I worked here for almost 2 years and I m surprised...

I worked here for almost 2 years and I m surprised more people have not come forward and reviewed the center. It s completely unsafe for both clients and staff and there s a serious issue with morale and gossip that forces employees to leave the work environment. Not to mention that staff are highly unpaid and expected to work even if clients have injured them. The moment you advocate for your physical and mental health, you re threatened with termination and denied PTO days.

The director has been talking about a new school for about a decade and in the time I worked there, I begged constantly for materials and resources for the kids. Other than edible reinforcements, I NEVER saw one dollar go into anything for the kids. If any of the staff bought materials, they were not reimbursed. The heat doesn t work in most rooms in the building and they never sought to fix that, and in the summer they don t turn on the A/C because they re cheap. Yet, the center had $1 million donated last May at the Gala. The CEO drives $120K in vehicles and one director got a new vehicle while the other went to Europe.

If the woman who does the audits would have evaluated the EI playground structure, she would have noticed that the wall was held together with duct tape and that if a kid fell, the likelihood of death or serious injury was extremely high. There was an outbreak of Hand, Foot, and Mouth disease and there were issues of bed bugs biting clients. For over 6 months, the fence between Primary and EI was broken, leaving the opportunity for the larger, aggressive children to elope should they become escalated. This place is unsafe for clients and staff. Not to mention that the directors knowingly had staff bill for 1-1 services when clients were being doubled and tripled with staff and on some days, BCBAs who are not trained on certain staff were working with clients with major TBx. The biggest concern I remember was seeing a BCBA work with 5 clients and only 1 was hers. Other staff have told me that they were instructed to continue to bill those insurance companies for 1-1 services.

They do what they can to get donors and staff, including making an elaborate PR statement that the center has vans used to take children on field trips. Those vans have never been used. All staff leave and they remain short-staffed because they don t make an effort to care about employees and modify their behavior for the better. For people who have studied behavioral health, it blows my mind how much they focus on getting drunk almost daily and talking about people in such a negative manner that they do not feel welcome despite how amazing they are as a RBT or BCBA. The people in charge just want your money, but you ll never see where the entirety of it goes.

I do believe that ABA is beneficial for children diagnosed with autism, but this center lacks the ethics and morale to be trusted with these children. I hope an investigation is conducted and that the center is closed. It would be what is best for the clients and the staff forced to work in deplorable conditions with them.