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Training and Supervision with Allyson Wharam · ABA Business Leaders

• speaker-0: I've worked with some companies, they have six weeks of training for RBTs, like before they see a child. I've had others that have a hundred and twenty hours minimum. Everybody takes the RBT course regardless. speaker-1: We both offer an online version of the training and sometimes people hear online and automatically assume because it's online it's inherently not as good. And what we know actually from the training research is that the instructional strategies are a much better predictor than the modality. There is information about what that then means for like intent to turnover and things like that. BACB twenty twenty five newsletter. They looked at the exit survey data, have you guys seen that? And it's not just like leaving an organization, it's like intent to leave the field altogether. And there are a number of different factors, of course pay, things like that that you know we would assume. ⁓ but forty one percent cited limited opportunities for professional growth, ⁓ and another forty one percent pointed to a lack of supervisor support. speaker-0: Welcome to ABA Business Leaders, brought to you by 3Pie Square, where we discuss topics on how to create and grow an ethical and sustainable ABA practice. speaker-2: Whether you're starting, scaling, or thinking about selling your business, we're here to share insights, stories, and strategies to help you on the journey. speaker-0: We owned a successful ABA practice for over ten years. speaker-2: And now we help other ABA business owners do the same, without all the chaos. speaker-0: Stick around, you're in the right place. speaker-2: Hello everyone, welcome to ABA Business Leaders, brought to you by 35 Squared. I'm April. And today with us we have Ali Warren. Thank you so much for joining us. speaker-0: Steven. speaker-1: Yeah, thank you so much for having me. I'm excited to we've had a couple of great conversations and I'm excited to continue that. speaker-2: I know, those of you who have been around for a while, ⁓ back I don't know, was it last year, we were on each other's podcast and had a great conversation and just recently actually ⁓ this week that we're recording this podcast, the episode that we were on for Allison it came out this week. So yeah, so if you haven't if you if you haven't already go back and Alison tell everyone everyone the name of your podcast. speaker-1: Yeah, it's in the field, the ABA podcast. ⁓ and so yeah, this there we have a previous conversation, like you said, from last year of you guys on there, and then ⁓ this most recent one. I really enjoyed that because I feel like the first one was really helpful because it was just the broader context of ABA business. ⁓ but it was really interesting this last one to hear like your personal story and how you've kind of come to learn some of the things that you now help other businesses with through your journey. speaker-2: for that. Yeah, it was really fun. We always enjoy our conversations with you. In fact, you know, Stephen and Stephen's like, Who's our who 'cause like I keep track of the podcast around here and he his he just shows up. And so he's like who who who's our guest today? And I told him I was Allison. He's like, ⁓ okay. And and he said, what are we talking about? And I said, well we'll we'll figure that out. And he's like You know, it's like we knew that we knew that we would, you know, we like we align and we enjoy conversations together. So so here we are to to have a conversation together and to invite you guys all listening to to you know be part of this conversation. We would love to hear from you. ⁓ we do have our podcast hotline. The number is in the show notes. So we would love for you to ⁓ to give us a call and ask us any questions or give us feedback or just comment on what we talked about today. And then also you can find us in on all the social medias also in the show notes. All right. So today we look we're gonna talk about training. training is such an important part of ha of Being an employee, like no matter what what field you're in, no matter what you're doing, ⁓ having having being educated on what's expected of you, if there's special skill sets involved, it's important that you know how to do those skill sets. And so it would only make sense for us. Have really rigorous training in ABA and it's really kind of interesting because that's what we do well, right? We speaker-1: Yeah. speaker-2: We practice a science that helps promote behavior change and ⁓ building skills ⁓ and all of the things, right? So but sometimes we get distracted or sometimes we just forget about our training our staff because we're so focused on providing those services and assessments and filling in the skills and all of the things for our learners. speaker-1: Yeah, absolutely. And I think one thing before we start, we were talking about this topic kind of generally, and and you had mentioned like it seems like an obvious thing. Like, yes, you have to provide training. And then as we started to kind of go through all of the like, well, there's this to consider and there's that to think about. And this is, you know, a common gap that we see. So it seems like maybe on its surface, like, yeah, of course we need to provide training. But ⁓ yeah, I think we're gonna dig dig into some of those sort of specifics of what that actually looks like and some considerations beyond just Yes, you need to provide training. speaker-2: So I think too I think a for a great place to start would be for Steven to help remind us all about the regulations and you know, we're not attorneys, of course, but but the regulations and then what law and and all of that behind training. Like when do you legally have to provide training? speaker-0: I mean like so if it's required training ⁓ and you hire someone knowing that they don't have that required training, then it is ⁓ look. Yeah. Talk to an attorney, legal shield dot com, great resource, ⁓ but I I have talked to many HR people and attorneys and so if if your funder requires let's say RBT, CPR first aid, ⁓ they require Maybe a crisis intervention. I'm seeing lots of ⁓ more ⁓ funders now requiring cultural competency. So things like this, if they require it and and your staff ⁓ do not have it and you hire them, you're required to pay for it and the time ⁓ that it takes to complete it. So ⁓ that that's just sh best rule of thumb. Mm-hmm, I I would say. ⁓ RBT training, I mean the expense of it is is like I mean, you can get free ones now, right? We have we have one, ⁓ happy medium. Everybody seems to love it on our website. ⁓ it's forty dollars. I think the the biggest ⁓ pushback I get from that is, well, they need it to for their RPT certification and they get to leave with their RBT. So I don't have to pay for that, right? speaker-2: But what about competency though? Because confidency training is a big piece of it's not just completing the forty hour online class or whatever, right? There's confidency. And I would think that w when we own our own company, even if someone came to us with an RBT certification, ⁓ or came to us already at B C B A, right? We part of that intake process and part of the orientation and just getting started with working with us once they had accepted the job was to see where their skill sets are and their experience is. And we had a lot of R V Ts that came to us with an R V T certification and they said, ⁓ yeah, no, someone just checked off on that. Like we never I never really did competencies. And so that after having a few of those situations, we started doing our own competency checks. Of course, if if we were helping them go through and get their R B T, but even if they already came to us as an RBT or a B C B A, we we did our own competency checks. speaker-0: Right. And so the way it works, correct me if I'm wrong, you take you you take the course, the forty hours, then you your your supervisor is supposed to check competencies in each one of the areas, right? And then you take the exam. Is that is that correct? Yeah. Okay. And yeah, I can remember I like this one ⁓ RBT, she turned out to be a great RBT and she was with us for a long time. ⁓ but during the interview process, ⁓ And I like I know enough about ABA to be dangerous, right? But we asked her what's manned? What is a manned? And she she couldn't answer it. And she had an RBT certificate. And it's like, okay, how did this happen? Right. And again, no judgment. It's just what are we doing here? Right. We're putting these people in in a house by themselves a lot of the time for forty hours a week or, you know, whatever. and they don't know the basics of the job. Yeah. And then we all kinda go, Why why are ever why is everybody complaining about the services we provide? Right? Like it's come on. I don't know. speaker-1: Yeah. I mean, so we have an R B T course as well, and part of that is we have like lots of feedback throughout. I'm sure I'm sure you do too. And so it's interesting to look at some of the the feedback and stuff that's provided. But, you know, occasionally the organizations will have people who are already certified go through and take the training. And it's always interesting to see the feedback, which is nice for us where it's like, ⁓ I'm understanding this for the very first time. But my point of that is also that like just because someone has done this training doesn't mean that they really learned all of the the content that they needed to learn and the skills that they needed to learn, ⁓ which is, you know, your point about the the competency assessments as well. ⁓ and that's, I think as I'm thinking about, you know, there's all the the new 40 hour, the third edition 40 hour training requirements went into effect January first. ⁓ and one of the big changes with that is that before there was just kind of the task list and as a bucket of content and you as a training provider allocate how much time to spend on on all of that. and the board has moved to ⁓ these different domains. I think there's eight of them. I should know this off the top of my head for how how long I've I've spent mapping everything out and and designing everything. But but in terms of that, it's it's providing minimums per area. So like documentation and reporting is one of them. Behavior change procedures is like 20 of the 40 hours. ⁓ intro to ABA, I think is just like two hours. ⁓ pairing and rapport building is just one hour basically. And so they came up with these minimums, which is in theory a really good thing to spend that much time on like direct procedures and things like that. But I guess the the bigger point that I'm trying to get at is 40 hours or content area minimums, things like that. That still is really just about the content and how how much instruction was delivered. You're still not really measuring learning outcomes based on that. And if you think about our regulations, just because of what is easier. to regulate. So much of it is around seat time or hours time, 40 hours of training, 2000 hours of supervision. but outside of like the competency assessment, for example, or the exams, there's not a lot of true measurement of like, do you are you able to actually apply this? Are you able to actually demonstrate these skills when you're done with this training or these 2000 hours? speaker-2: Yes, because that's the important part. To demonstrate. Right. And and then I t I too, I think there's a it there's an important part, and I'm maybe jumping ahead, but okay, let's say they demonstrate competency. Let's let's say that they can generally show that they understand these basic concepts, right? But then there's the generalization piece, right? Because we all know that not every like every single learner that we work with speaker-1: Yeah. speaker-2: We're all different. All humans are a little different and the autism presents different. Or even if you know, beyond autism, depending on what population that you're that you're ⁓ you know, that you're providing services for. And so there's that generalization piece. There's that fluency of being able to like think quickly on your feet, right? ⁓ because we're again dealing with little humans, right? Or even big humans, right? If you're working with adult population, right? And teens. that, you know, just the nature of the job, you have to be able to to think quickly, make quick decisions, and so there's some fluency along like for the understanding as as well, right? And I know that comes with experience and on the job. And that's why supervision is so important, right? So I don't know, I don't know what direction that we got that we want to take here. You know, do we want to go ahead and hop into supervision and talk about that some or, you know, there's also how can we provide, like what like some training design, like what constitutes a good training beyond the forty yeah before the beyond the coursework for either RBT or B C B A. speaker-1: Yeah. I mean, I think we can there's it's such a multifaceted issue for any one of them, and they're very much intertwined as well in terms of like the carryover from training and things like that. ⁓ but yeah, I think one thing that ⁓ you know, and we both offer an online version of the training. And I think sometimes people hear online and automatically assume that like because it's online, it's inherently not as good. And what we know actually from the training research from decades and decades ago and meta analyses and things like that is that the instructional strategies are a much better predictor than the modality. So you could have an in person training and it's still me just sitting in a room talking at you with a PowerPoint that's poorly designed for forty hours. Yeah. We've all been there. We've all been there. ⁓ and so it's so much more about that. But at the same time, there are constraints obviously within different modalities, but also affordances or things that make it better or easier based on the the technology and things like that. And so obviously in an online training, one of the limitations is like you're not there to give real-time feedback. The system might be able to give feedback. One of the benefits might be being able to take like some of the quizzes or assessments multiple times, being able to rewatch videos. You know, all of those different things are affordances, but then a constraint obviously is you know, actually seeing what it looks like with clients, getting feedback on the ground. And so I think I what I'm would love to hear from you guys and what I ⁓ have heard about with organizations is like really combining that online training that that is not enough. No matter what. E even if it was in person in a classroom, that's not enough. It really has to be paired with that gener supported generalization of like what does this actually look like with clients on the ground, ⁓ getting feedback beyond just the competency assessment. It shouldn't just be I'm watching this training for forty hours and then we're jumping straight into competency and then go with your client. Or in some cases it's even like here's one week of the training and then you're you're with clients. So I'm curious what you've heard from organizations as well since you know we get some of that feedback. speaker-0: I mean I've heard higher and ⁓ you know what this funder doesn't require RBT training. So you go ahead and start with this client and work part like part-time with this client and then ⁓ on your own time in the evenings do the 40 hour training so then we can get you more cases. Right. So like that is again, right? Like we You're providing services for a child and in a lot of cases they may not have the capacity to advocate for themselves. And in many cases, ⁓ as I've said, a lot of ABA companies are ⁓ not not literally, but they're they're beating the no out of the children because it's you have to comply and this is how we have to do it. So there's that piece of it as well. ⁓ and I I I don't know, it's it's a little it's a little scary. Right. ⁓ we're where their ⁓ the parents trust that we know what we're doing and we're gonna provide a quality services. And you throw someone in that said, Hey, I can babysit on my resume, right? You know what I mean? And and so like that that's that's kind of where it's at right now, and it's not even funny, even though I'm laughing. it's so that's that's what we see, right? I I've talked to one company and they had sixty RBT contractors and they didn't They said, Hey, they're contractor, we don't have any control over what their schedule is or how they do it's like what are like okay, first of all you can't do that, right? But second of all, really? Really? They're independent. speaker-2: Like this currently happens still in twenty twenty six, right? And what was that? What was the the BACB came out twenty nineteen? speaker-0: I think it was twenty eighteen, yeah. speaker-1: And then the IRS is clarified ⁓ possibly. You know, there's yeah. speaker-0: So like speaker-2: But I think that but that's related to training too, because it's like okay, what shorts like what shortcuts can we take? And I'm not, you know, I'm really I can understand where business owners are coming from. I can understand, you know, starting up costs a lot of money. And so I've said I've s I recently, often, I've said, if you don't have the money to train your staff, you have no business even opening up a business. Like, like please take that into consideration. And I know it's like a sweeping statement, but it's so important. It's so important for s there's so much it's that ⁓ like snowball effect. And it affects so many different areas. You know, you have just the quality, yes, being able to, you know, predict better outcomes with trained staff. the let you decrease the likelihood of abuse. speaker-0: Yeah, I mean there there's assumptions being made here, right? Yeah. And and when we were talking to Brian about that, right? Like I I said that to him. Okay, if you have a better trained staff, does or is that an assump is that a a good assumption to make that your services will be better? Right. And I I wanna say that that's true. But it also depends on the per personality of the staff, right? And and can they work with two year olds or they work with fifteen year olds? speaker-2: Depends on what your training looks like. Right. No like fail there's no a hundred percent guarantee here. But you are increasing the likelihood of better outcomes all around. I if you're if you're training your staff. Plus think about like your staff's like speaker-0: I just want data on that, right? Like I I really wanna know how how well that aligns, right? speaker-2: Really, yeah. Dude we ha is there data do you know if there's 'cause I I'm not sure. That's something we should look into. If anyone listening knows more about that please speaker-1: know that there ⁓ there is one but it's not related to RBT so I I just finished my ⁓ doctorate and there might be stuff that I'm not ⁓ aware of as well. ⁓ but it was in curriculum and instruction so some of my committee are B C BAs ⁓ but ⁓ some of them aren't ⁓ weren't or weren't ⁓ I'm done now finally I still feel like I'm in it obviously but ⁓ you know really the my dissertation or final project was based on fieldwork supervision and curriculum and the quality of field work supervision. ⁓ and a few times different people ask me like what well what is the what is the research on having this certification and different quality aspects of fieldwork on like the quality of services. And there's really like I I'll have to pull up that there's like one article that like sort of gets at it, but not really. And so when you think about this field and I yeah, I think there just are a lot of logical assumptions being made. Yeah. But there isn't a ton of yeah, I'm that I'm aware of empirical data in terms of speaker-0: I I kinda like the anal the best analogy I could come up with is ⁓ like insurance for car auto insurance, right? When you have a 16 year old that gets their license and and their mom and dad ⁓ taught them how to drive versus they got driver training, right? I think that insurance has done enough ⁓ day taken enough data, right, that they're like, Yeah, okay, we can give you a price cut based on this, right? And so they're Like there was probably an assumption at the start, but ⁓ you know, there's probably enough data that speaker-2: I'm sure there's some sort of standardization within the I don't have no idea, but within like the to become a a driver's training teacher or whatever. Like communic I mean, ⁓ curriculum or like standards or something there. There's gotta be like some kind of yeah. speaker-0: You have to have a certain amount of convertible. But even the worst driver ed teacher is slightly better than a a parent. Do you know what I mean? Like that's probably the odds. So I assume I'm assuming that's the same here, right? Like like even a speaker-2: Right. Yeah, there there must be some data there. speaker-1: It's good point. Like you could be trained really poorly on some of the procedures you were getting at. And ⁓ so someone could have tr quote unquote training, but like not just what was the quality of the training in terms of like the instructional strategies, but like what were you taught to do? What were you taught was right? How are you taught to actually interact with a kid? ⁓ and how to, you know, like even just error correction strat, you know, all all of these little sort of things that it's like you could have been t trained, but ⁓ what did that training look like? speaker-2: Right. Well, and I think that was why like we started assessing all new employees as they came in so that we could understand what like not even like to say like good or bad, right? Like but like what skill sets are like what what do you excel in? What do you still need support in, right? So that we can help grow you and change you know, like help you to become a better clinician or, you know, better technician. And and I think that that's because we've I don't I mean That's I'm not trying to toot my own horn, but that's because we like really cared about our staff. Like we really enjoyed what we did and wanted to provide quality services. And so we really wanted to take care of our staff and we saw that as part of taking care of our staff. speaker-0: And the client side too, right? And like you want you like I don't know, maybe some people don't, right? And maybe they don't care, they don't think about but you want your staff going in, especially in home. You want them going in the home confident that they're gonna be able to handle this situation, right? 'Cause they are way more independent. So and and like they're there by themselves with a parent. That may be critical. And like rightly so in my opinion. Right? A and hey, you're taken care of by a kid. ⁓ I'm gonna I'm gonna let you know it what I think, right? I think that's fair. speaker-2: Well, going back to Allison's question earlier, ⁓ that she posed about like what we've seen or whatever, there is a bit of a divide in clinical services versus in home services, right? Because I will quickly get the response, ⁓ well we're we're clinic based. So someone's always here. And and and which I get it. It there is a difference. Absolutely there is a difference. And especially if you have a B C B A, especially like some clinics will have like a floater B C B A if someone that's their job is to just keep check it, you know. Offer assistance and supervision and support. speaker-0: Like lead R B Ts there, right? Yeah. speaker-2: So there is a team and you know, I guess the idea too is that within a clinic setting you also want to try to make sure that the environment is set up where no one adult is alone with a child in a specific area and there so there are some just pieces built in like annotely, like right that like are just environmental changes and modifications that just kinda help things flow and you help you to keep your eye on things. However, like there's still yeah, I mean it's it's the need is still there. You still shouldn't just put someone in a session and say, Here, you're billing insurance, you're providing the service, y we'll start your training next week. Just just just hang out with us, child and like pair. speaker-0: Yeah, and and I've worked with some companies, they have six weeks of training for RBTs, like before they see a child, right? And then I've had others that have a hundred and twenty hours minimum. Everybody takes the RBT course, regardless. I don't care if you're five years experience, you're taking our RBT course. That's how we do it. ⁓ and and you are going to we're going to make sure that but you know, as you're working with that that new client. We're gonna have a lead RBT or the RBT that is currently on this case and they're going to ⁓ shadow you, right? Like there are some great companies doing it well, right? But they're also like I I'm I I understand the pushback I get on this is like that's not that that's not free and we don't get paid, right? And so that that I I a hundred percent agree. That's why I say don't take ⁓ terrible rights. You just you can't do that, right? You you think ⁓ well I have to help everyone. You're helping no one i if your training is awful and there's not enough time for supervisors to make sure that everybody's getting what they need, right? speaker-1: Yeah. And thinking about the impact on you know, when we're talking about data and things like that, there there is information about what that then means for like intent to turn over and things like that. So like the BACB, I think it was the twenty December twenty fifteen newsletter or twenty fifteen, twenty twenty five newsletter, they looked at the exit survey data. Have you guys seen that? And it's not just like leaving an organization, it's like intent to leave the field altogether. And there's There are a number of different factors, of course, pay, things like that that, you know, we would assume. ⁓ but forty-one percent cited limited opportunities for professional growth. ⁓ and another forty-one percent pointed to a lack of supervisor support. ⁓ and so there's that. And then there are a handful of of articles ⁓ that I can kind of send for the show notes that look at like burnout and training and that support as as leading to potentially burnout and then intent to to leave an organization. So we do we do have some data on that. ⁓ and then of course you imagine then what that means for organizational culture, quality, then you're putting, you know, when people turn over, then you're having to find someone else. What does that mean for your clients? What does that mean for yeah, just i all of the different levels of the organization and and who you're serving? speaker-2: Yeah, absolutely. I mean that's one thing that we have within the ABA business leaders platform or the system, whatever we're calling it, that we have ⁓ we're we're cov we have a lot of speaker-0: Awesome marketing. We're awesome marketing. Whatever. Let's go find it. speaker-2: I don't know, depending on when this airs, right around this time, at the time that this episode is gonna air sometime in July ish, we have a lot of new exciting updates coming. ⁓ but within our ABA business leaders, we have growth paths for for all positions within your company, and that's part of what started us like started that, right? Want we wanted to help try to find a way for RBTs to who want to stay in RBT, who don't have a desire to become a B C P A. And that's okay too. Like to how to help them to have a way to grow and learn and progress in the company. Right. And see like see like what new skills, be able to advocate for themselves of like, okay, here are the skill sets that are available. This is I want to learn this one next or ⁓ you know, be part of that training process along with the supervisor. So I think that's ⁓ speaker-0: Also see where they can go. speaker-2: You know, I'm hoping as that that grows. We have a few people using that now, but I'm hoping as that grows, we're also ⁓ going to start ⁓ collecting some data to understand more parts of that to help know how to build it out in a way that can support support staff. ⁓ but I would love to know. I'd love to talk more about supervision. And so part of supervision is ongoing training, right? 'Cause that's a great thing about our field is we don't just train And or it's not designed at least to just train and throw in and then here you go. Like that's what part of what supervision is is to guide and, you know, assess and you know, not just the learner's skills, but the the clinician or the technician's skills and knowing how to support them to do what they need to to support the learner, right? And so let's let's kind of shift to to that a little bit and then how that's I would love, I would love to hear. all of your advice and ideas on that, ⁓ Alison, for sure. speaker-1: Yeah, well, I think so much of it, you know, we saw similar need to what you were talking about in terms of growth paths and things like that, because so much of it is we have this proactive the the training itself is fairly structured. And then we get to supervision and we have again the the hours piece where it's like five percent. Are we meeting the targets? Are we checking the box the compliance boxes? That's very different than the quality of what you're providing. ⁓ and then I think even the word supervision means so many different things in our field, you know, we have fieldwork supervision, we have ongoing supervision, ⁓ we have supervision. of client of you know for billing purposes and billing codes. And so w even when we think about RBT supervision, you have really the the supervision of the the case and the client and their progress, which is of course interconnected with the supervision of the person delivering those services. But then there's also the supervision just for the purpose of that person learning their skills, growing and developing. And so I think that's definitely a challenge is within the the system that that one word and that one Function is really not just one function. It's it's all of these different things. And so it's easy to become potentially too focused on one or the other, not and neglect, you know, because they're both so important. And so if I'm as a supervisor hyper focused on just this individual client's programming, I might be missing the overall sort of career development support learning that I could be providing to that technician. ⁓ and then, you know, thinking back then to field work as well. when we think about the structures of fieldwork supervision, often because again of how, you know, we have some states, you know, California and ⁓ states that have a three-tiered model where you get practice in supervising other people. But logistically, for most organizations, unless an organization intentionally creates opportunities, there aren't usually organic opportunities for a fieldwork student to learn how to supervise. So then we have new B B C BAs who are BCBAs and you know this relates to what we were talking about before too of like we might assume a a B C B A might not need training, but how they actually developed all these skills during field work and the answer is oftentimes no. ⁓ and it is a very different repertoire and skill set. speaker-0: April and I are so honored to have Margin Keeper sponsor this podcast. speaker-2: Running an ABA business comes with its share of challenges. Managing clients, staff, insurance. The list goes on. speaker-0: One thing you shouldn't add to your stress, bookkeeping. That's where margin keepers comes in. speaker-2: They're specialists in ABA businesses, which means they understand exactly what we need. speaker-0: With Margin Keepers handling your finances, you can focus on what really matters, your clients, and your practices growth. speaker-2: They're more than just bookkeepers, they're lifesavers in the financial world of ABA. speaker-0: So for peace of mind and expert financial management. speaker-2: Turn to margin keepers. It's a decision that will lift the weight off of your shoulders. speaker-0: Check out Margin Keepers at www.marginkeepers.com and see how they can help your business thrive. speaker-2: Well, i it I it this reminds me of a conversation that we've had before where I can't I can't remember who we were talking to. But remember we had the realization that well not all B C B A's even want to supervise. Like a lot of B C B A's work with the learner and and you know, and so there's different types of personalities and people that who become B C B A's, like some speaker-0: Like a week. speaker-2: or really excel at supervision and they want to be a supervisor and they want to help guide others to work with the learners versus you know, being down on the floor themselves. Others are like, I don't ever want to not be down on the floor working with learners, right? And then you have everywhere in between. But that was what we had like this big like go moment of speaker-0: It was a C P A B A. That's yeah, that's yeah. Like that there are actually B C B A's that don't want to supervise. And I was like, no, that's wrong because they mean the exact same thing, right? B C B A equals supervi supervisor. That's it. Like they are the same thing. And so I I was I like I've had a lot of like light bulb moments of working in this field, and that one just like, ⁓ my goodness, I didn't even think about that. Right. And there are just some people that don't wanna like I again going back to engineering. There are just some engine just leave me alone. I don't wanna talk to you. I don't wanna hear about you. I just wanna do my job, right? I'm gonna do my own thing. If you don't have a problem with me, I don't have a problem with you. Right. But I'm not training anyone. And ⁓ yeah, that was speaker-2: Too there are a handful of business leaders in our community who that's their that's the company that the agency that they open. They're they they have their B C B A, they provide direct services. They may have other B C B A's that join them and but they're kind of more like in a colleague type work let's all teamwork at this together. We each take your own kids. to Be you know, because they would rather that's just not something that they're interested in doing is being supportive you know, supporting an RBT. Not that I mean we all get we g you know, like we all get to to choose how we want to do it, but in our tiered model that really shows up a lot, it's in through funded, you know, insurance funded plans, like that's kind of what we see the most often. speaker-0: The the other thing I don't remember who I was talking to that told me this, but because of the explosion in B C B A's and the fact that not every every ⁓ degree is equal, ⁓ there are not enough mentors to train new B C BAs on how to be a B C B A. And then these B C BAs that have not been trained ⁓ to the best of the ability of the field, then train the next generation. Right. Yeah. And so we're like seeing a lot of like y you don't even start writing reports until you've completed your hours. And like that's not supposed to be speaker-2: Yeah, I mean we've had a lot of those conversations too as far as like ⁓ you know within within the coursework, right? Like what are some changes that could be made or different tracks, different, you know, like inf ⁓ what is it? What's the word like the emphasis, like your degree, like you know, have a concentration and right and and to be able to get more specific, you know, education and training just as part of the schoolwork. speaker-1: Yeah, I have two kind of main things that are coming to mind as we're talking. One is we've talked a lot about like growth paths and competencies and for ⁓ people to understand what they're working towards. And so for a trainee and a supervisor to see we have the the task list is now called the test content outline and part of that is the board clarifying. ⁓ and they say this in I forget which newsletter that is, but ⁓ they clarified it a couple of times that it has taken on all of these other functions that really what was the task list was meant as this is what's on the exam. It's not necessarily everything that you need to practice. And so you as a supervisor and trainee need to know exactly what you're working towards and having some sort of like curriculum and things like that. And so, you know, we have ⁓ built out ongoing competency tracking ⁓ for supervision, for example, so that you're seeing the gaps. So I know as a supervisor, ⁓ What I'm working towards, and then you as a supervisee know what you're working towards. And so the other piece of that is for organizations using that, being able to track the same competency across roles and seeing, okay, I am a maybe they already have it from being a technician, probably not the supervision role, but maybe if they're a lead RBT, they already have some experience mentoring and teaching and training. And so then I can see what they've done from RBT to student analyst. And then I can also see once they're certified, ⁓ they actually didn't maybe get all of these ⁓ in an ideal world, we address all these things in supervision, but also I can see where there are gaps or areas of strength. And so I think the the biggest thing is for ⁓ organizations to have a clear idea of like what are the applied skills we're working on in supervision based on what they actually need to know and be able to do during field work or during their job as a VCBA, because so often fieldwork and if I I feel like I say this all the time. Like if you spend any time in a Facebook group where there are any sort of student analysts, you'll see at least a post a day, often more, saying, like, what can I do for hours? Does this count for hours? And in that really the intent of field work is to provide applied opportunities that build towards those competencies. And if but if we're not clear on those competencies, then we have supervisors and trainees just looking for random things that could count rather than what are the skills we're building to. So having that clarity. ⁓ ideally from an organizational lens where everyone is working towards everyone is very clear in terms of what skills you're developing. And then you have visibility into that, I think is is very beneficial, both on the individual trainee level, supervisor level, and then organization level. The other thing that is coming to mind is ⁓ for those that aren't familiar, there's a consulting supervision requirement for field work for BCBAs that are in their first year supervising. ⁓ But just for fieldwork. So if I'm a new BCBA, I've been certified for less than one year and I want to supervise a fieldwork student, I have to meet with a consulting supervisor who has five or more years of experience. And I think it's just an hour a month. So it's not very intensive, but that applies only within the first calendar year. So I could be eighteen months in, but supervising, you know, so it's based just on that time period, ⁓ not necessarily on if you've done it before. And again, it only applies to fieldwork. And so while that's the technical requirement, I think that still provides And there are some great resources out there. ⁓ there's one from LeBlanc and Sellers, ⁓ in terms of like a consulting supervisor workbook and things like that, that I think could apply across supervising RBTs, supervising fieldwork students. My point with that is not just ⁓ sticking to the bare minimum BACB requirements, but potentially thinking of that as a structure that you could use for any new supervisor, whether it's past their one year mark or whether it's RBT or ⁓ fieldwork supervision. speaker-2: Yeah, that's really important. I often think of it similar to because I my my work was always in like early intervention, right? So I'm very familiar with the V B map. And so it kinda reminds me of that, right? Like if I just stick to the V B map before looking at programming and and skills teaching for my learner, I'm gonna miss a lot things, right? It's just it's like it's it's just one way. It's a guidance, but Also, my understand I also need understanding of like developmental appropriateness. I need understanding of children or whatever age group it is. I mean I know that kind of goes along with developmental appropriateness, but there's some s there's some extra understanding there too of just like how what children or what kids of that age group are like. ⁓ and and then even understanding like the sequencing of skills, right? And There's so there's a lot that goes into it. And so if you just and and and also not only is it an analogy, but that is something that I saw within a lot of our newbie CBAs is like they thought that programming was filling out a V V Map, right? ⁓ that's what they had been speaker-1: the program and the data collection system with the the minimum number of fields they're using. Yeah. speaker-2: Exactly. And so not knowing how to or I would say, ⁓ well, it seems like there might be a gap in, you know, XYZ, right? 'Cause like maybe there weren't like the the skills not com right, they're not learning it quick enough, so to speak. ⁓ they're not showing progress or they're like there's a lot of behavior around this. Like, why what's going on here, right? speaker-1: Yeah, no, absolutely. And it it made me also think about just the amount of like that if we don't have that sort of structure to kind of look back on and identify some of those things, that it's things get left up to chance, I think is the core problem. It's just like what comes up organically. ⁓ and so then because of that, then you can miss all of these other important or relevant areas. And there was an article ⁓ by Lydon at all. ⁓ I think it's 2024 that looks at unrestricted hours opportunities. And of course, that's the core of what you have to get as a those are the the behavior analytics skills that you need more as a supervisor is how that's usually operationalized. and so then they're that's required for supervision. But what the article looked at is ⁓ what opportunities basically trainees had. And part of what this article and the findings sort of indicate is that Obviously, a lot of the opportunities are based on the organization and what is available there. And so in an ideal world though, of course everything needs to be related back to a client and things like that. But if if you are just leaving everything up to chance and you as an organization don't have any visibility into where people's skills actually are and what's being addressed in supervision, then you can't do anything to address when there are not organic opportunities. So in the case of something like supervision, if you don't have any sort of visibility, that's something that's just left up to chance. You know, you might be training all of these field work students ⁓ who then never get that opportunity and then they're supervisors and maybe you're not addressing that, whereas you could create and contrive some opportunities during field work once you have that ⁓ ability. And so yeah, I think that the core is just being very intentional about what you're building. And that's true of any training design. What are we, what is the outcome we're trying to reach? What what does someone need to be able to do at the end of this? And then you're working backwards from that. ⁓ but often training becomes just like, the the process, like what are we doing rather than what are we leading to or or trying to get out of this? speaker-0: So that ⁓ and I so I remembered this as you were you were both talking. So there was an I think it was a newsletter that came out from the board about what is ⁓ unrestricted. I is that unrestricted is the one that's not direct service, right? Okay. So unrestricted. What is not unrestricted? And w one that everybody was up in arms about was reading or research unrelated to current clients. And so like I I'm just curious what your opinion is on that. Like how does a ⁓ a B C B A grow or a potential B C B A grow in this field ⁓ outside of this one lane if part of ⁓ becoming a B C BA they're not allowed to read and research and get credit for that? Does that make sense? speaker-1: It does. Yeah. I think with a lot of these regulations, they're well intentioned based on the core problem, which is basically what we were talking about, where it's people are not actually prepared at the end of their hours because they're doing these random activities. So I am just gonna do all my unrestricted hours are that. And I think it is a double-edged sword because as you're indicating, then it has the potential to limit someone's scope and what they're ⁓ learning about during their hours. And at the same time the core problem again is when the proportions are all wrong. And someone did that for five hundred of their two thousand hours. ⁓ and so it is the board is in a tricky place ⁓ trying to kind of create these rules and then we as supervisors, it creates it creates a lot of anxiety and things like that as well of like, am I following the rules? Am I doing am I providing supervision within the t intent of what the the BACB is asking of us. ⁓ but I do think it is a good point. One thing I always ⁓ My my main goal within supervision is always going to be to help trainees learn how to seek out ⁓ information, identify their own, self-reflect and identify their own kind of shortcomings, because I'm not going to teach them everything that they need to know across the course of their entire career. That's no no one can do that. ⁓ that's impossible to do within 2,000 hours. But what I can help you really fine-tune is the pivotal skill of being able to continuously learn if if that's not something that you're already, you know, able to really do. So part of that is I think helping folks become aware of the different areas of practice, ⁓ seeking out information it is kind of frustrating for trainees, I think, because 2,000 hours is a lot of hours to for me as a supervisor to say, well, if you're interested in this, you can't really count it for hours, but it's still worth your time. So for podcasts, for example, like ideally you're just kind of a sponge during this time. And so while that might not count for hours, That's still a valuable thing for you to kind of be learning more. And so I I don't have a great answer for this in terms of like, yes, it is hard. Yes, it I think limits what people are exposed to. But the core of of everything is still that it needs to be applied to a client. And so if you have some means of yeah, like looking at for your client, maybe this not might not be their exact programming right now. But ⁓ based on where they're at, but this is like a special interest of yours, but could relate to the client in the future. You know, there there might be some ways you can get creative or look at organizational behavior management within the organization. You know, I think that is a limitation sometimes is that we only think of client as like child with autism. And so the other part of this though is that your supervisor has to be within their scope of practice. And so you know, if as you're evaluating your capacity. ⁓ as a supervisor field worker, ongoing supervision or whatever it happens to be, you also have to make sure that supervision itself is within your scope of competence, that also what you're supervising on is within your scope of competence. So if I am a BCBA who's never worked in geriatrics, and then I have someone who's interested in geriatrics, and we used to provide remote supervision and had this happen, someone came and was interested in geriatrics. And I luckily have a colleague who specializes in that and can tap her in. But Part of it is also modeling then for the trainees, ⁓ like how to learn outs how to start to expand your scope, but also to understand that you can't just go and independently apply it. I don't know that that really answered your qu I it is a it's hard, I guess is the core of it. speaker-0: It's almost like unintentionally siloing, right? And you're like every generation of B C B A is going to get slightly more siloed because of their their supervisor only knows this scope. Do you know what I mean? And so they're it's not this widening of of of learning. It's actually we're we're kind of crushing people into one area, right? And speaker-2: I I totally see that. But I also love, love, love, love what you said about teaching the skill to know how to continue to learn and self-assess. And because I think that's a thing too. Because a lot of times we get stuck in like this like sequence of skills, you know, to check the boxes. But we forget about like, you know, curiosity and the outliers, but executive function, like time management. Right. Like there's so much of that that that is a big part of being a good clinician, right? You know, being able to manage your time, being able to prioritize, being able to you know, keep yourself grounded and like in check, like emotionally, so that you can be like you can show up in the way that you need to show up for your for your supervisees, for your clients, for who you know. ⁓ Yeah, and so I think, you know, that theme has come up a lot in our conversations over the last few months, especially is like that ability of like self assessing and s advocating and the skill of if what speaker-0: I just gonna say, is that can I count that as unrestricted hours? speaker-2: You know what? And and I get that. But you know, I guess sometimes it's like, you know, life is outside of the well, it's not casless anymore, but out of the preparation for the exam. Right? Life is outside of that and there are just parts of being a good student, being a good clinician, being a good employee, as that you're going to continue to grow yourself outside of what's expected on the list. However, I get it. I get it. Because a lot of people are paying a lot of good money for, you know, like a lot of money and they're they're really trying to speaker-0: They need a job, right? speaker-1: Yeah. I get that. Yeah. And and part of it as a supervisor, I think, is to learn more about what you're like. I always like to ask, what is your long term? Like, this is your where you're at right now. What are your long term goals? And often having them do even like a job audit where you like go on Indeed and search for things that you might be interested in so that even if, you know, say we're doing ⁓ preference assessments or something like that, we're working on that for your clients, we can still start to talk about, even if that's not the core of your hours. I if it's within my scope, I can start to say, okay, and then this is how this would apply within this other area. Yeah. Just to kind of build some awareness and and things like that so that they can start to learn. And then a lot of the like self-reflection and things like that, that's built more th through those meetings where you're doing a lot of talk aloud problem solving and guiding them through that and helping them to kind of at first it's a lot more maybe guided that Socratic sort of practice ⁓ from you. And then ⁓ but over time kind of releasing that. But even when I do ⁓ like observations, for example, I don't start with my feedback. I always start with like what do you think went well and what would you do differently next time. And so it's not it so much of that like learning to learn and self-reflection is just embedded in your supervision practices in general in in an ideal world. speaker-0: And I think, yes, right. Like and that just goes back to the fact that you need a really good supervisor, right? You need to pick your supervisor wisely if you have that opportunity because like their understanding is is going to limit how much you can grow, right? I th I Right. And you kinda again, you're gonna get siloed. I think that y I don't know, maybe maybe every super or maybe the majority of supervisors do that, right? Like ⁓ try to teach People how to learn, right? How to how to okay, what did go? Cause that that's a wonderful skill. That's something that I picked up when I was teaching people. Like, you don't want to hear me tell you what to do again, right? And that does nothing for anyone, especially me. So, like, how how do you know that you did a good job, right? How do you know that you hit everything that you needed to in that session so that it qu it it provides quality service, right? speaker-2: How can how do you recognize when you don't and you do need support and that it's okay to to reach out for support? speaker-0: You need support. Yeah. And then that goes back to that other point I've had about this field. is like we like no is a bad thing in this field, right? No, I don't know how to do this thing is a bad thing in this field. And like we teach the kids that a lot of people teach kids. They're not allowed to say no, they just gotta do it. And so when when you do that for 20 years, come on, that's not gonna rub off on you, please, right? Like, and so no means bad. Right. I don't know how to do this. That's a bad thing. I have a deficit. Right. And so like I feel like that is embedded in this field. I don't know how you get that out. speaker-1: I think a lot of it again ideally is supervisor. Like as a supervisor saying like I'm not afraid to say like I actually don't know the answer to that. Let's look up, like, let's research this together. Let's you know, and actually that's still outside of the scope. You know, we we still need to tap in someone else who I do know is you know, so helping people say th be comfortable with that, ⁓ seeking out information and then seeking out other people and training. But part of this I think that you're getting at is that it's a bigger cultural issue within the field, which then again, if we're going back to training A piece of that is like as an organization, are you assuming that your B C BAs know are you pre creating that expectation that they are not allowed to not know things or that they're not allowed to ask for support or training? ⁓ are you reinforcing when they, you know, obviously within reason ⁓ are coming to you and and needing help with problem solving and things like that? So ⁓ yeah, I it's I think there's there's so many systems that need to come into play to to support that. speaker-0: Yeah, I just hear that often and maybe you were gonna say this that we they should know how to do that, right? I I've already told them how to do it, you know, and so like and it's it's like it's hard to hear that. speaker-2: to pause though like anyone who who they're like ⁓ that's me and I say that it's okay like this is this is part of the learning process and the self-awareness and the this is how we change and we do better right is recognizing these things because like we're we're on a journey and we're all growing and change like not a single one of us knows what we're doing all the time. Like we choice speaker-0: There's a life. speaker-2: We can in the moment with what we know and some days we have good days and some days we have bad days, but I think that's just I so I don't I don't I my hope is that no one, you know, listens to any of our conversations and feels shame or feels you know, like I just it c I that's part of my people pleaser. I'm just saying, but like that's not the the purpose too here is is to help to like hope to elicit like the the desire to want to do better and sometimes if we do feel like ⁓ speaker-0: It's okay if you feel shame. speaker-2: It's harder for us to come up and say, Hey, I need help. I don't know that I'm doing this right if we're concerned that we're just gonna get criticism that we're always doing. That's part speaker-0: Yeah, and I would urge people that if they're feeling that right now, that ⁓ you're criticizing me, then I I I what is that? Because if you feel that defensiveness right now because you're hearing this, then you're probably putting that on your team as well. Do you know what I mean? So like they're they're yeah, I mean, we're all here to grow and learn, I think, and you know, some people will do it better than others. It took me forty years to realize how many stupid mistakes I was making. So, you know speaker-1: And I I think that's kind of the what I was gonna say too is that this is not coming from a place of like, I've always been a perfect supervisor and known how to do it's like these are kind of the lessons and reflections that I've had to make and learn over the years or have seen ⁓ in organization, you know, s that that I have personally wor worked in and been a part of that system. And so yeah, none of this is ever like you should be perfect. You should as an organization have this figured out from day one. But I think the more that we kind of talk about these things and peel back the layers and just have additional things to consider because There are so many, like you had mentioned before, not even thinking about the fact that a supervisor or a B C B A may not want to be a super you know, they're just things that it's you may not have encountered that thought process before and that's for you to kind of take or leave or, you know, figure out what to do with that. ⁓ but the more that we have these conversations, I think it helps to illuminate. speaker-2: That's what we do here, right? We we we try to have like model like having these conversations and being curious and being intentional and like just really like analyzing and thinking through all of these parts versus just being on autopilot. speaker-0: And this is like an hour and fifteen minutes. We haven't even scratched the surface. So like just take that into consideration as you're teaching your supervisors, right? Like like this is not easy. None of none of this is easy. So speaker-2: Lots of information to cover and there's a lot of conversations to be had. And so ⁓ yeah, on that note, thank you. I enjoy our conversations and I love having you on the podcast and thanks for having us on your podcast too. speaker-0: Yeah, thank you. ⁓ speaker-1: Yeah. ⁓ so if you go to sidekicklearning dot ⁓ we ⁓ you also talked about your your ⁓ your naming. ⁓ if you go to sidekicklearning dot net, ⁓ the app doesn't have a specific name. ⁓ but but yeah, you'll you'll find information about our learning system and curriculum and things that we have there. speaker-0: The name of your app? speaker-2: Nice. So yeah, so so we'll have all that information in the in the show notes if you want to reach out to Ellie. And of course if you wanna reach out to us, we can always put you in touch with her too. So so anyway, anyhow, or like like we have both. We have all three said here, I don't care if you reach out to us, please reach out to somebody, right? Like ⁓ you know, find find ⁓ it's important to have a mentor, it's important to have someone that you feel comfortable with that you can learn from and you can bounce ideas. speaker-0: I mean I do care. You should reach out to me, but if you're not going to, that's fine, I guess, right? But reach out to somebody. speaker-2: Everyone, I hope you have an amazing week and we'll see you next time. See ya. speaker-0: Pinks. speaker-1: Yeah. speaker-2: Thanks for joining us on ABA Business Leaders. speaker-0: We provide mentorship, courses, handbooks, billing support, credentialing, HIPAA support, web design, and more. Everything you need to build an ethical and sustainable ABA practice. speaker-2: You can find all of our resources at threepiesquared.com. speaker-0: Don't forget to subscribe and share this podcast with other ABA business owners. speaker-2: We'll see you next time and remember you don't have to build your practice alone.