Are you a budding Behaviour Analyst? Don’t take this career offramp!

Meeting enthusiastic and talented candidates is one of the things that I enjoy most as CEO at The Lizard Children’s Centre. I always look forward to interviewing new applicants, and hearing about their journey in behavioural therapy as well as their future goals.

But recently I have noticed a growing trend among candidates who have made short-term career choices which limit their long term growth opportunities.

Let’s call it the “PBS offramp”, and it works like this:

A budding Behaviour Analyst is enticed to work at a PBS Provider, with the lure of a big salary (or at least a salary that appears big at this early stage of their career).

Let’s call them “write and flight” providers.

The problem for the new therapist is they have not yet put in the time and effort to earn their formal credential. Like any profession, there is a high entry bar for admission as a Certified Behaviour Analyst..

This requires 1,500 supervised fieldwork hours for your CBA and/or 2,000 hours (plus Board exam) for your BCBA.

Those supervised fieldwork hours and training are critical to building up clinical knowledge and experience. By working hands-on implementing intervention plans, new therapists learn the practical application of their knowledge. And by supervising their own programs, they learn to take a holistic approach to achieving real outcomes for the children they support by working closely with parents and managing their own team of therapy assistants.

But once those grads, now working at the PBS provider, tire of writing endless PBS plans and decide they do want their behaviour analyst credential – to do more rewarding work and take their career to the next level – they find they are stuck in a salary trap. They would have to drop their earnings to go back and work through their supervision as a junior therapist. No-one in this position that I have interviewed has ever joined us at Lizard.

But those few letters after name your open the door to a long term career path as a Certified Behaviour Analyst. This creates a wealth of opportunities to work across a broader range of roles, whether in early intervention, education or even PBS.

There are no short cuts to success. If you are a budding professional, my advice is: put in the time and effort now to earn your stripes. Don’t go chasing short term-money onto the career offramp.

To learn about Lizard’s CBA Supervision Program, see below. We are now open for our 2025 intake.

https://lizardcentre.com/lizard-cba-supervision-program/