Butterfly Effects Reviews

Petty supervisors Impersonal staff Broken Promises Lengthy application and training process

Cons: BCBA training/on boarding does not match the processes and procedures needed to perform your job well Intake process is a mess and puts undue stress on BCBA’s Software system is a nightmare at best Crisis training and is a joke and borderline unethical Huge disconnect between administration, authorizations, and the clinical staff (BCBA’s). Poor pay for RBT’s or behavior techs which causes high turnover in employees which also causes stress for BCBA’s Not reimbursed for any materials or reinforcers for clients. The office will say you can get items shipped to you from the main office in FL but it doesn’t work consistently. Often times will take too long to actually get materials, if you even get them at all. In my time at Butterfy Effects, I have seen 8 out of 12 BCBA’s leave in 2 years. Please continue reading if you are a BCBA thinking of applying. I wish I had read the reviews online before accepting my position and frankly burned out so bad on this field I am no longer a practicing BCBA. This agency loses smart, talented and well trained people by mismanaging the crap out of them. I will start from the beginning to explain how things go so wrong at this agency. On boarding is disconnected from the procedures that allow BCBA’s do his or her job well. I attended on boarding once, however had spoken to people who attended the training that were hired after me and it was basically more focus on our culture and not enough on how to utilize our computer system (central reach) for reports, tracking goals, creating goals, billing for our time, managing schedules and managing other people’s schedules (just to name a few). Understandably, you will be unable to fluently complete all of these tasks with in three days of training however out of the three days only one was really spent on the computer system we use for daily operations. This is a fundamental problem which I will get into later on. Intake process is disjointed from our main office (authorizations department), confusing for newly enrolled families, and stressful for BCBA’s. We are only given 4 hours total regardless of what insurance will allow. The 4 hours includes 2 hours of writing the plan and only 2 hours of consulting with the family. This is mostly due to Tricare which is understandable for that insurance however to make a general sweeping rule regardless of insurance (when I know other insurances will allow up to 10 hours) doesn't make sense. It makes BCBA’s create a vague plan that oftentimes doesn't even match the client’s skill set because we don’t know them that well yet. To confound the issue more, we are not allowed to do direct so we have to put a tech (who may or may not be completely new to ABA) on a case that we are not clear on what is clinically appropriate yet. In my opinion, it creates opportunity for techs to be unclear about expectations, I have seen multiple plans from other BCBA’s (to no fault of their own) that did not include procedures because they were still trying to figure out the function of a behavior or what behaviors for acquisition are needed to be taught. To confound the issue more, due to poor on boarding many new BCBA’s to the agency do not know how to fluently adjust goals and add procedures to our software system which causes that BCBA to be behind in updating programs which either causes the BCBA to work 14 hour days or it affects his/her quality of programs. The intake process is a mess also because of the authorizations department does not share useful assessments or documentation that could be helpful for a BCBA prior to going out to an intake assessment. The main office collects the paperwork which includes a very sloppy and frankly unethical informed consent form (there are no specific indications who the information is to be released, the dates the release is good for, and what information is to be released). Additionally, the office does not have a standardized form to ask the family what they are most concerned with or what are the behavior challenges they are facing. As a BCBA, you are expected to follow up with the family once an intake is approved by calling the family and gathering this information over the phone. This is understandable however in practice it is not realistic. We often end up playing phone tag with the new client because we are usually in session, driving where we don’t have coverage, or frankly don't want to answer the phone at 7pm. Many times when we go to meet the client we have no idea what the clients likes/dislikes are, what the problem behaviors are, or the frequency of the problem behaviors that occur. For my previous agency I was ok with this because I had more than 2 hours with a client (unless they were tricare) and was able to gather that important information. However at Butterfly Effects, we don’t have the time to talk about the medical history, gather baseline, observe the client, build rapport, explain what ABA is, explain what the expectations are for ABA therapy, and then explain our supervision model. We also have to complete various assessments such as the PDDBI, if needed, which just takes away from our ability to do an indirect assessment/interview. It is expected for the BCBA to do all of these things during the intake process. Once a newly hired BCBA is credentialed they are bombarded with intakes to get them up to his/her billable hours regardless of what that BCBA’s training is. You are essentially expected to work with all clients regardless of what your are able to provide. This directly violates our ethical code and needs to change. Additionally, you are expected to supervise and consult so if you are a new BCBA this can be particularly challenging as it is very different skill set then providing direct services. My co-workers all talked about working 12-14 hour days just to stay on top of their cases and in two cases it created marital conflict. One of my previous coworkers was getting up at 5am just to stay on top of emails since that is really the only way the main office likes to communicate. Three other coworkers had health complications due to stress which included but not limited to panic disorder. Behavior Technicians are treated as part time employees are not paid what they are worth and end up leaving for better jobs that provide benefits or more pay. This creates undue stress on the BCBA's as we are responsible for services being provided to clients which cannot be carried out if behavior technicians leave all the time. This is on top of managing parent or caregiver expectations who usually hate the high turnover and often times will complain to his or her BCBA since we are the ones they see. It frankly sucks and adds to the stress. In addition to the issues listed above, staff are given “training” on crisis management which are videos however we do not actually train staff on PCM or other crisis management training methods in person. According to management we do not take clients that would require crisis management interventions or procedures however due to our poor screening process and limited intake process we have provided services to clients who were physically aggressive. When I brought my concerns up to management that a video is not sufficient enough to properly train people in crisis intervention methods I was basically torn apart because I didn't follow the correct agency procedure for reporting aggression issues which would start the process to discharge a client or refer out. I made sure to state my concerns, again, regarding the lack of crisis training and that if we have parents or staff who could potentially be physically harmed they needed to go through the training. Following me raising my concerns, two more staff got physically injured and one parent was aggressed upon. Additionally, other BCBA’s agreed with me that it was an issue and that management clearly was out of touch.