aba therapist

therapist

behavioral therapist

administrative assistant

Aspiration and Discoveries

Aspirations and discoveries is a large (2 centres) therapy education centre that offers 1:1 intensive behavioural therapy to children with varying needs (mainly autism, but not limited to ASD) they also offer a private school for children to support school readiness and academic skills. Additionally, they own a large property which acts as an “outdoor centre”. Listed below are the pros and cons of being employed here: 

CONS: 
- 1 week of UNPAID training, plus a contract that mentions you must work for them for 1yr or in some cases 6months minimum. If you resign before you will have to pay back the “training”. Main issue with this is that the training produces no certificate or anything to show or be worth hundreds of dollars. 
- Some senior staff are unhelpful, hard to connect with, and devalue some staff. 
- Many staff do not have much experience/exposure or relevant education to this field, many people appear to be struggling. 
- Only 1 BCBA, and 2-3 senior therapists which results in rare supervisions and ultimately therapy sessions that are NOT up to standard.
- Upper  management are often stretched too thin to help everyone that needs it. 
- BURNOUT is inevitable 
- Binder and planning times are not adequate and result in therapists having to do this work during client time (when they should be providing therapy or education) or end up working outside of their given hours. They will NOT pay you for this extra time needed to complete your work! 
- Highly disorganized, always short staffed and constant changes to schedules which makes your day unpredictable. Clients being grouped (even tho they pay for 1:1) and creating a more challenging therapy session. 
- Parents are kept in the dark if their child did not receive their paid 1:1 sessions, they will ensure different staff are doing drop offs to give the appearance that the child has 1:1 therapy, therefore…
- You feel like an accomplice to dishonest business practices directly effecting families. 
- Some staff get away with not doing work. 
- Poor pay and inconsistent and rare pay raises. You will feel devalued and under appreciated. 
- Lots of promises and attempts to revamp multiple systems…never goes anywhere. 
- Cleanliness of centre is poor 
- Protocols for basic cleaning routines is non existent. No clear expectations are set and new staff are not trained on simple cleanliness expectations that should be enforced. 
- You might come across a cleaning bottle with a high concentration of bleach (bc some staff don’t know how to mix the solution) this is not safe. 
- Poor structure of management 
- “Outdoor centre” has you outside all day in an environment with no proper fencing and you cannot take a break during the time there. Highly stressful. 
- The “outdoor centre” is exhausting and they plan a whole week there in the summer. 
- They charge a good amount of money extra to have students attend their own private “outdoor centre” and make lots of promises about what children will receive, most of the time the “trip” is highly disorganized, no clear guidelines or expectations and lots of waiting and trying to figure out something to do with your client or group on your own. 

PROS: 
- good exposure to the field, plenty of opportunities to learn how to work with children of different development needs. 
- Some senior therapists are great and very helpful (if they have the time) 
- Large centre to allow for groups and you can gain exposure running group therapy as well as 1:1 therapy. 
- Most frontline staff are passionate and want to do well. 
- Although tiring, the work you do is rewarding.


I was scheduled for two days of unpaid “training,” but it wasn’t training at all. There was no structure, no onboarding plan, no checklist, no explanation of expectations ,nothing. Instead, they threw me straight into sessions to do real work for free while staff stood around watching. At no point did anyone make sure I understood what I was doing or why.
                                                                                                                                                                                
 They also placed me with aggressive clients immediately, without proper training, guidance, or any discussion about safety or protocols. I was expected to manage challenging behaviours on day one with no preparation and no support, which is completely unacceptable for a workplace serving vulnerable children.                                             
                                                                                                                                                                                  
The workplace is extremely unorganized. The main trainer and even the person who hired me were unavailable during my first days, leaving me with zero support. Every staff member told me something different, and when I followed what I was told, I got passive-aggressive remarks and attitude for it.

The culture is unprofessional and cliquey. Staff openly talk about new hires right in front of them yes, literally in front of you. One senior male staff member in particular is incredibly rude, condescending, and makes unnecessary comments that make the environment even more uncomfortable. Instead of guiding or supporting new hires, they judge you before you even learn the job.

There is also a clear lack of diversity and no effort to make the environment inclusive or welcoming. The vibe feels closed off, un warm, and dismissive  like walking into someone else's tight knit friend group where you’re not wanted.

For a place that works with vulnerable children, the lack of structure, communication, professionalism, and real training is honestly concerning. There is no consistency, no respect, and no genuine support for staff.

I would not recommend this workplace to anyone looking for proper training, organization, or a respectful environment. Save yourself the stress.

Do not work here. If you're reading this... DO NOT APPLY. 
- management is TERRIBLE, if they find out you're quitting they give you a super HARD time for your last month. And management and every single senior staff member fall into this mean girls/guys clique. DO NOT TRUST ANYBODY.
- There is 1 senior therapist for about 20 staff Monday to Friday and if you need help you're screwed. If you ask too many questions they make you feel TERRIBLE and give you so much attitude
- You start at $18-$19 and after your probation get a $1 to $2 raise to the wonderful amount of $20!!! and for the stuff you will have to endure, this is definitely not enough
- You will deal with very behavioural kids, kids that will genuinely make you feel as though everything you thought about ASD, psychology, and just children in general is not enough and you will feel very inadequate. However! Never forget this does not reflect your abilities but rather managements abilities to train and prepare you for whats ahead
- Speaking of training by the way... you get a wonderful 5 days worth of training!!! which is NOT ENOUGH. A lot of other places will train you for a min of 3 months in order to prepare you for dealing with behavioural children 
Moral of the story: DO NOT APPLY HERE. 

Working 1:1 with autistic children is hard work. It is not as interesting as it sounds, the children can be difficult and it is your job to know what to do. They mostly hire recent college/university graduates with no experience in ABA and working with special needs kids, so these people learn how stressful the job is and often give up. Dont blame them, it is very hard, it is expected a lot from the instructor therapists who have no consistent support from the senior therapists. You also have to complete paperwork that always takes longer than what you are paid for, so expect to work overtime without being paid for it on a daily basis. If you have doubts about being able to clean after children (often older children) and to be “fun” day after day, dont sign the contract. If you sign the contract and you quit before the period, they want you to pay thousands of dollars worth of a training delivered by their own people during their own therapy hours that cost them 0 dollars. I think it is a way to keep people since there is a very high turnover rate. 

Terrible place to work! The clinical trainer has a sense of entitlement and treats everyone below them as if they are less of a person then them. It is extremely hard to advance with in company they say they offer supervised hours but the BcBa is never there to give you the supervised hours that are needed to complete courses. They don’t pay their employees enough for the amount of effort that they put into their job they don’t even give them verbal reinforcement for all the hard work. They nit pick absolutely everything that could of been done instead. IT are told they care to much when advocating for their clients rights. It is a very toxic work place and mentally draining because you are always feeling like you aren’t good enough because of the feedback that they give you. They are also very unorganized when it comes to paper work. 

A typical day would be 1:1 IBI with 1-2 clients in one session. Having that daily really emphasizes my strength in working in groups or with dyads and it only makes me feel more confident in what I do. My supervisors are always there to observe sessions when I need them to and to give positive and constructive feedback when necessary. The hardest part of this job for me is managing my time with having my sessions, being the lead of some community events, and also being a primary therapist for some of the clients. The most enjoyable part of the job would be having the kids i work with tell me how much they enjoy having me as their therapist, as well as hearing from my fellow colleagues how well I am doing; that really makes it worthwhile for me.

My experience at Aspiration was nothing short of terrible and I was miserable the entire time I was there. They provide virtually zero training and throw you in with the clients (sometimes dyads or 2 clients at a time), expecting you to just run the sessions. Management is extremely unsupportive and barely present. When support is requested, none is given. Senior staff are cliquey and will give you attitude and ignore your questions if you try to ask them anything. Any injuries you or your client sustain is always your fault and you get written up for it. I absolutely do not recommend working here.

I hesitated to switch jobs at the beginning as the level they offered me was not my expectation, but they provided training for me to learn the needed skills. I like how they allow everyone to request to move up at their timeline. I was able to move up two levels within the year. The senior team seems to be busy most of the time; it does require a few reschedule to arrange that. But the process went pretty smoothly once it started. They provided good advice and reference for my grad school applications. 

I'm new to the ABA field, although I have worked with children with special needs before, the first two months were intense and very fast pace. The full week hands-on training was very useful, my senior therapist gave me lots of support. I found it helped me to get in the job easier. 

Difficult part: a very big center, larhe team, lots of learners, so need to always work very fast

Thing I like: lots of different types of learners and programs. I got the opportunity to learn and see many things within the first year




the kids are amazing and you'll get a lot of experience working here because of the high volume in kids that come in everyday. But the management is trash. the director doesn't talk to her staff as much. The pay is terrible especially because of the work you do and some of the staff that work there are awkward. the director says she's offering a lot to her employees but you're really just working everyday to feel uncomfortable and unappreciated with the work you do for the children. you're better off finding another instructor therapist job.

Top Job Titles	Average salary
Aba therapist 10 salaries reported	$24.15 per hour
Therapist 1 salary reported	$24.00 per hour
Behavioral therapist 6 salaries reported	$25.00 per hour
Administrative assistant 1 salary reported	$20.00 per hour

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