My name is Jonathan Mueller. I'm the host of Building Better Businesses in ABA podcast, and my guest today is Amanda Fulbright. Amanda is the Senior VP of Learning and Performance Development for Blue Sprig Pediatrics, um, where the departments are in international accreditation from the Accrediting Alliance for Training and Development. And the 2022 Learning in Practice Silver Award. We'll have to learn more about those.
Amanda earned her bachelor's and master's degrees from the University of North Texas. Uh, she's a BCBA and licensed in multiple states, and she shares a birthday with my daughter Clarabelle, April 15th. Amanda, welcome to the pod.
Thank you. Thanks for having me.
Hey, Amanda. Thank you for being here. I've never done this before, but have you seen or listened to the podcast smartless?
I have, yes.
Uh, Sean Hayes and, and Will Arnett, Jason Bateman? Their interactions are freaking hysterical and like their vibe is cool and they always just talk like with their guests around like how they know each other and things. And so I'm like, one of the things I wanna start with here, um, on some context is that is April 15th, most people know April 15th that, that it's tax day, right?
Mm-hmm.
That's obvious. In the US it's tax day. What people don't realize is that, um, there are some, uh, ignomous things, there's some cool things that happen on April 15th, like it's Jackie Robinson Day. So every player in Major League baseball wears number 42. That's cool. On the other side of the ledger, um, apparently on April 14th, the Titanic hit an iceberg, on April 15th, it sank. Abraham Lincoln was shot on April 14th, on April 15th, he passed away.
And you helped to teach me about other weird things that happened on April 15th
Mm-hmm,mm-hmm, such as Notre Dame, Notre Dame. Uh, caught fire on the 15th. Bad, bad news,
Bad news bears, right? It's just, it's this weird like, um, yeah, april 15th. So I don't know, that was kind of cool. And I have to say, like when we first met, it was at the Autism Law Summit, right? Just back in, in October. I think we had amazing like Italian Tapas Place Anyway, that was like one of the most fun. We had all kinds of cool people there. Learned so much about one another. It was a really fun event.
And all of that is to say, um, I'm freaking stoked to have this conversation with you. I hope you're excited too.
I am too, but I, I do have to, to say about the Tapas place. I have a lot of regret about that night because I did not eat the bread pudding that I ordered and I sent that home with you? Was someone, and I was filled with regret to this day about that. So
That's like the, uh, leftovers remorse. That was one of the best bread puddings I've ever had. And, you know, I hate wasting food. my mom was like, she grew up Catholic, nine kids, right? and they were, they were very poor. So she instilled me from a young age, you like, eat all of your food. And so when we had so many leftovers, I brought them all back to the hotel. I think I snacked a little, but I could not finish them before I left. So I have leftovers remorse as well.
We'll have to meet up again in OKC.
Uh, yes. Back at the Bar Cicchetti. Well, Amanda, your title is Senior Vice President, um, of Learning, which is really interesting to me. Tell me what's the difference between training and learning and like, why are you so insistent on that learning component of your role?
Right, right. So, you know, I work for Blue Sprig and it's a, you know, is was a startup. So I had the benefit of getting to pick my title, right, or pick the department name, and I was insistent on it being learning and development or learning and performance development. We later added the performance to it. Um, because training is an event, learning is a process, training is finite. Learning is infinite.
And we are really trying to create a culture of learning and continuous learning at Blue Sprig and, and that's my professional goal, right? Wherever I am. So I didn't wanna box myself into an event, cuz that's not what I'm interested in.
Hmm. It's almost like, uh, we have this expression in my organizations like, training is something you do not something you did.
Mm-hmm. Mm.
and the other reason I love that is training is like, it, it puts the onus like on the trainer, right? No, the onus should be on the learner and what they're learning in whatever application
Yeah. Well, I, I think it's a dance, it's a partnership between, trainer, if you will, or whomever is creating content and who's consuming the content. So in this case, you might see yourself as the trainer, right? You're providing content for people to learn from. I also see training as an event. Like, Ooh, everybody log in at this time. We're gonna provide this training. Or, here's an e-learning course, and it's, you know, 30 minutes or an hour. Whereas learning can be anything.
Learning can be reading, it can be listening, it can be experiential, it can be, you know, anything. And so by just saying that you're the training director or training coordinator, it, it boxes yourself in and it makes it, it limits you. And we wanna be limitless.
Yes. Limitless. Wasn't there a Bradley Cooper movie Limitless, or maybe, I don't know, Chris Helmsworth, who knows.
familiar when I said it. Yeah.
We'll Dish separately on, uh, Bradley Cooper and, and Chris Helmsworth movies. But, you know, you are, um, you were one of the first employees at Blue Sprig five plus years ago. And I think if I remember saying correctly, you're maybe the most tenured or close to Sharon Kerr the most tenured,
So I like to say that, that Sharon and I started on the same day. So Sharon Kerr's, our, chief Clinical Officer, we started on the same day, but I got there first. So I beat her by two hours because she was flying in from California. So I have tenure.
Wait, What? What the, The early bird gets the worm. Well, so you had experienced so much in the ABA field prior to coming to Blue Sprig, and now Blue Sprig's an organization of what, like 2,500 team members.
Yeah.
But you, you'd experience, I'm sure, so many pain points when it comes to this learning/ training. Like how did those pain points that you experienced inform how you built a learning and performance development department?
Yeah, that's a great question. I, I like to think that learning also speaks to evolution. And as any company, but our field in general, we're evolving, right? We get new information today. We didn't have it yesterday, and now we're gonna change something and we're gonna make it better. We're gonna make it better, for our employees or for the, the clients who we serve.
So we really approach learning programs as being okay with evolution and celebrating it, like change gets such a bad rap, but if you look at it as evolution and you celebrate that whenever you can, it's, it's a lot easier to evolve. And so we never look at our programs as done. You know, it's, they're done for now, and the data will tell us where to go next, or information will tell us where to go next. If you just stopped evolving where you started, you're gonna stay the same.
And that's not good for our field.
And so how do you build those kinds of mechanisms? The idea of like continuous improvement and getting a little bit better each day and, you know, coping with the evolution and new research and new payer guidelines or whatever it is that comes out. How do you build that into your systems?
Right. So for us, you know, we have a team of X people. Actually we have a team of 11 people right now, but it started in a team of one and that was me. And so you have to look at what you can do, what's reasonable to be able to do and to maintain. And then you kind of go from there, you make a priority list of this is gonna be most impactful for our team today. And you work on that and you set some metrics and you measure to those metrics.
And then when you're, you know, kind of done with that benchmark and, and the program goes into what we might call maintenance, then you go to your next item on the list and you know, you're talking to your stakeholders. You need to understand what's important for the organization. And that's, you know, operationally, clinically speaking, hr, you know, you've gotta get all those stakeholders involved in where do we go next?
And then you commit to it, you measure it, and you put that in maintenance. But when we put something in maintenance, we have, regular cadence of when we kind of touch it again and say, are we still doing what we set out to do? Does this now need to do something different and then we adjust accordingly? But that's really important for organizations to know how much they can do to set that priority list. When I was a person of one, I couldn't achieve nearly what I can achieve with 11.
So this is fascinating. I'm curious, let's talk more about like the metrics that you described. what are the kinds of metrics that tell you that you and your department are successful vis-a-vis your team members?
Yeah. So we, we start any learning program with an assessment that we've created internally. And so we ask, what do you wanna achieve out of this? That's the most important question, is what outcomes are you looking for? And then the next question is, okay, what do these people have to do to achieve those outcomes. And we backtrack from there. How many people does this affect? Are these all of the RBTs in the organization or is this one center in Oregon? You know?
And so from that assessment we decide, what are the, um, modalities of training that we're going to use that are gonna best achieve those outcomes? And then how are we gonna know we were successful? So depending on what outcome we're looking for changes how we're gonna measure it. Generally speaking, we like to use the Kirkpatrick Model of Evaluation. Are you familiar with that, Jonathan?
I'm not, tell me more
yeah, the Kirkpatrick Model of Evaluation kind of looks at three levels of evaluation. So the reaction, um, is do people like it? Then learning, did they learn something? Which are generally really easy to measure those two things, with like a survey or maybe a test at the end of a course or something like that. And then level three is behavior. Did you get a change in behavior? That's where you start to see some, uh, return on investment.
That's generally why we would do training, spend the time to do training, is to get some change in behavior, that's hard to measure because you need people to observe and measure that behavior. Right? And then four is results. What were your results out of it? So like, did turnover decrease? Were you able to train people in a shorter duration of time? Did your pass rates on your RBT exam go up? Things like that. Those are the, kind of the ROIs.
so we are generally using, um, some level of the Kirkpatrick model when we are measuring our training programs.
So let me make sure I'm clear on your scope. Are you, um, overseeing training just for the clinical and or operational pieces or is it for like all
yes, Everyone. All programs.
Okay. So, um, alright, I want, I want listeners, I get this in my, you literally seeing like every kind of training, um, that Blue Sprig delivers. But I want go to like a baby steps part of this Kirkpatrick model. Make sure I heard this right, that the first question is really do people like the training, which is so freaking basic. And yet that's, so there's a reason social validity exists, right? I mean, are people gonna come back this kind of training in the future?
Like that's, so it's, that's kind of mind blowing. Cause I think most people would go immediately toward, okay, what are we trying to train on? If they're measuring it all, what are we trying to train on? What are the outcomes we want? And do we achieve those as opposed to like, what's even a good training that people like. Tell me more about how you conceptualize this and like, and then make training like, interesting, exciting.
initially when we started training and I got another person on the, the training team, she's, five to seven years younger than me, right? And we're doing our basic kind of PowerPoint training, right? Most people do this and, um, she, she looked at me one day and she was like, I think I'm getting old. And I was, Why? And she's like, well, the scary thing is not only am I getting old, but the people we're training are staying the same age. Right. They're like all 20 somethings.
And so the older she gets, she's the further away from the target audience, right? and so she's like, they don't have the attention spans that maybe we do. Um, We're in TikTok generation now, right? They need everything they need to know in 90 seconds, go. And so we really started to evaluate the modality of how we train and how do we break out of the PowerPoint box, right? How do we get out of this presentation mode and to create a training that resonates with our target audience?
And at Blue Sprig and probably many ABA companies, our target audience is in their early to mid twenties and they don't want to listen to your PowerPoint. So how do we get them the information they need, when they need it, and how they best learn?
So what does that end up looking like? Is that like, TikTok like nine second, like trainings or how do you like, have this balance, um, of making it fun and accessible, yet actually getting concepts across.
Right. So we over the last couple of years have started playing around with what's called micro training. So anything that's, that's small bite sized pieces. Um, we try to put training like in the flow of work, so if you are doing training on something like how to convert a time sheet or something, pop up that training during that time. try to look at that while you're right before you do this. Don't go and everybody do this one training at eight o'clock in the morning on Monday.
No, no. Like do it right before you convert your time sheet because that's where it's gonna help you most, right? And so short bites, as short as possible, um, to get the information across, they can always re-watch it. We can always give you a job aid on top of it, but don't make training any longer than it has to. That has dual benefits because now you're not paying a lot of people to sit in training that is not useful. we also are working on some gamification.
so making things more scenario based or game based, things like earning badges for doing things or, um, scenario based game training. Like, um, I'm a operations manager and I have to make my, center safe. So it's a little game that they can play where they go through and um, you know, move the bleach to the locked cabinet and things like that. so we're trying to think outside the box from what we all kind of grew up on and what's new.
And so we kind of sit in this juxtaposition of behavior analyst meets instructional designer, meets graphics designer, meets gamer. Like it's the coolest place to be. I love sitting where I am right now and getting to use my brain in a very different way than I probably expected when I was 20 something
that's so cool on so many levels and this whole idea of instructional design, I think is, is really important. And like putting yourself in the learner's shoes. Right. And what's gonna be in their workflow. By the way, you mentioned that, that idea of your colleague who said like, they're, you know, I get older and like the incoming RBTs stay the same. Reminds me like Matthew McConaughey was that the, the quote from Dazed and Confused
Yes,
he had some inappropriate quote, Anyway, enough said, but let me come back to like, I, I really like that you're taking the learner's approach and putting things in their environment, and I think that's like apps these days, right? Apps are built so that you go to the app store on Android or an iPhone, you open it up, you don't have to go read a 10 page instruction manual.
No, it's just, it like shows you at the beginning of the app, like click on this and it highlights something and puts Tooltips in right as reminders and prompts. But like, that's the, the level of response effort that RBTs or clinicians, others. That's a level of response effort that they expect in the rest of their life as they engage in training with the new technology. And so now, um, like it's kind of crazy to think that we could do any kind of training and expect more of a response effort.
Is that the right way to think about it?
Right, right. Yeah. I mean when they're used to being able to, um, throw away an instruction manual and go on YouTube and have somebody show them how to do it. And think about that too, like YouTube, there's probably 10 different videos for, for everything that's out there. So if one didn't resonate with you within like the first 30 seconds, what are you gonna do, next, and go to the next one.
So we have to try to respond in a way that makes the learners want to continue learning because if I'm checked out and I already hate this 30 seconds in, what is the likelihood of me retaining a damn thing that you're about to tell me? So I'm not saying that we're perfect. I mean, we're dealing with thousands of people here. Uh, we're not gonna be able to hit on every single person's learning style, but we're trying. And I think that is, uh, a good place to start.
Absolutely. Um, and I think that's more than, than much of our field is doing. Now um, you have someone on your team that, like their entire job is just looking at analytics. Is that right?
Yes, yes. Dr. April Foreman, she's our performance analyst. And um, also the person who said she gets older and they get younger. Um, she was the second person to the LPD team. So yeah, she, um, is constantly looking at our data and, uh, giving us those metrics and helping to steer us in the right direction and to make changes when we need to make them, and to stay the course when we need to stay the course because what we're doing is working.
So tell me more about how, well just one, the mechanics of how are you storing that data? Is it learning management system? Is it sitting in excel spreadsheet somewhere. And then two, what is sort of like a rhythm of how she and you are looking at data? What, what are the kinds of things you look at and what are the types of decisions that you might make based on seeing, um, that data?
Yeah. For the most part, our data live in our learning management system, and that's where we're pulling the data out of. and so she's looking at every, just about every program we have, she's looking at on some cadence. And that cadence is dictated by what phase are we in, are we like in a pilot phase? Um, in which case we are probably looking at daily or weekly data. Um, are we in a maintenance phase where it might be monthly or quarterly that we're evaluating those data.
So it really depends on where the program is at. Um, most of our maintenance kind of programs that are, are run in are quarterly basis that we are evaluating the data. Um, but our newer programs are, are usually in kind of a weekly to monthly data set that we're looking at. So most of it is in, um, in our learning management system that we can pull out into like an Excel or cbc.
Um, and then she, uh, puts a lot of it in Power BI so that we have dashboards to look at for a lot of our maintenance programs.
So are you then with that data. Might you go back and say, Ooh, this course is not achieving the outcomes we strove for, or, Ooh, people are falling off as of a certain like, amount of time. Are those the kinds of things you're looking at, decision you're making, or tell me more about that.
Yeah. So we're gonna look at the data and say, okay, this isn't the outcome that we expected or wanted. Uh, let's, let's go in and do some, performance analysis and see where, where are we falling short here? Is this, um, a tools and resources, our team doesn't have the tools and resources to achieve the outcome. Is this, uh, something to do with the instruction? Like we could do better in the, the design of the course or the materials that are involved? Is this a reinforcement issue?
Um, do we need to work on some contingencies out in the field? Becuase we don't hold token uh, on the LPD team, we don't hold those contingencies, we just help reinforce those. So we might have to talk to some stakeholders about putting some different things in place. Um, so we, you know, we, we go through kind of some, performance, analysis at that point to try to figure out what do we need to tweak.
Then we tweak it, and then at that point, because we've changed something, we're gonna probably measure and evaluate sooner than, than quarterly at that point.
Hmm. And so tell me more about the performance development side of your role. is that related to sort of like the traditional HR Performance management stuff and are you collecting data generally around people's performance or is that more specific to the training you're doing? And what are the expectations of any given team member of frequency of training and how much they're doing?
Yeah, so it's more related to, uh, more of like an OBM perhaps perspective. In that case I also have gone through Dr. Carl Binder's program, um, at the Performance Thinking Network. So I'm a, I'm a certified performance thinker, So that is, um, something that I bring really heavily into my role, at Blue Sprig and the LPD department, so we can look at behavior and analyze it on an individual basis.
Like say if somebody is struggling to, uh, get through training or if they're one of our interns and is struggling, we can, we can look at, uh, at a micro level or we can take it in zoom all the way out and look at processes on more of a macro level.
Hold on, let's, let's back up, you are a certified performance thinker, Amanda, I have to better understand what that means.
Yeah. So, um, Dr. Carl Binder, if you're familiar with him, has a company, it's the Performance Thinking Network and, he does some of the coolest work and, and one of my colleagues from grad school, Shane Isley, works with him and they have like a coaching program and a performance thinking program, I meant was in the performance thinking program, I'm like at a more, organizational level, but then they have a coach program that might be more for supervisors and things like that.
and they teach people to, you know, analyze performance issues and, and, and do better work at their organization. Really cool folks. You should have 'em on your podcast
Should, is that like in analyzing and thinking about performance? Is that like the PDC. The, like for human services, the performance diagnostic checklist that I think was was that Carr and Bailey and others.
In the realm. I mean, that's a little bit more traditional OBM and Carl could tell you, um, much more eloquently than I how his work is outside of the OBM realm. Um, but it's, it's related.
Neat. Um, tell me, how'd you choose your learning management system and, and are you generally happy with it?
I am, I'm generally happy with it, um, because of the amount of data we collect. I'm always want a little bit more and a little bit more. Um, but we, we wanted to be able to a, control our content completely, um, and be able to use different modalities of content uploaded. so we use different authoring tools, um, depending on what type of training we're doing, like we talked about before. So I wanted to have, um, a range of capabilities there, and to be able to change it whenever we saw fit.
And I didn't wanna go through anyone to, to be able to do that. we wanted a lot of data, uh, a lot of reporting, robust reportinguh, capabilities, and we wanted the interface to be really clean and simple. going back to the, the user, the average user that's going to use this system, is used to that clean design system, you know, that we, we kind of see now. So we wanted it to be really user friendly and really streamlined. and I think we've got it.
we, looked at about 10 LMS systems and decided on, we used Learn Upon
Learn upon. Awesome. I, okay. You know, we, we've used a couple, few, actually had to Ascend and Element both my organizations. You know it's really interesting one of the ones we use is actually required for Arizona Medicaid. And so we've, we've always had to have like a separate stove pipe LMS for like our team members in Arizona. um, anyway, and it's fine.
I haven't been necessarily a raving fan of any LMS in particular that I've used, but I think that idea of like the ability to control content of using like, videos, right, and, and authoring that feels really important to bring like the spirit of your authentic, organization like your values, right? And who you are and what's important to you, and in the context of the kind the kiddos you're serving, like that has felt really important.
And so that's what I haven't been in love with LMS is, although I will say that lms, um, that we use in Arizona, it's through Relias. The one cool thing I like that it does, it has this automated maintenance schedule where it'll send you an email like, three days later and then, and it asks a question and you can just click in the email the answer and it says, yay or nope, that's not right. And it shows you a pie chart of how many people got it right. it was cool.
But to that, to your point around, look, you know, training isn't something you do and you're done. Even for one simple lesson, you have to make sure skills maintain over time, which oh, by the way, is the same as our freaking field and our science and what we do when we're creating life-changing outcomes for kiddos. Right,
right? I mean, and even though you can answer that question doesn't mean they're gonna do it
yes, indeed, indeed.
so that's a level two of the Kirkpatrick model that just showed learning happened. We're really much more concerned with behavior and outcomes.
Amen. That's a level three is the change in behavior. Uh, so that is really interesting. Like how do you measure that? Do you have like cameras on people at all times, or like how, how do you measure whether learning happened?
Sometimes I wish, um, and sometimes I don't. but it might be easier. Um, we really have to partner with our managers out in the field, um, out at the centers to verify that for us, you know, competency assessments and, and check-ins and things like that. Um, and we try to make it as easy as humanly possible, but also, you know, measuring behavior is time consuming. And, you know, it is, it is kind of what it is.
Amen to that. Well, tell me more Amanda about having earned this international accreditation from the accrediting Alliance for Training and Development and also that, um, just I guess in, 2022, this Learning and Practice Silver Award, what, what did y'all have to do to, to achieve both of those?
Yeah, for the accreditation we had to, you know, fill out a, uh, a profile of how we can run. our department. What we're looking at, what we're measuring, and, uh, the types of courses that we have and, and all the way down to like how we write our objectives for learning and things like that. And so it was a, it was a quite lengthy process that we had kind of to send in and have evaluated by this, third party to be able to get accredited.
Um, for the Silver Award, we, uh, nominated our clinical supervisor training to that, uh, to that award. So it's for like the talent management award for that organization. So we were pretty proud of in this year, we, um, started a new clinical supervisor training to where they all kind of come together for a four week cohort and then go out, For the next up to six months to kind of continue to build upon those skill sets.
so we give you everything you need to know to hit the ground running in four weeks, and then you kind of continue to build upon that for the next while. So, We won the Silver Award for that, uh, for that program. we were able to show like the high satisfaction from the trainees, but also from the, managers of those trainees. And also, uh, a reduction in turnover in that, position in the first six months from starting that program as well.
Ooh, tell me more about that. I mean, uh, turnover and retention is always a hot topic in our field, and especially in this last year of the great resignation and all the different options that RBTs, BCBA is just any employee might have. Like how did you, how'd you conceptualize the, wanting to reduce retention and then having a program, a clinical supervisor training program that did that? Tell me more.
Right. So being in an organization that has, um, you know, well over a hundred locations, it's not likely that I'm ever gonna have the budget to go out and travel to these, these locations, right? Every time somebody starts. So we originally, left the onboarding to each individual center for those positions, we gave 'em like a toolkit and here you go, and here's how to do the onboarding.
And what we were finding is that those employees at those locations didn't feel, in general connected to the big picture of Blue Sprig. They didn't feel connected to the organization as a whole or even locations down the street. some of them are relatively small or new locations, and maybe they're the only person there. So how do I connect with my peers? I have no peers in these four walls.
And so our, our theory was that if we were able to connect them to the big picture, connect them to our mission and values, From day one and connect them to other, um, resources such as like the LPD for one, um, and also other peers that their satisfaction in that first, uh, three to six months would increase. Um, so that was the theory. so far theory is testing out to be correct. So we're, we're seeing some good data from that early data, but good data.
That's extraordinary. Right on. You've identified a challenge, you wanna root cause and figure out what's going on and then, uh, do things that will move the needle. And that's really neat that that silver award is for, was a result. Now for, for smaller ABA providers, right, which is like, I don't know, so. I, I, I've seen stats, 85% of our field is like single site ABA providers.
what would you, if they don't have necessarily like the budget to hire someone or invest in LMS or whatever, what would you recommend as a first step to kick off a formal learning and performance development program?
Yeah, that's, that's tough. Um, and I was there, right? I mean, Blue Sprig was a single site, small place when I started. And so you, you gather up with your stakeholders, whomever those folks might be, might be one other person, maybe you're these stakeholders. Um, but you make your list of what are all the things you wanna do in training or learning. what things are going to move the needle for your organization. And then you rank those in what, what's gonna be the biggest impact for you?
And then again, you start by saying, how will I know I was, I was right. How did I know that I, that I did this, that I achieved this? And you start and you measure those. And as you grow, you know, you pick a new one. And I would say it's really important to check with your stakeholders to make sure the priorities that were the priorities six months ago are still the priorities today. Because things change. Um, payers have new requirements, you know, all of that stuff.
Things change, things evolve, and, um, and then keep those programs in maintenance and then add to your team as you can and, and also, don't be afraid to go outside of the behavioral skills training bubble. It is a gold standard of training, but it is not the only way to train. Um, you've gotta think of, of these other things. Like we were talking about different modalities of training.
Now everything has to be a PowerPoint, so dig into kind of some LND um, literature and that space, and grab a mentor if you can from that space. we've learned a lot by, kinda just looking outside of what traditional ABA has taught us and kind of dipped our toes into, uh, LND to instructional design, to, um, all of those kind of related fields, and it'll make you really well rounded.
I love that you, you said that, because our ABA field is still so young in the grand scheme of things, it feels like a long time, a decade, right, that services are being paid for, but we are so young and we don't have to reinvent the wheel. So Amanda, is there like a seminal book or research paper or curriculum out there that like, has been really important to you, um, in your journey that you'd recommend?
Yeah. Um, performance based evaluation, by Judith Hale. I think that I've bought every used copy that's available of this book on Amazon, but maybe somebody has put another one out there. Um, cuz I buy it for my team. Every one of my team members has this book. and I go back to it at least every three months or so. I'm pulling that book back out and going, now what did Judy say? I'm going back to
I love, we'll drop a link to that in the show notes. Um, I have not read that book, so I can't wait. And, you know, everything that you said is so spot on about like, starting up a training program in terms of prioritizing, check with stakeholders, keep programs in maintenance, um, go outside the BSD bubble. And you know, the one build I, I would have on that is just make training something that's part of your culture, right?
I know what Ascend we say one of our four values is 1% better every day. And the only way that happens is by ongoing training and feedback and you know all the mechanisms that come with that. Um, but build that same way you build compliance into your organizational DNA training has built into your organization
if training's boring and training's long and arduous and it just all around sucks, people aren't gonna do it. So make it, make it as cool and as fun and as engaging and worthwhile as you can.
Hmm, spot on. Well, let me shift gears just a little bit. Um, you're the new host as of January, 2023 of Blue Sprig's Autism and Therapy Podcast. So congratulations. That's phenomenal. Like, what are you most excited about and most nervous about?
Um, so Tim Crilly, our, our mutual friend, um, I was always his biggest cheerleader as the host of, of the podcast. I never anticipated being a player. I, I was happy to be a cheerleader on the podcast, not a player. So I think that I'm kind of nervous about everything about the podcast right now, but, but it'll be okay.
Tim's my, my good friend and will continue to be a resource for me and the producer of the podcast actually has been on the learning and performance development team, um, the entire time. So, you know, we already have a really great relationship so that that makes it easier to, to kind of slide in.
Oh, Tim is an OG and awesome, and we met, in fact, through Tim Crilly. So big shout out to him. He was a huge help in helping me think about my podcast and the podCASP team through CASP. but I have no doubt you're gonna be, uh, filling those big shoes in really neat ways. Amanda, what's one thing every ABA business owner should start doing and one thing they should stop?
I think if they're not already, they definitely need to take data on, on whatever's important to them and, and use that data and stop collecting data that's not useful. Like use that time to do something else. So, you know, we might collect data, like survey data on a particular program, but after that's in maintenance, you know, we might say we don't need a 10 question survey. We need one question survey.
Now we kind of got the information we need, so now we can spend that time that we were analyzing the data and think about the people who were taking the survey, they can go use that time somewhere else. So there's no need to have all of these data that you're not looking at or that you're looking at and aren't telling you a story. So find, find different data to tell you a story that you need to be told.
Oh yes. So wise, I, I, I heard, I think it was, uh, Mandy Ralston who was on the podcast a few months ago, said, the road to hell is paved with data that you never look at. And it is so true. We all have a limited amounts of time about spend your time doing something else. If you're not gonna look at that data. Well, like, speaking of looking at data before we wrap up, um, as I understand you've got like a CEU catalog of, or Blue Sprig does of like a hundred plus courses.
Can you tell me more about that catalog and what you're hoping to do with it, if anything.
Yeah. Yeah. So internally we have produced over a hundred CEU opportunities since like 2018 when I started at Blue Sprig. not all of those are on demand in our LMS right now, but a, a great deal of them are currently as we speak. So, uh, a big project, um, Rachel Huckfedlt on my team and I have been working on for the last couple of months or so, is getting a portal, a website where it's public facing so non-employees can access some of that content and get CEUs.
Um, we're gonna have, you know, some of them will be for a fee, some of them will be for free, you know, um, but we're, we're really excited to be able to share some of the great content that we've created, um, with the public, even if you're not a team member at Blue Sprig. So that's, that's gonna be in 2023, early 2023, we'll be out.
Oh, that's so cool dude. That. This role of dissemination not outside our field, but dissemination within our field. And that feels super important. And by the way, Rachel and I used to work together many, many years ago at Trumpet. Please give her a high shout out.
I will.
It's cool to know that she's part of that project. Amanda, where can people find you online?
Uh, LinkedIn is a great place to find me. Um, uh, as we've talked about the website, for CEUs is coming out. That'll be, um, bcbaceu.bluesprigautism.com and then the podcast, ABA Unfiltered, second edition 2.0 with Amanda
All right, friend. Are you ready for the hot take questions?
I'm so ready.
You're on your deathbed. What's the one thing you wanna be remembered for?
Being a good mom, good friend, good mentor in that order.
Love it. And by the way, for anyone's watching on YouTube, there is a super cool painting that I'm guessing one of your kids did, but
Yes.
cool too.
No, I
where it's like a rainbow and it's sort of this long thing in the window and it's just like sparkles with green and blue and life so,
Yes. Shout out to, uh, my son Archer. That's his, his work from several years ago. His early phase
Nice work. Archer, keep it going. Amanda, what's your most important self-care practice?
setting boundaries on how I spend my time.
Dude, we can never get good enough.
uh, and not looking at it as like a win or lose every single day, like it's a balance over a week or a month. Like sometimes there might be a deadline and I, you know, burn the midnight oil, but then the next week I kind of make up for it, you know? But generally you gotta have boundaries around the things that are important to you.
Yes you do. What's your favorite song?
I don't know who could possibly choose one song. Um, but I will say that I've been pretty obsessed with the new Taylor Swift album for, for a few weeks now.
Dude came out in December, uh, 2022 and can I tell you just this past weekend that's like all my kids listen to T Swift is bomb.com and she's spicy on the album. Spoiler alert.
Yeah. Yeah. If you haven't listened to it, like I have a girlfriend who's not a big fan, but uh, I was like, just give her another chance. This album is different.
We, we were listening to it early Saturday morning and like my seven-year-old is lying on the couch and I'm making coffee, and all of a sudden T Swift is dropping F bombs left and right. I'm like, yes, you go, girl. Gillian starts dropping Fs at me. I'm like, Hey, that's all right. That's what happens.
I don't, I don't believe in in too much censorship, so I'm good
Right. If you could give your 18 year old self one piece of advice, what would it be?
that things have a beautiful way of working out, even if they're not the way you plan them.
Hmm. Truer words of wisdom have not been spoken, but you can only wear one style of footwear. Amanda, what would it be?
Flip flops. Flip
Nice. A beach bu at heart.
Um, yeah, maybe. Yeah. Yeah. Or pool bum. You know, one of the two I'm a little far from the beach in Dallas, but, um, yeah,
Pool bum works too well, Amanda. High fives dude, this has been super fun, deeply insightful. I've got like a reading list now, stuff that I wanna go get to. Thank you so much for coming on the pod and sharing your wisdom.
Thank you for having me and, and I hope to see you on ABA Unfiltered sometime.
You know it.
All right. Thank you.