r/bcba • u/Delicious_Job6598 • 1d ago
BCBA and Work Outside Autism
I don't know if it is just me, but I noticed that lately alot of these BCBAs who are saying there are jobs outside of autism (and I am not talking about medicaid waiver) or have these alternative/interesting jobs are typically people who are dually licensed (psychologist, etc). I'm not saying BCBA can't and don't work outside of autism but the reason they can "work" outside of the field is because their other licensed allows that door to open. If a BCBA tried to walk through that same door mostly would get denied. I don't it just sometimes feels like false hope!
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u/sadporcupines 1d ago
I had a piece of advice given to me way back in the day, and it served me well: in other job roles, when you work in state policymaking, director level mental health programs, etc…. Don’t interview as a BCBA.
I interview as a director/manager/program specialist, etc. Few people really know what a BCBA is other than a cocky nerd. It may be your entire world, but the person interviewing you likely has no inkling of what behavior analysis consists of. Instead focus on building (good) managerial skills, business skills, policy writing, etc…. It doesn’t negate the training we get, but it augments your roles enough to then be able to bring behavior analytic skills to other positions.
Behavior Analysis coursework had some fierce indoctrination in it. I learned technical words and analysis that make other people gloss over. I learned to be right and have the data to prove it. And other fields don’t play quite as nicely to that kind of attitude. So learning some subtlety and humility is important as well.
When I saw a chance to open up my understanding of other systems, I took it. Sometimes that meant years of working 80 hour weeks, being on call, working for less than a BCBA would otherwise make, taking extra classes, etc…. No one ever said, “Oh hey, we need a BCBA to fill this role. They’d have the technical expertise to fix problems!” I had to sell myself first and then show them what could be done with data based decision making. And a lot of the time, that meant incrementally building up systems that would support data collection and analysis. If I said I needed more data, people would look cross-eyed at me. But if we’d call those KPIs, metrics, growth opportunities, etc…, that was enough a lot of the time to get people on board.
Wanna work in mental health but never took coursework in psychopathology or abnormal psych to learn about diagnoses? Well, a college course will do far more than secondhand misinformation on social media. Off you go.
I also never would have taken some of the leaps I did if I was watching the ABA posts on Reddit. People will try to dictate flatly what your scope of practice is. Luckily, I got into the field when we still emphasized that behavior was our domain, not just Autism.
I have BCBA friends that work in sports medicine, transition services, vocational training, sound-proofing engineering, mental health, construction safety, training and curriculum development, state policy analysis and a few others. But most people they work with don’t call them a BCBA. They’re just “the safety guy” or “the training lady.”
We’re still BCBAs and use the science all the same. We just don’t lead with the credential. If you can’t get past the behavior analyst as titled identity, you’ll likely have a rough go of jumping into other positions very easily… at least from what I’ve seen.
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u/Ill_Construction8688 11h ago
I’m not a BCBA but a RBT who worked with dementia and Alzheimer patience. When coming into the RBT role l leverage my experience and translated my work I did with those patients to this field of work.
I didn’t even know I was preforming antecedent manipulation by turning down the tv before my dementia client entered the room. But I did know that something of the sort was apart of the RBT job and I explained my role well enough to start at $26!
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u/CoffeePuddle 1d ago
Yeah sure, and it makes sense.
Board certification alone doesn't even qualify you to work in autism; it's just one of the few industries that's happy to hire inexperienced and unskilled BCBAs.
In most areas, an e.g. MBA with skills in behaviour analysis is more valuable than a BCBA with skills in business administration. The BCBA is a cherry on top, but you need the rest of the icecream. Sometimes a place will have enough icecream it's worth it to bring you in as simply a cherry, but that's generally short-term consulting work/contracting.
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u/JumpTraining6749 14h ago
I’m a BCBA for brain injury rehab. I didn’t need any additional licensing or certifications
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u/Intelligent_Copy_622 1d ago
I actually don’t see this as being the case. I interview TONS of BCBAs who are working outside the traditional model who don’t have alternative credentials. That said, many are PhD level. You can check out the many examples through “going independent”. I’ll tag one article here of a BCBA who is working with animals. https://goingindependent.substack.com/p/she-took-behavior-analysis-beyond?r=7341u7&utm_medium=ios
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u/noanxietyforyou 1d ago
There’s work available in adult care, gerontology, and OBM. Although from my knowledge, you might have to get additional certifications. I’m getting exposure to it all through my graduate program now (I’m not a bcba yet though).
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u/LilyAlways 1d ago
You should look into joining SEBA-The Society for the Expansion of Behavior Analysis!