Amber Nelms 0:00

Welcome. Today's guest is Dr. Jennifer Charles, Executor Director of Building Blocks Resolution. She is a public speaker, consultant, and a board-certified behavior analyst with over 20 years of experience serving children and families. She is known for her work in AVA therapy, staff training, leadership development, and helping organizations grow with quality, intention, and impact. What a privilege to have you on here, Dr. Jennifer. Oh, thank you. Thank you for having me. Well, let's get started with how did you get started in the industry?

Jennifer Charles 0:38

Okay. Well, I actually came into the field pretty intentionally. I was a psych major at Florida State. And so I already getting a bachelor's in psychology, I knew I needed to do more. So I took a class called Careers in Psychology to figure out exactly what I wanted to specialize in. And every week a different expert would come in and talk about the field from clinical psychology, forensic psychology, cognitive psychology, social psychology. But when Dr. John Bailey walked in to introduce applied behavior analysis and something in me just clicked, and I love the field and it just resonated with me. I love the fact that it was not just about understanding behavior, but also it was about changing lives in a measurable way. And that is when I knew I wanted to do that. So I didn't originally think that I wanted to spend my career in autism services. ABA can be applied in so many different ways, like education and business and organizational leadership, even sports and animal training. But I found that working with children with autism and their families was where I felt that I could make the most difference. And that's what led to starting building block resolutions.

Amber Nelms 1:47

How long have you been doing building block? When did you start it?

Jennifer Charles 1:51

The company's been around for 12, 13 years, but I've been a BCBA since 2006. So about 20 years as a BCBA. And before that, I was a BCBA. So it's about 22 years in the field.

Amber Nelms 2:07

I hardly ever meet someone like you. That's awesome. Yeah, we hide. Yeah. I know this is not one of the questions, but can you talk to me more about what the public speaking that you typically do? What is the subject matters that you do public speaking on?

Jennifer Charles 2:23

Usually it's about ABA. And because look ABA can be applied to different aspects of life. And like right now, building block resolutions is focused on autism service delivery, but it can be applied to parenting. It can be applied to businesses, especially. I'm getting really into organizational leadership development since that's what my PhD is in. So really speaking about managing people, managing teams and that sort of stuff. Very cool.

Amber Nelms 2:50

You have spoken specifically also about slowing down to grow smart. What are some hard lessons leaders need to learn when prioritizing speed over quality?

Jennifer Charles 3:03

Yeah, one of the biggest lessons I've learned is that growth doesn't create problems, it actually exposes problems. So when you're serving 10 clients, you can get away with a lot because you are close to everything. You know every family, you know every employee, you know every schedule. But when you grow to 50, 100, those little inefficiencies, they start showing up in major ways. And so systems that work yesterday stop working and communication breaks down, training becomes inconsistent. It's hard to get your bearings on everything, supervision can suffer. So if you haven't built the right infrastructure, things can show up. So I've learned that sustainable growth isn't asking how fast can we grow, but are we still providing the same quality of care as we grow? Because if the answer is no, then we are growing too fast.

Amber Nelms 3:58

What do you use to measure those outcomes over time? Do you have a specific certain type of tech process system?

Jennifer Charles 4:06

I think social validity is not talked about enough. How do you feel as a parent? This is your child. Is he going to school? Is he making friends? Is he graduating? Is he meeting his goals? Is he happy? It can get so easy to get bogged down by the data, but there are a lot of social determinants, social things that we can measure to measure if we are really making that difference. And ultimately, the data could show 10 out of 10 meeting all the goals. But if the child isn't happy, the parent isn't satisfied, they don't feel like they can handle the behavior, then we are not doing a good job. And we have a goal to get the child in and out in two years or less of building block resolutions. And that requires pretty intensive everyone being on board.

Amber Nelms 4:50

That makes sense. Is that something that you measure with a Likert scale on a regular frequency type basis? How do you do that? Just I mean, if you don't have the answer, it's okay. I'm just curious.

Jennifer Charles 5:02

Yes, yes. We send out surveys. Everyone gets surveys, parents get surveys, therapists get surveys. Okay, so use a survey system to figure that out.

Amber Nelms 5:10

Yes. Cool. Awesome. Sorry, I'm adding in other questions. We're currently evaluating something specifically in outcomes right now for a treatment. And so I was just thinking through some of those things myself for my company. Your work spans, clinical care, speaking, consulting, how has stepping outside the traditional provider role shaped the way you lead and influence the field today?

Jennifer Charles 5:34

Yeah, so stepping outside the traditional role has reminded me that families don't experience life in silos. So we can't treat them that way. As clinicians, it's easy to focus on treatment plans and behavior goals and data, like I was saying earlier, but those things are important. But they're only one piece of the puzzle. Families are also navigating school systems, insurance, work schedules, et cetera, and financial pressures and relationships. So all those factors influence whether treatment plans are going to work. So speaking, consulting, and leading an organization has broadened my perspective and challenged me to think beyond individual therapy and ask how we can build supports that support the whole family. And we have at BBR a really interesting parent coaching model where family is extremely involved. So it's a one-on-one, separate from the ABA, but also interconnected with the ABA. And so it's hard to answer in the sense of is it on paper? Because they tell us this is how, so we're constantly talking to the family to see how they're feeling about the therapy. So supporting the whole family as a leader influence how I build my team. I want people with diverse backgrounds and experiences because they bring different perspectives to the clinical team. Not everyone took the straight path. And I like that in my supervisors.

Amber Nelms 7:02

That's amazing. Well, let's talk more about technology in the ABA industry. What systems or technology, especially things like your CRM, scheduling, or practice management platform, have you seen that has helped you the most with scaling your company? Where do you notice that was like the unlock when you got that in place?

Jennifer Charles 7:24

Yeah, that's a tough question because I don't think that there was one that actually unlocked anything. I think the biggest opportunity, because we've tried different, a lot of different CRMs. We've had Hub's HubSpot, we've had Salesforce, we've had Central Reach, we've had WebABA. We're currently using Rethink, we're using Mail or Light, we're using a lot of different technologies at BBR. But, you know, I think it's really about using them more intentionally because there's always a gap. Something sits here. Oh, we use a lot of Excel, a lot of Excel, because that's where we know we have the most control. But trying to find ways to seamlessly kind of interconnect all of the data. We started building custom dashboards for ourselves that kind of pull the data from various places. How are you building the custom dashboards? We're building them. They're actually on Excel. Shared Excel through our team. Yeah.

Amber Nelms 8:24

To be able to pull for the main departments for the main numbers you really need to look at.

Jennifer Charles 8:28

Right, right. Because there's so much data in so many different places. And it's okay, what is actually what's actually important right now? So yeah, so we we we need to be able to quickly find the metrics that are important.

Amber Nelms 8:45

This is not on our main question, so you don't have to answer this if you don't want to. But you seem so smart, and I'm super interested to see what you think an ABA owner of a company, what are the top three metrics everybody should be measuring in your second year in business? The top three.

Jennifer Charles 9:05

Yeah, second year in business. But because the thing is the second year is look so much different than the 12th year. How about the 12th year? What do you think the top three metrics is? Because that would be more relevant to you right now. Right now, I think one of the main ones we measure is the time from referral to services in the home. So yeah, that's a big one. And we've started coding our, you know, how you do the codes with the child's name. So we'll put the code the day the parent called. And so I'll get, okay, we're ready to start services with B R B R to say their whatever their name is or J E C H. And then it'll be 0525. And I'm like, we they called in a year ago and we're just now starting.

Amber Nelms 9:58

Oh yeah, that's a good metric. How long does it take to then get in to you start? There's a technical term for that. Why can't I think what is how long does it take for to close a client? Is how I would say it.

Jennifer Charles 10:11

But you know, so many factors like the insurance or the staff or something. So there's something. So that that trying to close that gap, it's never been a year. So that was probably an extreme example.

Amber Nelms 10:25

Do you know what your average close rate is? Three months.

unknown 10:29

All right.

Amber Nelms 10:29

See, you know that number. See, a lot of people don't know those different numbers, right? It's amazing how much tech stacks, in my opinion, don't really easily pull those that data.

Jennifer Charles 10:39

Well, I was just gonna say, and that's how we just got creative and trying to track it. It's in the name. So if five years later it says J E C H teen, it's wow, this client has been here 11 years. And so we are then tracking, and then we're in and out in two years or less. So if I've been here, Jennifer, little Jennifer has been here 10 years, then we've got to look at what the so then that triggers us to go in deeper to figure out what's going on.

Amber Nelms 11:06

I do think some people, when they look think about numbers, they think about it like, oh, well, that's cold or whatever. I think it's the most compassionate, most important thing you can possibly do as a behavior analyst that owns a ABA company because you are really thinking through the effectiveness of what you're doing. Those numbers equal quality of how cared and you have no idea how that actually works. And like you said, like they were in there way too long. What happened? Is the BCBA doing a good job, right? Or what happened in our intake process? It took forever to get them through. That must have felt shitty for that parent. They were waiting that whole time. So I think sometimes when we this is my observation in training people and teaching people what it looks like to run an ABA company, and oh well, we're using these terms, like that sounds so cold. I'm like, yeah, but those are quality measures if you really look at it. That is actually a quality measure.

Jennifer Charles 11:59

Yeah, yeah, it is. Um, come and and and when we talk about compassion, I I I love the word, but I feel like it's been misused. Oh yes. Like the goal is independence, that's the compassionate thing you can do, is get them to really and not coddling them all day.

Amber Nelms 12:20

So we would have a nice time having coffee together. I would happily do that in the future if you'd like to. I think we would have some very interesting conversations. We'd probably agree on a lot of things. That's awesome. I know what you're talking about. Well, is there anything else you would like to talk to me about in regards to any of those dashboards or anything else? Because that's super interesting. I'm so excited that you are looking at that. I am so thankful you came on the podcast today. I learned some things, it made me think through some things. Any last things you wanted to share before we end today?

Jennifer Charles 12:54

No, I don't think so. I mean, this is a great opportunity. I'm glad we're all collaborating more. I think the field is very scattered, and the more we can start to agree and get along not only with each other, but other professionals in the field. I really want ABA being as the gold option. But I think it can be, but we have to soften our approach sometimes, I think, to people.

Amber Nelms 13:18

I totally agree. Well, thank you, Dr. Jennifer. Appreciate you being on Accelerate with Amber. And I'm excited to see how you have been creating and keeping a strong ABA kit company going and setting it up in the right way. So it's a privilege. Thank you. Thank you. All right, enjoy.