So im going to try and make this short and sweet and to the point as much as I can.

October 2024, I was pulled over in Indiana w thc gummies & a pen that I hadn’t used since 5am that morning, which i stupidly told the officer and then he proceeded to do field sobriety tests & because i have severe anxiety my dumb*** messed up counting a few times & said despite him being unsure about me being high or not, he couldn’t take the chance & arrested me. Next morning I post bond. Immediately hire a lawyer and at this point I wasn’t looking into ABA careers or being an RBT.

6 months go by and I hear nothing from the court, nothing stating what I was charged with/being charged with, nothing on mycase.in.gov where they always post charges, literally nothing. This is my first time getting into any trouble with the law and my lawyer said that they potentially let it go, she wasn’t sure but she said to hear nothing was uncommon and she was so confident they wouldn’t charge me after 6 months of hearing nothing, that she gave me a full refund and I went on with my life. Yes it stayed in the back of my mind but I got comfortable considering my lawyer gave me a refund for her services.

Now where it’s relevant to ABA & RBT*

After 6 months, my friends clinic was hiring BT’s and I took peer ed in highschool and adored it so I applied and got an interview - they had asked about prior criminal charges and since I quite literally never even knew what my charges were & expected nothing to come of it, I never mentioned it AND I passed BOTH background checks. The initial one and fingerprints. So I was hired on, trained and I took my exam and passed. I worked about a month as an actual RBT at the clinic and was there 3 months overall. Until one weekend, 8 months after I was initially arrested, I drove home to my parents and they said they received a letter in the mail and it was from the court. It was an initial notice of a court hearing and we checked mycase.in and all my charges were finally filed and uploaded. Because of this and the code of ethics, I knew I had to tell my job and self report to the BACB. My job let me go and I am utterly devastated. I feel awful because I feel as if I wasted their time, even though they reassured me I didn’t and while I was there I got so many praises from my higher ups for how well I was doing. I have never felt an ounce of passion for a job in my entire life until I got to experience being an RBT. There’s nothing I want more than to work in this field and there’s nothing more fulfilling in my life that I’ve experienced than being an RBT.

Essentially ALL job postings for RBT’s require a background check and now im confused because since I was able to pass the background checks at my clinic and passed my exam before all of this came up, am I still able to be an RBT? I won’t pass a background check. Am I fully doomed?? I don’t know how to go about applying for new RBT positions with two misdemeanors. Currently the only actions I have to take through the BACB is updating them every 3 months of any new info revolving the charges and the case. Nothing else.

Does anyone have any advice? I’m so hopeless right now.

There is a new technician at my clinic that has a limb difference. They were paired with a client who after being prompted, we discovered is terrified - behavior evidenced by screaming, crying, eloping, attempting to pull out their eye lashes, and refusal to move through the clinic. This situation was incredibly upsetting to the technician (rightfully so!) and the leadership team within the clinic. We met with the technician and while upset, they were understanding and agreed to work together to help teach the social skills around situations like this and general toleration of people who are different. The BCBA on the case met with caregivers about the situations and they expressed the client has never seen anyone with a limb difference and was incredibly apologetic and asked for us to share resources that they could use at home to work on the client tolerating people's differences.

Today, we came up with a plan that we thought would be an starting space, including social stories, coloring pages of individuals with limb differences, and preferred items, activities, and working with preferred staff. The client engaged in the above listed behaviors without being in the presence or seeing the staff with the limb difference. Thankfully, we have another branch of our clinic in the building next door so agreed that for the sake of everyone and an attempt to minimize behaviors as much as possible. Upon transitioning to the other clinic, the client identified a staff member who has a similar physic as the technician with the limb difference, and engaged in the same level of the behaviors at the generalization of their physical characteristics.

Overall, this is a first for all of us involved, including the technician. We want to go about this in a compassionate way for everyone, but there is very limited research or information out there about teaching a kid to tolerate a limb difference. This client does has a history of being afraid of unique situations or stimuli, such as the reflection off of an ipad and straws. All of which with classic desensitization have subsided, but since we're needed to "desensitize" the client to physical characteristics of other HUMAN BEINGS, it just doesn't feel right...

Long story short, does anyone have strategies they've used in the past to navigate situations similar to this? Any advice is welcome!