Blog

Emily Patten is a Regional Supervisor for the Your Life ABA clinics in Northern and Southern Virginia.  

Q: What is your day-to-day role at Your Life ABA? 

My role is to support our board-certified behavioral analysts (BCBAs) in their clinical work and offer leadership and mentorship. I do this through individual and group meetings, and conduct site visits since I oversee different centers. I will try my best to be at each center once a week and I like to hang out with the staff and clients because I really want everyone to know me and make sure that they feel comfortable around me. Occasionally, I do some direct work with clients. I oversee a few different cases, but I mainly focus on cases that overlap, and. I also provide feedback and recommendations to the BCBA’s so that we continue to provide the highest quality services to our clients. 

Q: What do you find most unique about Your Life ABA compared to other clinics? 

I feel very fortunate that I oversee so many different centers because it gives me insight into how we all function. We are working on being one team, but we also do things differently in each team. I think it's really unique to be able to see that and then be able to kind of pick out the different things to foster a culture of unity and collaboration so that we're all on the same page serving the same purpose.  

Q: What do you find most valuable about working at Your Life ABA? 

I really value how Your Life ABA is growing and we are really putting in that work to come together as a team, collaborate, share our values and make sure that whatever actions we take moving forward, we can use those grounding principles to guide us towards the best outcome.  

Q: What is your favorite part about this job? 

I really love being able to mentor BCBAs. I enjoy meeting with them, checking in and seeing where their biggest needs for support are. I like the term, “servant leadership,” because I want to know what I can do to support the BCBA’s to make their lives easier, make their patients programs better, and working in collaboration. 

Q: Do you have any favorite memories you’d like to share? 

I transferred to Virginia in August. Being the new person while also going through the transition, I focused on getting staff to get to know me and trust me. I'm at Newport News clinic right now but my favorite memories are when Behavior Technicians feel comfortable enough to come talk to me or receiving hugs from the kids. It lights my world. So even though I'm not with the clients as often, it just really makes me happy to continue to be a part of so many treatment plans. I also love it when I get to celebrate those small wins and the progress that they've made. I get lots of fun little moments like that that ground me and make me remember what we're doing here. 

Want to be notified of new articles and resources from Your Life ABA? Click here to submit your email and opt into our newsletter.