already know how towork with kids in a naturalistic
setting.
Cause they've been on fieldtrips with kids.
They've been in classrooms onthe playground.
Like they've already been giveninstructions in naturalistic
group settings for years.
Cause that's what you do whenyou work in a classroom.
But now we're saying, write itdown when you do it, do it like
(29:04):
this, right?
Pager prompts a little bit.
That's easy.
And I think that that's really,that's the, That's my
hypothesis.
My hypothesis is that this isnew for us.
This is an old idea that Ifinally pulled the trigger on in
the last like 30 to 45 days.
And so actually what'sinteresting is we just changed
all the titles of the jobs andthe job descriptions to be
(29:25):
centered on group therapy andnot on ABA.
We took out the word behavior,behavior therapist, like all of
that, just took it out.
Within two weeks, we received 86applications.
And when I tell you 86applications for a behavior
technician type of job, we callit learning support special.
And when you put learning inthere, then all the people who
worked at school, they're like,Oh, I know how to do that.
(29:46):
I've been a paraprofessional.
And if you put group, you know,right.
If you put social, emotionallearning, then all the camp
counselors are like, Oh, I've,I've done that before.
So we've also gotten, I think ahigher level of, we have people
with bachelor's degrees applyingfor the behavior technician
position because of the way thatit's worded to match what their
(30:06):
experience is, where they reallycan't get jobs because the
bachelor's degree is kind oflike obsolete now in certain
fields.
Um, so child developmentbachelor, people with bachelors
in child development, they'relooking for something.
They don't just want to work ina preschool.
Um, so we're like, well, hey,come, come help us, you know,
create, build social emotionallearning programs.
We, um, plan on putting inplace, you know, small groups
(30:26):
and, and special interest groupsfor kids and things like that.
And we're going to use ABA to,as the teaching method, but
we're not going to call thewhole entire thing ABA.
Um, we're just, I don't thinkthat's how we should do
anything.
We should be using ABA as areally good method of teaching.
And so that that I think is it'sgoing to there's going to be
(30:47):
parents who are going to Googlesearch ABA and they're not going
to find us.
So I recognize that, too.
But also there's going to bemore parents are Googling
regular stuff because they'resick of ABA.
So they're Googling clubs andGirl Scouts and sports and
things that they want that theythink are going to be fulfilling
for their child and their familyinstead of draining.
(31:09):
And that's where they're goingto find us.
SPEAKER_01 (31:12):
Wow.
SPEAKER_03 (31:13):
I've got a million ideas.
We vibe with that so much,Portia.
Go ahead, Mike.
No, no.
You're giving us a millionideas.
And I like the way you put it,too.
So it does come out in terms ofthis is one of the foundational
principles we're using.
It doesn't need to be a part ofour title.
SPEAKER_00 (31:32):
Yeah.
I sat in tears over dinner withmy husband a couple months ago,
and I said, I don't even...
I don't even know how to saythis because I guess I'm in the
ABA cult, but I'm just going tosay this thing, why it was so
hard for me to say.
But what I said was, I neverwanted to build an ABA company.
And now my company has become anABA company.
(31:53):
I don't want to work for an ABAcompany if I were to stop owning
this company.
And I never intended to build anABA company.
And I then very next week, I satwith my brand manager, my
marketing director, and I said,take the word ABA out.
This is not an ABA company.
We are a social emotionallearning program for children,
(32:15):
for neurodiverse children, aninclusive social emotional
learning program.
And so That's what people arelooking for.
No one's old.
People are only looking for ABAbecause the science has told
them that that's the only proventreatment for kids with autism.
But and so we dress it up and weput a, you know, a tie on it and
(32:37):
button the top button all theway up.
And then these kids have to losea portion of their life to have
ABA.
But what if we just let themhave life?
And we are brilliant enough andrisky enough to just let them
have life and live life and doall the things kids and their
families want to do.
But when we come, I'm a behavioranalyst.
I can't come to the partywithout ABA in my pocket.
(33:00):
There's no way.
It's more natural to me than,than most things.
And so, but we are teaching thespecific teaching method that we
use is ABA.
And that takes the sting off ofit too, because the family's, A
lot of these families have hadABA for years and they've been
harmed by ABA.
And that's not what they'relooking for.
(33:20):
They're looking for somethingelse.
Or what about when we referthese kids out as, you know, out
of the ABA?
Yeah, they don't really need ABAanymore.
And all the parents that arelike, OK, well, they need
something.
What else is there?
Yeah, I don't know.
We don't even have somewhere torefer them because there are no
social, you know, sociallysignificant parents.
programs just out there to say,you're going to go from ABA, but
(33:42):
we're going to take you overhere to this.
And what is it that you want tosee your kids doing?
Oh, you want them doing sports?
You want them involved in clubsor whatever it is?
Well, I know a company that theyspecialize actually in providing
those community services thatyou're looking for.
And they are also trained andthey specialize in using ABA.
Um, to help the kids besuccessful.
(34:03):
That's the company I want to be.
I don't want to be the ABAcompany that once we can no
longer do DTTF table, we got torefer them.
We got to just end services andgraduate these parents and the
parents are never ready becausewe never really scratched their
need.
Yeah.
No matter how much work we dothere, they still have social
needs and the social piece isthe part that I think, um, ABA
(34:24):
has not
SPEAKER_03 (34:32):
mastered because it's too naturalistic.
(34:53):
in terms of what we envision ascontrol, as instructional
control, even experimentalcontrol.
We like to say here on ABA ontap from the lab to the living
room, right?
We're taking something that wasverified in the lab.
We don't have experimentalcontrol on somebody's living
room, somebody's house, theChuck E.
Cheese.
That's out the window.
We're working on the fact thatthat was empirically validated
(35:15):
in the lab, that it can beapplicable with much less
control.
We can make it work here.
And so back to your point, howdoes that naturalistic piece
come in and and really guide usin terms of a very, you know, a
very parsimonious science iswhat it is.
And maybe we overcomplicated attimes with this notion of
instructional control.
(35:36):
We want to give you plenty oftime to talk more about Behavior
Genius.
I know that you've got some,part of that vision is very
personal to community, verypersonal to women business
owners and empowering certaincommunities that maybe face very
unique challenges.
I want to open the floor for youto speak to that because I know
you're passionate about that.
And yeah, I want to make sure wehave enough time to cover that.
SPEAKER_00 (35:59):
Yeah.
Um, yeah, I, I, I became verypassionate about the, the
matters outside, like inside andoutside of just the ABA box.
Um, when I, so I've been in thisindustry for all of this time,
my last, um, job was, um, I wasthe director of, um, clinical
(36:25):
operations for, um, a companythat had 16, I oversaw 16
clinical directors across 14different States.
Um, and yeah, and my job wasactually, it was fun.
My job was after I had grown myregion, my, the Inland empire
(36:45):
region really rapidly as aclinical director.
I was given the opportunity tosee if I could do that in all
these other regions, in allthese other states.
So I had to learn about thedemographic and the different
variables in other states.
You were somewhat punished forbeing good at
SPEAKER_03 (37:01):
your job, right?
You were good at your job, sothey just gave you a ton more
work.
Good for you.
SPEAKER_00 (37:04):
There you go.
Try this out, right?
Yeah.
It scratched my OBM brain, and Ithink it gave me the confidence
to know that I could even run anABA company if I wanted to, or
any company.
And so, but...
Um, yeah, I was there doing thatand I was having some success.
Um, I really got heavily intodata, um, at the organizational
(37:29):
level.
And that's when I got to uselike this OBM.
I pulled out that and I waslike, all right, I'm studying.
I even did the six Sigmacertification coursework and
she's really interested in that.
And, um, And very abruptly, Ihad complained about pay.
There was a white man who wasworking in a lateral position to
(37:51):
me who was being paid$60,000above my salary.
And I brought this concern up tomy manager who escalated the
concern to HR.
They called me into a meeting totalk about it.
And...
They said that they'd look intoit.
And after that meeting, I waslocked out of my email by the
(38:12):
time I got back to my car.
I was not formally terminated,but I did start to receive text
messages from my team letting meknow that they got the news.
They didn't know what was goingon.
They were hoping that I did iton my own terms.
And I was like, what?
Yeah.
And you asked me for my techback, my laptop.
(38:34):
Like I wasn't getting in troublein this conversation.
Um, and so that was hard.
I took four months off and Iconsulted, um, on the side for a
while.
I was already running behaviorgenius as a, um, As a
consultant, I was consulting inadult residential homes at that
time.
And I had one consultant who wasdoing the work because there's
no way I could have been doingthat direct work while I was
(38:57):
doing my job.
And so I did that myself, wentback into adult residential just
enough to be able to take sometime off because I did not want
to get back into ABA.
But it was the only thing, Imean, for 15 years, the only
thing I knew how to do besidestables, which I would gladly do
if I could do that for, youknow, on my own schedule and for
(39:18):
the same amount of the same pay.
Been there for
SPEAKER_04 (39:21):
sure.
SPEAKER_00 (39:22):
Yeah, I loved it actually.
And so I took it really hardbecause I learned right then
that it didn't matter how well Ishowed up.
I had never been in trouble atwork, never had a write-up ever.
I'm like the teacher's pet ofemployees.
And so for me, I had done somuch work and made, and I knew
(39:42):
that even just the financialgains that that company was able
to make because of the way thatI stood in that position.
But what I learned was that itreally didn't matter.
Like at any given time, I couldbe completely erased.
And they would rather riskfinancial loss than to, you
(40:04):
know, the financial loss of menot being there than maybe the
potential loss that they mayhave thought that they were
threatened with by, by mycomplaint.
And so, um, I decided to startbehavior genius as a social
emotional learning programbecause I was afraid to go back
to work.
Um, and I like to, I think it'simportant to be honest about
(40:26):
that because I get a lot oflike, I have a, I have a, um,
following online and, um, And Ihave a community that I built
around me.
And I think it's reallyimportant for people to know
that it wasn't the courage in methat caused me to start my
business.
It was the fear, the fear ofwhat would happen if I went back
(40:50):
to work in ABA and what couldhappen.
And so I went back and forth forfour months.
I was unemployed, not because Icouldn't just go apply anywhere
and be a BCBA, but I just didn'twant to do that.
And also the position that I hadis not common to behavior
analysts.
So to go back into the field asa BCBA felt like really outside
(41:10):
of alignment with myprofessional development with
where I was.
So I was looking for differentpositions.
And at the end of the day, Ijust was afraid to go back to
work because I feel like I haddone everything not necessarily
right, but everything accordingto what...
There's a lot of masking, beinga Black woman in a position of
leadership, a lot of masking whoI really was, a lot of showing
(41:33):
up and code switching or showingup in ways that people would be
comfortable with just myexistence in the workplace.
I've been the only Black womanor the only woman or the only
Black person in leadership atjust about every company I'd
ever worked at.
And so It was really hardbecause I worked really hard to
fit into their box of how Ineeded to show up to be accepted
(41:57):
and for them to be comfortable.
And it didn't matter.
And I did that well.
I showed up well for them.
And it didn't matter.
At the end of the day, I couldbe just eliminated.
Um, without even a conversation,I had good relationships with
the people that I worked for andwith.
Um, so because that was so hardto take, I decided to build my
(42:23):
own and was like, I mean, shoot,I'm taking a risk either way.
I didn't have any money, but anopportunity fell onto my plate
and I said, okay, I'm, I'm goingto do social skills program and
it'll just be me.
And my husband had lost his jobthat year.
His gym closed down.
Oh, wow.
This is 2020.
Yeah, it's 2020.
SPEAKER_03 (42:41):
And that's COVID.
SPEAKER_01 (42:42):
Wow.
SPEAKER_00 (42:43):
It was COVID.
Yeah.
So it was just a really hardtime for us.
We had a newborn and the twogirls.
And so I was like, quit your joband trust me, you know, like,
what do you think about justdoing this?
And so we started a socialskills program and I was like,
we'll just get like 15 kids.
That'll be enough.
I literally on paper was like,that'll be enough to make my
salary back if it's just me andyou.
(43:04):
You be the behavior technician.
I'll teach you everything youneed to know.
And so what happened was becauseit was, you know, because I knew
how to do ABA, like traditionalABA, I asked a I asked to just
only do social skills group.
And they said, well, theinsurance said, well, you have
to do all the codes.
We don't, we don't know.
You're the one that assessesthem.
(43:25):
I'm like, yeah, that doesn'tmake sense.
You're the one that assesseswhether or not they're eligible
for group therapy.
So I was like, okay.
So I actually had a friend whoneeded ABA therapy for her
child.
And she said, Hey, I know youonly want to do social skills
group.
And my, my daughter really needsit desperately.
And I was like, okay, good.
Cause I, I didn't want to gothat route, but I need the
money.
So I was like, I'll, I'll do it.
(43:46):
Um, humbly I will accept, um,and we'll help your baby.
And she, she became our firstclient.
Um, so this is definitely afamily owned business.
We painted our own walls and,you know, and, um, what I
realized is that once I, at somepoint about a year in, I
developed the confident, Istarted looking out into the
community.
How can we serve the community?
What's happening?
(44:06):
I started, um, being reallyaware of, what happens for black
and brown families and whetheror not they're well represented
even in ABA and even in autism.
And I started having theseconversations about how we can
serve these families.
We had a demographic that saidthat 66% of our families were
Spanish speaking and only 8%were white.
(44:29):
So I was like, well, we need toserve the 92% with intention.
Like we serve everybody, but weneed to be really intentional
about the unique needs of thepopulation we serve.
I had a mass when I startedhaving these conversations and
being more myself and beinghonest, um, I had a mass, um,
loss, multiple members of myteam quit.
Um, they made up lies about me.
(44:49):
One of them was a friend of minefrom junior high school.
She's kind of with theringleader.
So they probably believe like,if we can believe what she's
saying about her as a friend,then, um, you know, if she's
saying it, it's probably true.
And so, um, That was hard.
I lost probably...
We were really small.
I might have had 40 teammembers.
We lost 12 within a two-monthspan.
(45:12):
And I realized that nobodyreally liked me.
They liked the avatar that I wasbringing to the party to make
people comfortable.
And so...
I went radical.
I went on the other side.
I cried for months.
I didn't know what I was goingto do, but
SPEAKER_01 (45:31):
I
SPEAKER_00 (45:32):
went on the other side and I wrote about this
story in my book, Radical OBM.
And I just became, I went allthe way the other direction.
And I said, I'm only going toexist for this population.
And I'm only going to serveprimarily, right?
I'm only going to talk about theimportance of serving this
population.
And even when I consult andcoach people in business, I'm
(45:54):
only going to coach people.
Black women founders, becausethat's who's underrepresented.
That's who needs the help.
That's who nobody's coming tosave or asking their opinions.
I'm only going to talk aboutfamilies who don't have the
language, and I'm going to makesure that the language barriers
are not a deterrent or a barrierto service delivery at my
(46:15):
company.
I've After several years, my momand my sister convinced me to
put my face on my website.
And they're like, when familiescome here, they need to know
that a Black woman made thisbecause there's safety in
community when people know whoyou are.
And so all of this conversationnow, of course, I'm I've been
(46:35):
asked to speak at ABAconferences.
I've ventured out even to otherbusiness conferences and
podcasts and things like thatthat are not necessarily about
ABA, just talking about DEI,which was not my intention, but
just telling my story andtalking about kind of what it
has been like building a companythat serves people, that serves
(47:00):
diverse people, not only interms of our families, but our
team.
We have a very diverse team.
Our team matches actually thefamilies that we serve.
We don't intend to intend for itto be so like it's right on the
money.
80% of our families or 89% ofour families are black and
brown.
89% of our team members areblack and brown as
SPEAKER_01 (47:20):
well.
SPEAKER_00 (47:21):
And so we have great representation.
But I started to just say, youknow what?
I want to make sure that ifpeople don't like me, they don't
like me for who I actually am.
And if people don't actuallylike me for who I am, then those
are my people, right?
And so that's where the who Iserve started to become really
important.
And of course, we don't rejectwhite families, white children,
(47:45):
white employees.
And we don't make them feelbelittled or small.
But the ones that feelcomfortable in this space are
the ones that are comfortablebeing in real community with
people.
all different types of people.
And so, yeah, it's helped me to,I've grown a lot personally.
And I have a different standardfor what we're going to provide
(48:08):
to the families that we servebecause our mission, we changed
our mission.
It was something about autism.
I don't even remember what itwas the other day.
I was trying to think about it.
I don't even remember what itwas.
(48:34):
And so, yeah, that's my that'smy my brother would say my
villain origin story.
SPEAKER_03 (48:43):
This is perfect.
What a great message you'repromoting.
You're sustaining.
You're disseminating at a timewhere I think without.
traipsing into that, where Ithink it's ever important that
you're upholding the messageyou're upholding.
I think there's a lot for peopleto decipher and consider.
(49:03):
There's a lot of politicalpolarization around some of the
things that you're speakingabout.
And again, we commend you.
Very inspired by what you'resaying.
And we agree.
We agree.
We've taken a million ideas fromwhat, as business owners,
starting up, we're only a fewmonths into operations and we've
been building for a year, but alot of the things you're talking
(49:26):
about have changed my view interms of how we're gonna work
with certain funding sources,access certain arenas that just
didn't seem to make sensefiscally, but in terms of
serving the community, that'swhere it really, I think that's
where the real wealth comes in,right?
And being able to providequality services to as many
people as need them And knowingthat there are people out there
(49:48):
that need them that aren't goingto have easy access.
So, Mr.
Dan, anything
SPEAKER_04 (49:53):
from you?
it sounded like you had somereally dark times there when you
were unemployed or even beforethat, when you had the career,
but you were masking, youweren't being your true self.
Um, and without those darktimes, you wouldn't be able to
(50:16):
be where you're at now.
And that is, that is really,really inspiring.
So even if it seems like you're,you know, your options are
limited, like you reallypersevered and, um, you can
build back stronger and it seemslike you really built back
stronger and were able to findyour true voice so thank you for
sharing that and for ourlisteners thank you for sharing
that to them as well becausethat was very very inspiring
SPEAKER_03 (50:39):
you're ever efficient in true form we are at
exactly the time we need to beand given that my lunch break is
almost over and the boss is herehe gets on me about being late
Portia we could we could talk toyou for another two hours
another four hours we will haveyou back on thank you Maybe
we'll delve a little bit moreinto your book and take some
(51:01):
time for you to expound on thatto our listeners.
We can't thank you enough foryour time.
If you could just take anotherminute or so to promote anything
you want to promote and tellpeople where they can find you,
websites or whatnot, go for it.
SPEAKER_00 (51:16):
oh yes behaviorgenius.com is for
families that's where you canfind learn more about our social
emotional learning model andclinicians I'm always open to
share the wealth I think we allneed to move in this fashion
together I can be foundpersonally I spend most of my
time when I'm not in email mostof my time I spend on Instagram
I'm not a LinkedIn girly so ittakes me a while to get back but
(51:38):
I'm at Miss PortiaM-I-S-S-P-O-R-T-I-A Radical OBM
is available on Amazon Bye.
And it's good that people loveit.
I'm so proud of it.
I am working on a new project.
So I'll have another book.
I'm hoping by the end of thisyear to launch my second book.
So stay connected so that youcan be first to know.
(52:01):
Thank you guys so much.
SPEAKER_03 (52:02):
We'd love to have you back when that's ready so
you can talk about it andpromote it.
Again, best of luck with allyour ventures.
If anything that we can do foryou in the future, you know
where to find us.
I like to do a little synopsishere in closing for our tagline.
So things I took away from ourconversation I'm going to say
serve the community, let themhave life, and
SPEAKER_04 (52:22):
always analyze responsibly.
SPEAKER_03 (52:24):
Cheers, Portia.
Thank you so much.
SPEAKER_00 (52:25):
Thank you.
SPEAKER_02 (52:27):
Bye-bye.
ABA on Tap is recorded live andunfiltered.
We're done for today.
You don't have to go home, butyou can't stay here.
See you next time.
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