Pros
Accommodating for scheduling Workload isn't anything ridiculous Pay is ok for current position in life- probably not ideal for a family breadwinner Can generally get the hours you need Kids are lovely for the most part- though there are a handful who honestly have needs so intensive that being at the center is a detriment to them.
Cons
The program has zero scientific evidence behind it. Many tenets of the program are directly contradicted by current research. I have seen next to no improvement in the many children I've worked with. While I adored the children, any changes I have seen in them were explainable by maturation, or from the other therapies that many of them receive in addition to Brain Balance. When families have pointed out that they saw no improvements, center directors were quick to claim that the family wasn't correctly adhering to the program, or even accuse them of being poor parents. The staff are mostly college-aged and have very little qualification to have this level of involvement working with special-needs children. They do not hold crisis intervention training, nor nonviolent communication, and it shows. I have witnessed coworkers be entirely unable to handle a child having a hard time without becoming visibly frustrated on a regular basis. My coworkers were frequently on their smartphones while working with the children, and at the same time, telling the children how bad screentime was for them. The nature of the program does not allow us the opportunity to sit down and talk it out when a child is having a hard time. We are asked to spend the entire session only on approved activities, with zero regard for things that are relevant to the child's interests. The response to challenging behavior from my coworkers and superiors was often to simply command the child to perform the activity, despite that some of the children had legitimate concerns about some of the activities not being appropriate for them. We were told that any child objecting was to be considered "manipulative" and their objections overridden. I once witnessed a superior harass a child -who had been abused- to tears, because they weren't moving to the next activity quickly enough. Some of the program elements provide ridiculous levels of sensory input, which can actually be physically painful for certain children. We are heavily discouraged from reducing the input, even if we feel that the child is not able to tolerate it. There are often children in the center who really should be worked with on a one-on-one basis that are not, and these children are often placed together to work with one staff member. This isn't good for either child in the session, as neither child will get the appropriate amount of attention. There is a lot of pressure to get enrollment up, and the children suffer from it. Often times, the only way for children to get one-on-one attention is to pull the child out of school to go. Directors claim that working 2 on 1 builds mirror neurons, but as someone who knows how mirror neurons work, it's clear that it's an excuse to overcrowd a timeslot. We are directly instructed to lie about our knowledge of program cost when asked, as they want families to complete an evaluation first to make them more likely to enroll. The website assessment is programmed to tell you that your child may have an "imbalance"even if only one "symptom" is selected. High-pressure sales tactics are used to get families to enroll, and I have felt sick seeing clearly struggling families having to take out loans to enroll. They often prey upon families who are desperate and exhausted.
