This week I’ve been asked to write to you about what we value at Instructional ABA Consultants. If you are an employee or family we serve, I’m sure that you’ve received a welcome letter from us listing our values. Broadly speaking we value clear communication, compassion, integrity, and accountability. These values were created, then re-created by my incredible team that has stood by my side since the beginning of IABA. In typing this I’m smiling fondly thinking about our old round tables in the first office. This is where we decided who we wanted to be as a company. Today, the same faces that sat beside me are the directors and supervisors you all know so well, directors who all started with me, boots on the ground, to build a company we’re proud of.
In reading over the list of our values, I know that they ring true to what we expect from ourselves and others at IABA. It’s hard to believe that almost fourteen years ago the dream I had to build a company for clients who couldn’t find anyone to take their funding has blossomed into the company I oversee today. As a passionate (ok, fiery) young professional I was deeply in love with applied behavior analysis and how it could change lives when done with integrity. I was also beyond angry that mainstream ABA companies were accepting clients based on their insurance fee schedule not their clinical needs. Through my love and anger I decided that if no one was going to serve the underserved in my community, I’d figure out how to run a company. I mean, my dad owned a farm market. How hard could it be?
Years later I’m smiling to myself about both my ambition and my naive beliefs about what it takes to run a successful business. Thank goodness for youth that gives us wings to try something not knowing how often we will crash before we truly know how to soar.
The Art of Discipline
Over the years of running IABA it has felt as though I’ve lived a thousand lives. It turns out what it takes to run a successful business is a lot and just when you think you’ve learned what it takes another challenge comes knocking. This is especially true for us at IABA because our primary funding is waiver and Medicaid dollars. To access this funding and serve our clients with it is, well, challenging to say the least. And to uphold the magic of ABA done correctly? That, my darlings, is a fine-tuned machine that takes daily attention and care. You see, all those years ago when we decided our values, we also built a scientific performance system. Gently humming behind every skill learned, behavior decreased, and company policy is a data point.
As I write these words to you about what we value at IABA, I know that the business answer here is what we put on all of our paperwork. I’ve told the story I’ve written above more times than I can count. It’s my classic elevator speech, “I was a young BCBA who was…” I’m sure if you read back through my previous blogs you’ll find the trend of our origins – young scientists who were angry at corporate America turned into middle aged scientists still angry at corporate America. Yet when I sit with myself in silence and really think about what we value at IABA, all of the words I’m writing to you fall away and one word softly sits within my heart – humanity.
A Love of Humanity
When you are creating a business on a napkin that becomes a fully operational business, there has to be a why. As an entrepreneur I understand that we need all of the policy, procedures, and business savvy language to ensure we are organized as a business. Giving our staff key touch points like our values helps us all stay centered in knowing both what we expect from each other and what we are committed to providing our clients. But truly, when I look at the team I have today, I know we could wipe away all the noise and in the heart of every employee at IABA one value beats true.
We believe that every child who walks through the door deserves to live their very best life. We’ve held the hands of countless parents who don’t understand their autistic child and need support. And we’ve listened to their hearts asking, “Will my child be okay? Will you treat us right? Do we have to fight for what they need?” Time and time again my staff reply, “We’ve got you.” Because we do. We see that parents are having a difficult enough time as it is and need a company that sees their child as just that, a child. And a company that will offer the highest quality of care using not just the science but the art of ABA.
At IABA we also know that the children we serve grow up to be adults and while we prepare them in our children’s division for this, we also serve adults. While our goal is that every child graduates ABA, we also know that adults living in group homes didn’t have access to ABA as children. Without childhood services, adulthood can be difficult for adults with disabilities. And there are certain disabilities that need lifelong care. My staff see that, too, and so we serve across the lifespan with our science helping wherever we can.
Years ago, I sat with my grandpa talking about faith. He asked me, “Jessie, who will you serve?” I had no idea at the time I would build IABA. Sitting here today, thinking about who we are as a company, I know I have found who I’ve wanted to serve in this chapter of my life. Yes, we have core values. But, my darlings, what we truly value is each other. The lives that walk in our door matter to all of us. When I rest my weary head on the shoulders of the team I have grown up with, I know we’re all doing what we’ve always wanted to do – give each other and our clients a chance to shine. Humanity, at IABA we value humanity.
Xoxo,
Jessie Cooper
