Why and How: Building Home-Based Intervention Teams

Build your own team

The beauty of having individualized funding in BC is the freedom to build your own home-based ABA team.

The benefits of having a home team include:

  • Flexibility of choosing the when and where to have therapy sessions.
  • Full control of how to use your autism funding.
  • Ability to interview and hire each service provider to build the team, ensuring that the team is made up of professionals who are a good fit for your child.

Team composition

A home-based ABA team typically comprises a BCBA, sometimes a junior consultant or BCaBA, a senior BI, and at least one junior BI.

For caregiver collaboration only service models, a BCBA, sometimes also a junior consultant or BCaBA, will consult and collaborate with the caregivers only, without any BIs on the team.

BCBA

A BCBA is a Board Certified Behaviour Analyst with a masters degree and an active certification with the Behaviour Analyst Certification Board (BACB). They provide consultation services to clients and are considered category A service providers on the list of Registered Approved Service Providers (RASP).

They complete assessments, develop programs, provide training and supervision to the Behaviour Interventionists (BI), collaborate with other service providers and school professionals on the clients’ behalf. They attend and lead monthly meetings.

They conduct overlaps with BIs and parents to provide ongoing supervision and training. They monitor program progress, make adjustments, and troubleshoot behavioural and program goal concerns. When there is a junior consultant on the team, the BCBA usually takes on the clinical supervisor role and oversees the work of the junior consultant or BCaBA.

Junior Consultant

A junior consultant may be a certified assistant behaviour analyst (BCaBA) or one who is pursuing a certification with the BACB. A BCaBA is an assistant BCBA, with a bachelor’s degree and active certification with the BACB. They do the same tasks as would a BCBA, but they are supervised by a clinical supervisor with a BCBA certification. If a team does not have a Senior BI, the junior consultant often takes on the administrative duties (e.g., data report in preparation for team meetings, preparing materials, organizing and updating the datasheets).

Behaviour Interventionists

Once you have found a suitable consulting team, you will be ready to hire behaviour interventionists (BIs).

Behaviour interventionists conduct direct therapy with the client on a weekly basis and collect data for program goals set out by the supervising behaviour analysts. BIs receive ongoing supervision and evaluation from the supervising behaviour analysts on the team to maintain a high quality of therapeutic effectiveness and implementation fidelity. BIs may take on a senior role with additional responsibilities or a junior role on the team.

Parents (Team Manager role)

As parents, you will be the Team Manager of your home-based ABA team members. Your role includes:

  • Posting for, interviewing, and hiring BIs (we may help with this process as requested).
  • Negotiating payment and scheduling terms with the BIs.
  • Ensuring all team members send you monthly invoices so you can budget your funding accordingly.
  • Managing BI-related issues such as those relating to professional conduct and work ethic (e.g., tardiness, lack of communication, etc.), scheduling (e.g., cancelations, reduced hours, etc.), finances (e.g., rate changes, invoice discrepancies, etc.), and termination.
  • Obtaining SLP and OT services based on your child’s needs.
  • Connecting all the professionals (i.e., BCBA, BCaBA, SLP, OT, School team) on your child’s team for collaboration. This may include sending a simple email to introduce everyone on the team.

As a Team Manager, you can run an effective home ABA team by:

  • Making sure you are cc’d on all email communication.
  • Responding to and following up on the team’s emails and messages.
  • Attending each monthly team meeting so you are updated on therapy goals and so you have a say in your child’s program.
  • Receiving training from the senior BI or behaviour analysts on running generalization procedures for all the programs.
  • Maintaining open communication with the behaviour analysts regarding challenges with behaviour interventions.
  • Maintaining a professional relationship with all staff members by refraining from forming friendships with BIs and Consultants and requesting additional services (e.g., babysitting, school pick-ups, etc.)