Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Cristina Busu. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.
Cristina , we’re thrilled to have you on our platform and we think there is so much folks can learn from you and your story. Something that matters deeply to us is living a life and leading a career filled with purpose and so let’s start by chatting about how you found your purpose.
How I found my professional purpose? I would say a series of fortunate events. Growing up I didn’t necessarily know what I wanted to do but I did know I wanted to work with children. I think it’s worth mentioning that I grew up in Romania and moved here in 2000 for my graduate degree. School in Romania was a bit different at that time in the sense that you had opportunities to pick your career path as early as high school. As I knew I wanted to work with children, for high school I applied and completed a 5-year high school that not only offered the high school diplomas but also a teaching degree for elementary school after graduation. To meet graduation requirements, we had to complete rigorous practicum hours in teaching 1st to 4th graders for 2-4 weeks of every semester starting in 10th grade. I think that may have been the first time it became clear to me that some children learn differently than others, learning comes easier to some, and some can overcome learning struggles by putting a lot of effort into learning. I found that fascinating! So, while I loved teaching, I knew that what I really wanted to do is learn how to teach better, how to help those who struggle learn find ways to make learning easier. After some research I decided that the only way to accomplish that was to pursue a BS in psychology, so I applied to a Psychology program (in Romania you apply and take an admission test for the major you chose and the 4-year college degree only offers classes in the major you got accepted for). During this 4-year program we had practicums that introduced us to various facets of psychology; we rotated rounds with school psychologists, psychiatrists, prison psychologists, psychological testing, and many others. It was such a great learning experience that brought even more clarity to how important early intervention can be regardless of the type of ability or disability. However, no early intervention programs were offered in Romania; but I found one in the US so I applied and got accepted. So, in August of 2020 I moved across the world to a new country for a new beginning. I absolutely loved the early childhood disorders program at UTD and I loved the opportunity to work with many different children with various disabilities through the Graduate program and while employed with the Early Intervention Program after graduation. During these years I got a first-row seat into the fascinating world of autism and I knew that all the steps I took to that point led me to this uncharted new world that was going to be “my thing”. So much more to learn and so much to do. So I started learning. I found and fell in love with Applied Behavior Analysis and after working in the field for a few years I decided to go back to school and became a board-certified behavior analyst after 2 more years of course work and 1500 hours of clinical practicum. I founded Help, Hope Solutions in the fall of 2007 to provide a therapeutic setting for children with autism and other developmental disabilities and since then, Help, Hope, Solutions has grown from a small office to a multidisciplinary clinic with multiple locations. So, although it seems like it took a long time, all the steps, all the ups and downs let me to finding my purpose: to empower individuals with autism find ways to communicate and become functionally independent, find happiness in togetherness.
Great, so let’s take a few minutes and cover your story. What should folks know about you and what you do?
When I first opened HHS in 2007 my goal was to provide a service that was not available at that time, that targeted teaching individuals on the spectrum with programming that addressed all developmental domains. In 2007 there were only a handful of ABA centers, and most were only targeting teaching language in isolation with the hopes that social skills and other developmental milestones came along. That was not something I saw happening as most of the time we saw severe social deficits even for those individuals who had a lot of language skills. Because of my background in child development, I was able to identify what components were missing from most interventions and started creating a curriculum based on developmental milestones and individual needs of the clients. The first few years I focused on creating our curriculum that targeted all developmental areas with focus on language, play and social skills as the core areas of intervention. In addition to providing the therapy and creating the programs, I also did a lot of free trainings for the community to ensure that parents learned about our approach and our results. As people started recognizing our name, HHS outgrew the space we were in, so we moved into a bigger office. Over the course of the next few years, we continued to add more space to our office and added additional locations. Like any growth we had ups and downs and worked though many difficult obstacles to get here but it has been great being able to serve more children and their families. Over the years I have heard many families struggle with the demanding time commitment to drive their children from place to place to access different types of therapies so, over the last few years, my vision has been for HHS to be the place that provides all therapies in one place. After working on this project for a few years, we were finally able to add ST, OT, PT and some diagnosing testing to our services.
Now that we are a multidisciplinary clinic my focus will change again and in way going back to the beginning for a different age group. There are so many individuals who continue to need our help though the teenage and adult years and there are very few resources available. Autism intervention for older individuals is very difficult to provide for various reasons such as insurance coverage and lack of providers who treat children over 9. So next, my focus goes where the need is –creating a curriculum for older individuals with different communication and independence levels and later maybe open a school that can effectively help children and adolescents become the best versions of themselves.
There are so many things that I think are exciting about our profession. So many things that keep us going: seeing kids go from not being able to communicate at all to using words to communicate and interact with others, learning to play, being successful in school, going to college, and so many more. But there are two things that give me that increase in endorphins equivalent to a runner’s high, a professional’s high if you want. One of my absolute favorite things in the world is when a client uses their first word, whether that is a spoken word or a written word though a communication device. Because talking comes naturally to neurotypical children, most people don’t know how much effort some children have to put in to say or type that first word. It sometimes takes months of daily work for several hours a day. So, when we see that happen, I cannot express all the feelings that we feel. That first word opens a whole new world for our clients and being able to be part of that process is one of our most important professional accomplishments. Another one of my other absolute favorite is helping individuals with maladaptive behaviors (aggression, property destruction, self-injury) who have been removed from community and academic settings, learn to replace those behaviors with appropriate functional behaviors and reintegrate in school and the community. For individuals over 9 years of age aggression is the one thing that will keep them out of any and all extracurricular activities and outreach programs. So, when I have the opportunity to work with these individuals and help them overcome these behaviors it gives me such a great sense of accomplishment.
There is so much advice out there about all the different skills and qualities folks need to develop in order to succeed in today’s highly competitive environment and often it can feel overwhelming. So, if we had to break it down to just the three that matter most, which three skills or qualities would you focus on?
From a professional standpoint I think curiosity, a ‘can be done” attitude and ability to navigate obstacles are some of the qualities that got me where I am today. Curiosity got me started on this path. I wanted to see what’s out there when it came to autism treatment and because there was a lot that wasn’t there I started researching and creating things to meet that need. Hand in hand with that is the “it can be done” attitude. I cannot emphasize how many times I hear people say “they have autism. That can’t be changed.” I fundamentally disagree with that statement, and it makes me angry every time I hear it. Maybe things cannot be completely changed but something can, even if it is just a tiny piece of that big puzzle. We should never settle for it can’t be done/it can’t be changed; we should at least try to get something done as even the smallest change can make a huge difference in someone’s path. We owe it to our clients to try to provide them with a way to access learning skills, to provide them with ways to access the community, to fit in, even when we have to start from scratch. If there is no way, make one! As far as navigating I think it goes without saying that the ability to navigate through or around obstacles, big or small, is an absolute must for a business owner. There are a lot of times when you feel like everything comes at you at once and you’re so close to losing your footing. So, you need to keep a clear head and look ahead, over the big black cloud in front of you, and navigate options on how to get through.
My biggest advice for new business owners is: don’t settle and don’t give up! Find a way to make your service unique and different than others, put in the hard work and you will succeed.
Alright, so before we go we want to ask you to take a moment to reflect and share what you think you would do if you somehow knew you only had a decade of life left?
I think that these are challenging times for everyone. A lot of business struggle with staffing and costs and service delivery. However, for us I think the biggest challenge at this point in time is private equity. There are a lot of private equity companies that are taking over the ABA world and our field is changing. And that change is not for the better. Private equity companies are run by business people with no background in behavior analysis and their main focus is business, recovering investments. Yes, we all have to have some business focus to keep the doors open but it shouldn’t be the main focus. Client success and progress should take precedent over everything and unfortunately that’s not the case for most private equity companies. We have the future of these individuals in our hands we should always make it a priority to improve their lives over anything else. Sadly, we see many of these corporations moving away from this. Because insurance coverage is easier to obtain for younger children, we see a comeback in age limits (which we fought so hard to eliminate) as many companies only accept kids under 8. Because businesspeople don’t understand the importance of continuous training, we see a decline in ongoing training of staff. Because of lack of consistent training, we see a move away from interventions backed by research and a move towards interventions that are easier to implement but have no research behind them. Where we go for here, I don’t know. But I do know that we will have to fight harder to keep our profession from becoming a business focused industry at the detriment of quality.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.helphopesolutions.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/helphopesolutions/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100053880618962
