Lead Therapist

Position Requirements: Education and/or Experience:

  • Master’s degree in a psychology related field.
  • Bachelor’s degree plus 2,000 hours working with children under age 18 with disabilities.
  • Two years experience with Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA) methodology preferred.
  • Two or more years experience working with children with Autism or related disorders.
  • One to two years experience supervising a team of professionals preferred.
  • Experience using Microsoft Office;
  • primarily Word and Excel.
  • Familiarity with the ABBLS and SDQ.
  • Experience with electronic medical records preferred.

The role of the Lead Therapist is to provide supervision to therapists that are giving one to one instruction using Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA)
techniques in a center or community based setting with preschool to school aged children with diagnosed moderate to severe disabilities, primarily Autism.

Job Title: Lead Therapist
Reports To: Clinical Supervisor/C.E.O
Position Status: Hourly
Work Days: Monday through Friday
Work Hours: 9 – 5:30

Position Qualifications: 

To perform this job successfully, an individual must be able to perform each essential duty satisfactorily. The requirements listed below are representative of the knowledge, skill, and/or ability required. Reasonable accommodations may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform the essential functions.

  • Must possess a valid driver’s license and insurance.
  • Cooperates successfully as a member of a team.
  • Communicates effectively with others, including giving and receiving feedback on the quality of services.
  • Experience working with families/parents with children with Autism.
  • Experience with case management job duties such as setting up transportation, coordinating appointments with social workers, assisting families in finding funding for their child, etc.
  • Experience writing IEP’s/ITP’s and behavior plans.
  • Experience graphing data.
  • Experience training staff on ABA based therapies.
  • Ability to maintain confidentiality.
  • Effective oral and written communication skills.
  • Demonstrated capability to interface and maintain effective relationships with staff, consultants, in a team-oriented environment.
  • Capacity to assume responsibility for own professional development.
  • Detail oriented, logical, and methodological approach to problem solving.
  • Flexible, with the ability to work in a highly demanding, stressful environment.
  • Conduct a variety of assessments to ensure client progress.
  • Experience writing yearly evaluations for subordinate staff.

Language Skills: 

Ability to read and speak English proficiently. Somali or other languages are a plus.

Physical Demands:

The physical demands described here are representative of those that must be met by an individual to successfully perform the essential functions of this job. Reasonable accommodations may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform the essential functions.

  • Regular requirement to talk, hear, and see.
  • Frequent requirements to stand, walk, jump, run, sit; use hands to handle or feel; reach with hands and arms; and stoop, kneel, crouch,  or crawl.
  •  Occasionally lift and/or move up to 50 pounds. 
  • Specific vision requirements include the ability to see at close range.
  • Fine hand manipulation.
  • Ability to work at multiple agency locations if necessary.

Work Environment: 

The work environment characteristics described here are representative of those an individual encounters while performing the essential functions of this job. Reasonable accommodations maybe made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform the essential functions.

  • Center or community based setting.
  • The noise level in the work environment is usually moderate to high.

Duties & Responsibilities:
Interact With Children:

  • Instruct and supervise children in activities
  • Teach children basic to advanced skills using ABA techniques
  • Work with individual children or small groups of children to reinforce new skills initially introduced throughout the duration of the therapy session
  • Devise and implement special strategies for reinforcing skills based on the special needs and abilities of each child.
  • Assist with critical daily activities such as transition times, mealtimes, and toileting/diapering.
  • Utilize appropriate language, interactions and positive discipline.
  • Model positive behavior.
  • Implement age appropriate activities
  • Continuously monitor children to ensure safety at all times

Assess Children:

  • Take pictures and maintain anecdotal notes, written observations, and other approved forms of documentation and data for each child when instructed to do so by Clinical Manager.
  • A variety of assessments will be done with each client regularly to ensure progress.

Curriculum Preparation:

  • Develop age appropriate, individualized activities for breaks and down time in conjunction with Clinical Manager.
  • Provide data driven recommendations for programming and behavior intervention.
  • Individualize all client programming to cater to the learning skills of each client.

Communicate With Parents:

  • As a parent advocate, help resolve issues or concerns that are raised by parents and staff with the assistance of the Clinical Manager
  • Train parents in home, center and/or community based settings in order to generalize skills and give parents tools to better teach their child.
  • Inform parents about daily routine, daily progress, expectations, and other pertinent information.
  • Communicate with parents about incidents that have been observed and/or recorded during sessions.
  • Obtain all required parental signatures such as on all incident reports and daily sign in sheets.
 

Documentation:

  • Complete all necessary paperwork for sessions including data collection sheets and daily progress sheets in a timely manner.
  • Maintain accurate and up to date progress notes for all children worked with on a daily basis.
  • Graph client data monthly.
  • Update treatment plans minimally every 90 days.
  • Manage client/staff schedules via electronic medical records
  • Familiarity with Electronic Health Record (EHR) preferred

Facility Maintenance:

  • Help to maintain a clean and organized learning environment.
  • Sanitize all surfaces, equipment, and toys and materials when necessary
  • Assist with routinely checking materials to ensure they are in good repair in order to conduct effective therapy sessions.
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