In my last blog to you I wrote about the work we’ve done at Instructional ABA Consultants in the last year. As an organization it took us over three years to fully understand Behavioral Health Clinics (BHCs). We know it will take time to help our families learn exactly what a BHC can do and how this will help them. Over the past fourteen years there has been one driving force behind each change we’ve made as a company. There isn’t a change we’ve made without explaining why.
With that, I want to start exactly there in hopes of beginning to help the families and potential families of IABA to know the difference between traditional ABA and interdisciplinary care. It is my hope, darlings, that in understanding our new why, you will come away also knowing how you can access more care for your family.
Our new reason is simple; it is that in order for our neurodiverse children to thrive, we believe the entire family deserves support. While traditional ABA is wonderful and yields incredible results when done with integrity, it does not look beyond to see how ABA can benefit families. An integrative lens asks the question, “What other resources and services will increase the quality of life for families?” In typing this to you I am smiling. You see, darlings, I want nothing more than for each of you to live a life of ease. Raising children is not an easy feat. I know this personally and professionally. I too have hit some walls as a mama and learned the hard way (as I always do) that I can’t do everything by myself.
Asking for Support
One thing I have learned is that when I believe I have asked for help and I am still struggling, it is not my fault. It is an opportunity to look again with compassion to my own experience, peer into my life as an observer, and ask, “What more do you need?” You see, I believe that people are inherently good, myself included. So when I am struggling on the home front, I have to believe I am trying my best – and that my best may not have all the tools and resources my children need.
Just recently I hit a new wall with my own children. I am a mama who allows my children to feel their feelings, all of them. While this is a beautiful thing, it has also created an environment in which all emotions are felt loudly. I’m beyond proud of my little men for expressing their emotions. I want them to feel free to be themselves and to be honest about their experiences on earth. That being said, allowing free expression of feelings can be overwhelming as a single mom. Over winter break as the solstice set in I realized I needed help once again. I wasn’t able to sit in presence with my children while they experienced their feelings because of my own exhaustion. As a mama I want to demonstrate that I’m taking care of myself, too. Becoming emotionally drained from my children’s emotions is not what any of us needed. While therapy is incredible for my children, this time around I found I also simply needed a helping hand at home.
A Wrap Around Approach
In writing this to you I can see your family from my own experience. I do reach out, as many of our IABA’s families do, for outside support for my children. We practice the tools from therapy and work on our goals at home. And, outside of just working on emotions, my family unit needs support simply as human beings. As much as I want to be everything for my children, I know I can’t live a life of ease if I am burning the candle at both ends. Neither, my darlings, can you. If your child is already getting ABA therapy, that is an incredible step to support your family. Integrative care then asks the question, “What else do you need as a family?”
I’m personally learning daily what I need, then unlearning, and learning again by surrounding myself with loving professionals and friends. At IABA I’m beyond proud that the team I lean upon and consider not only my employees but friends are offering that same care and compassion to our IABA families. As we kick off our new year at IABA, families will begin to experience an increase of involvement from us. We will be taking our time in interviewing our families, cross-legged and with open hearts, to continue to understand what they need. In these interviews we’ll gather information with curiosity and care. Then, we’ll lean upon our science to analyze and create the services our families are asking for either directly or as identified through our observations of the whole family.
My darlings, dream big. Speak honestly. We are here and we are listening. Does your child need speech at their ABA clinic? What is your home life like when ABA is over? Do you need help in the home outside of ABA so your child can participate with ease in their community? How is school going? Does your child have siblings? Do they need support? What about you? Would counseling while your child receives ABA help your heart? Have you considered OT? What about social skills groups? Each answer you provide is one more clue to us as a company in understanding what our families need. And, as we seek to understand, we will be using the BHC model to build out services to support your needs.
This project will not happen overnight and yet the foundation has been set to build exactly what our families need. And that, my darlings, brings us back to our why. As a mama and the proud founder of IABA I want my family and our families to be fully supported. We’re dreaming big. Tell us what you need, and from there we are committed to continue to create services for the whole family.
Xoxo,
Jessie Cooper
