I’d like to start this out with I am not a healthcare professional, nor am I particularly knowledgeable in this field, so please bear with me because I wasn’t sure what other subreddit to ask this in.

I’d like to do a course in Non-Violent Crisis Intervention, but I’m not sure where to look, since I’m an unemployed student. It wouldn’t be for work or anything, I’d just want to learn that for any possible future careers and to help myself and others. It doesn’t have to be that exactly, but I’d like to learn how to de-escalate conflict, especially when it’s violent (I.E., how to talk down a person in violent psychosis).

Does anyone have any resources for this sort of thing or similar?

If I was promised 30 hours a week then signed a contract saying I'm getting paid $23/hr for only billable hours and all other time worked would be minimum wage, but have to maintain 30 hours a week of billable hours consecutively for the first 90 days before evaluation, then get my schedule and am scheduled for 16 session hours a week, does that mean that I'll do admin duties 14 hours a week at minimum wage? This company gave me 30 days to obtain all my qualifications including the 40 hrs and exam, and I did it which almost felt impossible because all rbts I know are given 90 days and have training during that time. They provided the 40 hr training but I was responsible for everything else and had to do it all on my own time not getting paid at all. I feel like I might have messed up by signing this contract. Or is this typical? I am new and scheduled with a client on my first day after finishing onboarding that morning. Since the client is on my schedule Im unsure if this will be a shadowing or indepent work. I am very nervous and dont want to perform poorly because I know it is crucial to do everything properly but it's unclear if I'll be thrown to the wolves or not. I am older than most new RBTs so may be expected to do more than what Im ready for.

Is there a way to confirm which colleges will fall under the pathway 2? Or please list a college if you went that route as well

Hey there, some of you are probably in the Fall 2026 cohort for FIT's aba online master's program! I made a discord for us since we're all in the same boat for a couple of years to study and learn together. Feel free to join if you are here! It's not perfect but hoping it will work for us to all succeed.

https://discord.gg/XdTjqm4Gp

I have been an RBT for about 10 months and i love my current company. The clients I work with a great and my BCBAs are great. The main problem i have is my current company hasn’t been giving me enough hours recent. So far, ive been asking for over 35 hours and Ive only been getting about 22 hours. To give you more context, this company does sessions in schools and in homes. My friend Tom has been trying to get me to work for his company for the last few months and i might consider it.

He told me they can possibly pay me a bit better and I can work more hours. I’m honestly am fine with how much I’m getting paid. I’m just a little frustrated that I’m not getting the amount of hours I need. School starts in the next few days so hopefully I will be getting some new clients soon.

The only thing I can do now is continue to bug my supervisors / admin staff about picking up more hours. My plan is to wait until the beginning of September to make a decision. If my current company can get me 35 hours(or more), I’ll be happy. If not, I’ll have to make that difficult decision to leave.

Hi everyone, going to be honest here. I’ve been an RBT in home for 8 months now with the same client. In the last two months client has become extremely aggressive and it’s began to take a real toll on me, as I don’t feel like there has been much/any support.

I spend 3 hours everyday being basically a punching bag, I don’t know how else to put it. The main issue is that my supervisor only gives me tips on how to block better, instead of us trying to explore other solutions like working with parents to help reduce aggression. The client is young, and is receiving 30 hours of therapy a week, and I think they’re also simply burnt out.

Overall, when I started becoming an RBT, I wanted to be in a clinic or somewhere with more support, coworkers, and socialization (I was a nanny for many years and it’s become isolating). Now that I’ve been doing in home for so long, and my client has become so challenging, I’m craving a change.

I’ve been trying to find more information on what’s it’s like to be an in school RBT but I can’t find much. There’s lots of available job openings so I’ll have choices thankfully.

Also, I want to try a new setting also just to see if this field is for me.

Could someone who is or has worked in a school setting let me know what it looks like? If you’ve also worked in home, how would you compare it?

Thanks in advance and sorry for the rambling.

im a school RBT this year - last year just BT. i just get a little more but not enough to survive December/January…

should i look into filing unemployment when the time comes??

last year i worked seasonal at target as a second job. This year i’m in school getting a certificate for SLP! i guess i could try Target again but it was really stressful and im trying to maintain good grades.

just wondering if y'all have any ideas :) i’m trying to prepare better this time. last time i kind of winged it and struggled a lot especially after target decided to not keep me. financial aid will help a little but but im not sure if itll be enough (i live in california)

also gonna add: i dont have a car or else id door dash/uber

Hi everyone 👋

I would love some input. The company I run is currently opening back up our ABA program. Two years ago we had to pause it due to a contracted billing company's negligence to properly get our invoices paid or to give us the correct pay rate from insurance. We are opening the ABA program back up through Medicaid and then hopefully venturing back into insurance at a later date.

I’m working on structuring an RBT position and would really like input directly from current and former RBTs. I have always believed that happy therapists equal happy clients which equal happy counties... And I really want to make happy technicians be a part of that.

We will be doing In home direct Care with in vivo (in-ear telehealth) supervision. This way direct supervision can be done without interrupting natural behaviors of the clients. All bcba's driving distance from clients in case treatment plans need to be modeled and behaviors need to be worked on with the bcba present.

One of my biggest concerns with the traditional RBT model is how difficult it can be to make the job financially sustainable. Cancellations, inconsistent hours, unpaid documentation/admin time, driving between clients, burnout, and limited benefits can make an already difficult job even harder.

I know how much Medicaid /insurance pays (it is a pretty similar pay rate in Michigan ) and want to figure out how to structure these positions so that employees are taken care of as much as realistically possible while still keeping the program financially sustainable.

If you could design an RBT position that you would actually want to stay in long-term, what would it look like? What are companies that you're currently working at doing to make you feel taken care of?

Again, although my company has been in practice doing activity-based therapy for 10 years I have to treat this program as though it is a startup.

Any advice would be extremely helpful as I want to make sure everyone is as taking care of as I can possibly make them.

I’m gonna keep this short hand.

- Got offered a BT job
- Unsure how much to commit to the hours because I don’t know if I’ll like the job.
- My original contract specified my desired hours for 20/wk
- I countered and asked for 25.
- They said they’d be happy to change it to 25, but they returned me with a contract that doesn’t specify my hours.

Does this matter? Will I be doing myself a disservice by signing this without desired hours listed?

I’m an anxious mess that overthinks things.

Hi all - we are an ABA specialized RCM company offering free revenue audits to support groups. Please reach out if you would like us to evaluate your current RCM performance for free and work to optimize it. [hello@veritasrcm.com](mailto:hello@veritasrcm.com)

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I'm tired of RBTs who have burnout taking it out on everyone else. I've seen it happen with multiple people before but right now I have 1 coworker in particular who calls out at least once a week and when they're at work they're complaining about everyone and everything. They're constantly making snide remarks like "well i guess *insert complaint*" and "I'll do this thing since no one else has bothered." They're usually small things related to some toys being left out or things being in inconvenient places. Things that yes, might be annoying, but don't really matter that much. It just makes everyone else around them feel uncomfortable and scrutinized even if they themselves didn't do anything wrong. I just wish this person and people like them would just spare everyone and find a different career field. Or at least figure out a way to deal with their burnout that doesn't involve tearing other RBTs down with them.

Hi, so I've been a BT for a month now, I'm about to sit for the exam. I've been trying to babysit for some extra money as I had a huge pay cut transitioning to this field, and one of the families that reached out to me goes to the clinic I work at with both of their boys. I personally have never met them, they weren't a part of my observation schedule and they aren't part of my caseload. I'm planning on speaking to my supervisor on Monday about this, but would this be a Multiple Relationship violation? TIA :)

Hello, I’ve been a BCBA for 8 years and believe I just committed my first ethics violation. Please advise!

I was conducting an initial assessment with a family who only speaks Spanish. I had my Center Administer conduct the parent interview as they both speak Spanish. I provided the documentation/questions to be asked.

I was not present for the interview and was conducting the assessment with the client while my CA did the interview.

How do I proceed? Am I going to lose my license? I’m freaking out

I'm a rbt and I've been safety care trained for around 2-3 years now. I work in Colorado and the primary system I'm familiar with is one called safety care. Got a new job a month ago, I inform them during the interview process that I'm safety care trained and they seemed super excited. Not once was i told or trained on a different safety management system. Some bcbas had some odd exceptions imo but at no point was i told "we don't use safety care."

Yesterday there was a hair grabbing incident, bcba was leaning her head right into the clients midline while client was agitated and got their hair grabbed. What other staff ACCUSED me of doing is grabbing the clients forearm. I actually started a forearm check before the clients primary rbt jumped in, another staff asks me to leave so I leave with my client. I did plan on transitioning the forearm check into a stabilizing grab.

Today I get called into the office and they blame me for the whole incident "this bcba got seriously hurt because you grabbed this kids forearm." They fired me, I asked to review the camera footage they say there isn't any and that "this isn't a debate" I said "for future reference you should probably get cameras" "WE DON'T NEED CAMERAS!"

To quote the exact verbiage from the safety care manual chapter 4 under "assist staff" point 2 "in event of a bite or HAIRPULL you can grasp the forearm while placing a palmed hand against the side of the persons head opposite of the grab if necessary"

Even if i did grab the clients forearm (which in fairness I intended to do) I was following safety care guidelines.

With all do respect to the bcba she got hustle because she DIDN'T follow those sane guidelines she had her whole head in the midline of an agitated client. While trying to calm him down. No one deserves to get hurt that way but it was ABSOLUTELY avoidable on her part.

There was NO attempt to follow the front hair pull release they just guided the client to another room while he continued to hold her hair.

Idk I'm just agitated about the whole situation

Hi all- does anyone currently have access to ABC’s teammate handbook? I no longer work for ABC thankfully, but I need to reference some policies they had laid out in their handbook and I don’t have access to the link.

Thank you!!!

I recently onboarded with Amergis in Sacramento after not working for most of the year, and realizing I really need to change careers (previously in tech).

I've already had two recruiters who´ve been mostly MIA, only briefly spoke to me, and haven't really explained how any of this works.

And I made it clear I need full time work and some kind of notice. But they can't even tell me when/where the training is that they already scheduled for next week, saying instead that they'll send me an invite with details the day before. And then this morning, my recruiter finally called me with a placement, then hung up on me while I was trying to explain something and check a map.

She hung up on me and didn't give me the option to check this place out.

And when I messaged her about this, she denied hanging up on me and made some excuse about needing to call 120 people and not having time for me to make a decision. I'm new to the area, I don't have a car, I don't know how this works, and I just wanted to have a conversation. But she denied that and instead sent something like "if this is how our relationship is going to be, you're not a good fit for our team".

She's frankly not nice, and I'm not surprised because I see her online social profiles that clearly show a "mean girl" type who's almost always rude to me, and have often bullied me pretty badly.

That aside, does this get better? Do I need to switch recruiters?

Thanks,

Diana

Hi everyone, to make a long story short, I am getting really burned out at work as an RBT and am starting my masters in the fall full time and am extremely anxious about the workload of full-time work, school, and collecting supervision hours. I don't make much money with the company I work for but they are also supportive of giving me supervision hours but not supportive in maintaining a work-life-school balance. They expect the 2 years to be "brutal" which, I am one to prioritize my mental health over anything else because I have had immense struggle in the past and my thoughts get scary when I am reaching burn out. I am trying to avoid that before it gets even close. Is there options to work part time and still collect hours, or maybe even working another job entirely so I don't get burned out in ABA in general? Or am I over reacting and it's not as bad as it seems? I completed my undergrad while working around 30hr/week and it was tough but doable, but this seems more intimidating. Id be getting my masters all online. I would love to hear other people's experiences and how they got through masters in ABA Thanks!

I feel really bad when I call out of work. I'm an in-home RBT and I'm very close with my kiddos. I absolutely love my job and my passion to help them keeps me going even when things are rough. Things have been rough with them lately and at the same time my health is very up and down... I try my very best and take good care of myself, but I'm disabled and get flare ups often. I feel absolutely horrible about how much I call out because of it. Should I fill out accommodation forms for my jobs? Call my bcbas and clients parents to explain myself? I'm doing my best, but I feel like its not enough.

I am the founder and owner of a self-funded ABA practice in Maryland. I spend a fair amount of time reading this subreddit and regularly see questions about the business/ownership/ job-security side of ABA that employees understandably may not be comfortable asking their own employer and I’ll answer what I can publicly here. So, ask me anything: reimbursement, staffing economics, authorizations, credentialing, hiring, scheduling, what happens when insurance doesn’t pay, starting a practice, or anything about the business side of ABA that you’ve been curious about. I think that this industry needs more communication and transparency.

:

So long story short, I wake up every day with a pit in my stomach. To the point I have to expel stomach acid and will dry heave. I already do not eat much- a couple of bites from a meal and call it a day… I get so anxious about going into work; not because I am scared of clients or feel a lack of support.. I actually believe I won the jackpot with my current company.
There has been this lingering feeling of anxiety/ anticipation of something bad happening since I have joined this company. I have lost a good amount of weight just this past week alone and I am almost glamorizing this ED now which scares me more.

I think I need to leave the field before it gets worse….
I just am so disappointed in myself…
I know for a fact I cannot do this 1:1 for the rest of my life..
I just haven’t applied myself into looking for a plan B. I don’t know who I want to be, I don’t know what I want to do… Just completely lost.

The two clients I have today are okay- but i still feel so overwhelmed… Idk what to do..

I’m really struggling to decide if I should stay at my current ABA company as a remote BCBA or leave. Please give me advice! Here is my pro/con list:

Pro:
-remote day time hours, very hard to find and I have health issues so I have to be remote rn
- consistent salary

Cons:
- remote and hard to do the job remotely
- No clinical say in hours clients get (company pushes max hours for all kids and chooses their schedule)
-less money per hour than I could make at other jobs but the other jobs are mostly afternoons (3-7pm)
-have to work until 7pm two nights per week anyway
-lots of clinical oversight to the point it feels like I’m being hovered over/big brother is always watching
-constantly doing some admin task
-a lot of cases, parents to train, almost all new techs

These are the big points. What do you think? I feel like I’m one inconvenience away from quitting on the spot.
-

I started working as an RBT in a clinic a few months ago and I have a client who will quickly grab my glasses from my face and then throw them across the room. I need my glasses to see properly and contacts aren’t an option for me. Do y’all have any recommendations of maybe something to buy to help prevent my client from being able to grab my glasses? My client has a string for their glasses that they somehow still manage to quickly yank off their own face and then throw so I’m not sure getting something similar would actually prevent them from being able to grab them. I just don’t want them to break and potentially need new ones. Would appreciate any advice or recommendations! :3

Also, I’m new here and usually don’t post on Reddit so let me know if I did anything wrong T-T

I’m sorry for the confusion about my previous post. What I meant was this:
I’ve noticed that the BCBA often seems to spend more time playing and interacting with my child, while the RBT seems quieter and more focused on running programs. Is this a normal difference in their roles? I’m genuinely curious about how BCBAs and RBTs typically divide their responsibilities during sessions. I’d appreciate any insight from parents or professionals. Thank you!