I teach my clients, but they also teach me.
And building that curriculum is been a task, but the way the curriculum works, it has
“many facets to it, but the main important thing that I want my staff to know, you don't teach”
skills just to teach skills. Anybody can do that? Sure. Right? We teach skills that our kiddos can use. Christina Busu is a compassionate, resilient and purpose-driven entrepreneur, behavior analyst, and the founder of Help Hope Solutions. Through her work, she helps children with autism and their families build independence, confidence, and meaningful progress through compassionate care. The one thing I really, really, really try hard to do is leave my heart
work, not a work, put it in a closet when I'm with my girls, because I can never put it all.
I cannot leave my work at work as a business owner you can't, because that is sensational to open. Check out the list. You can live your dream! Welcome back to another episode of the Living Your Legacy podcast, The Women in Power Edition. For Inside Success, I am Ray Gutierrez. Joining me today is Christina Busu. According to my notes, she is a board certified behavioral analyst. That sounds very fancy.
Help Hope Solutions. What is that? Is that the name of your company? Yes, that is the name of the company that I founded in 2007 and it's a... It's a multidisciplinary clinic that offers applied behavioral analysis therapy for children with autism, and then we added speech and occupational
therapist the last few years. Right, I love the word in the middle is disciplinary. I always like to say,
you can always be happy, but there's a discipline to the happiness. Talk about what your disciplines are at this academy. Let's call it that. Apply behavioral analysis, and then we have occupational therapy, speech therapy, and we can offer physical therapy, but there's not really a need for that right now. But we do have it as a service. Right on, so that is your year today.
“You just finished filming your episode for Women in Power. Yes. First of all, how do you feel?”
Great. I mean, it was a great experience. It's just, it's very difficult to talk about yourself for that long sometimes, but it was great. But do you feel a little more powerful? Do you feel like you belong in these rooms now? Like, hey, I did those things. Yeah, it makes you really see how far you've come, however, the last 20 years, and what it actually took to get here. So it does make you feel like very accomplished for sure. Very cool. What will we get to learn
about you? Give us a preview. So you'll get to learn about me growing up in communist Romania? Oh, wow. A whole different way of growing up. It's a very different type. It was because it's not communist anymore, but it was a very different society that I grew up in. I have so many stories of how I can believe it. But it was like, and then you learn how I got to where I am, what made me start this company? Sure. And how we grew from a thousand square feet
office to two clinics, they're each ten thousand square feet. So it's been a journey for sure, but that's pretty much what it took to get here. Some advice for people who want to be in this
position of a business owner, because it's not always easy. It comes with a lot of heartbreak
sometimes, but a lot of success. So something that I've learned doing these podcasts and just doing the guff for as long as I have. Being an entrepreneur is very much a storyteller. You're a storytelling, you're essentially fabricating your own reality and folks are jumping on board and following your long because of your amazing story. Every entrepreneur has must-have, must-have, rags to riches, or riches to riches, or rages to rags, whatever. There needs to be essentially a hero's journey.
“Talk about your hero's journey or a female hero's journey. How would you say that in your language?”
A female's journey? Yeah, like a female Russian journey, like sitting in your language, like how would you say your journey? In Romania, you would say "Colotoreone" for me. Okay. So that's pretty much like
The journey of a woman.
But it sounds amazing. Yes. It's actually sounds good. It sounds also like an amazing perfume. Yes,
“but that's yes. So thank you for indulging me there, but the reason why it's because I kind of”
wanted to go back and really feel where you came from. Like your story is part of your journey, your journey is now, your brand, and your brand is your hustle. Talk about your company today, and your day-to-day. My company today, so we have two offices, two clinics, basically. They're each 10,000 square feet and we employ about 100 people, and it's, you know, there's different levels. In apply behavior analysis, you have the board serve high behavior analysis, who actually
designed their interventions, and then you have the behavior technicians who implement their interventions and kind of work with the kids they end up out. So that's kind of like the structure, and then we have the speech therapist and an occupational therapist. So we do have these two clinics, and we serve about 70 kids right now because our therapy is one on one. It's one thing that I didn't mention, so it starts at one and one, and then once we get the kids to a certain level of social
awareness and social skills, um, making mastery, then we put them in in social skills groups, because that's a huge part of a diagnosis of autism is the lack of social skills. So that's pretty much how it works. My day-to-day, it just depends on the day, some days are completely obvious. And some days are kind of going on to a pattern, but talking about my day, you know,
I always start my day with most days. I start my day with a run or a runner. I started running after
I had my kids. Wow. And then after my run, I obviously shower, take the kids to school. I always take my girls to school. Very, very, really, and it makes me sad if I can't. And then I go into the office, or sometimes I work from home, depending on the day. If I work from home, it's a lot of paperwork, treatment plans and revising what we call supervision forums and so forth. If I go into the office, I usually go into do clinical meetings, so I go in if one of our BCBAs says, I'm having
a hard time kind of figuring out what I need to do with the skin, in particular, so then I go in and I kind of look at the kid and we kind of try things and kind of help them out work through that. Sure. And then, you know, that's kind of most of the day, it's between that and paperwork. Meetings with staff, with my clinical directors, with my VPs, depending on the day, obviously. And then, if I don't run in the morning, then I go to the gym at night. And my
mum, because of my girls from school, and then I get home, and then we do something together. Now, this day is mostly homework, but we do some fun stuff, too.
“The reason why I ask it, these things are important, especially as a mom, Pernour, like you are”
still very much a business owner, you're a woman in power, but you're still very much a human being that is a mall. Yes. So, that's something that's very powerful and very important. I'm sure. Talk about the ritual of having kids at home, being a mom, and then putting on that hat, and then being an entrepreneur. Talk about that switch off and on. The one thing I really, really, really try hard to do is leave my hat work. Not a work.
Put it in a closet when I'm with my girls. Wow. Because I can never put it all.
I cannot leave my work at work as a business owner you can't because once my kids go to sleep, sometimes work. Or, you know, very rarely if I have an emergency, which they're very, very rare, but an emergency would cause to do like a kiddo running away, things like that, you know,
“then you have to kind of take off the mom hat and go put on the professional hat, but”
so I try my time with my girls to be my time with my girls. And they're very good at telling me to put my phone away. Because they're just like, you know, this is our time for your phone away. So it's hard sometimes because there's things that they're like, I need to get them done, but there are certain times of the day when I absolutely put my phone away for my first. And that is the morning routine. When I get them ready for school and the nighttime routine,
when we spend time in the reading together, doing art together, we made a friendship bracelet for art that Taylor Swift movie the other day, you know, we just find things to do together every night.
Then I make sure that every night, I end the night with sending them a text t...
I love you, I'm proud of you. Just because I just, I feel like I'm so much away from them that
it's important for them to have me for those hours. Right on. Let's really back into your business. How do you build your curriculum? How, how, what is, there's so many odd questions I want
“to ask. Let's start with, how do you build the curriculum? How do you find the need for said curriculum?”
So, you know, funny you ask that because I'm publishing our curriculum. Oh wow. It's actually going to publish in this week. Very cool. This curriculum was built over the last 15 years because I teach my clients, but they also teach me. So, I've learned a lot from them and how to teach them. And building that curriculum is, has been a, you know, a task, but the way we target skills is based on what
a particular kid needs. Right. So, we are not a cookie cutter intervention place. We look at the
kid. We evaluate where they are, what they're missing because a lot of the times we see kids with what we call splintered skills, right? They missed the foundations. They have skills because they memorize it really well. So, they, they can do things at the high level, some things, but not necessarily functional things. So, then we sit down and we teach them the foundational skills and then we, just kind of build on that. The way the curriculum works, it has many facets to it, but the
main important thing that I want my staff to know, you don't teach skills just to teach skills. Anybody can do that? Sure. Right. We teach skills that our kiddos can use, right? And so,
we don't teach skills that they're never going to use again. On the other hand, we make teach
skills at a higher level than they, would learn them at their chronological level. Got it. Right. So, the best example is, you know, sometimes when kids learn math, they learn how to count the odd, like, with the numbers and whatnot, and one of the things they do later in school is, they need to get rid of the counting fingers. I'm not that in as they roll that up to me. They were so odd. I was like, yeah, I was like, "I can't be unrelated."
“It was so hard. It was hard for our kids. So, that's why I tell people, like, teach the”
ultimate goal and go back to work on that comprehension after, because it's like a lot easier for our kiddos. Sure, sure. So, it's a constant evaluation of what the client needs when we develop those, those targets, those things to teach. Wow. The fact that you use these big words, developing targets, six of the teachers, it's very important that, you know, folks that are in the spectrum are getting this attention. Talk about the folks that believe that having this is a
superpower, you know, being autistic at some level, do you find folks that go, well, they're very, very good at this task. Well, and it can be. It can't be a superpower. And there are a lot of people who believe that we shouldn't intervene on anything. We should let, you know, individual on the spectrum, individuals on the spectrum to be who they are, which I think it's a big misconception, because that's not what we're trying to change. Right. Right. Right.
Every person, every human being, wants to be better at something. Right. We like to be better our jobs, hopefully. Right. So, it's important to give them the same tools. Why will I take that away from individuals on the spectrum? Right. So, we're not trying to change. I think that's the biggest misconception that we're trying to change who they are, but we're really not. We're trying to give them the tools to be successful in what they want to be. Now, granted, there are kids who
engage in a lot of malbaptive behaviors, a lot of aggression, a lot of, you know, hurting themselves. And, and those, honestly, they would need to be changed, whether you have autism or don't.
“Sure. That's why we have a criminal justice system. Right. It's, it's just something that we all,”
we all do want to eliminate those aspects of ourselves that are not accepting in the society. So, it's, yes, we are changing those parts, but those parts need to be changed. That's why we sometimes send people to prison. I'm not saying that research, and thank you so much. I'm just saying, we're trying to get them not to get there. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because a lot of folks may have misconstrued or misinterpret, you know, some of that's on the spectrum as someone that's violent,
but they just, you know, for example, I feel like sometimes I have a very short temper, but then I've come to realize, well, Ray, you really haven't been back diagnosed. You didn't have a quite an easy upbringing. You didn't speak very well. You speak at Grispoch, very late, your late bloomer a lot of
Things, but when it comes to creativity and visuals, you saw her.
you don't remember Jack shit that we just read. But that got me into a lot of trouble. A lot of my frustration turned into anger, and then some folks are like, why is he so fucking angry? It's like, well, because he's having a harder time identifying some of this shoot could be so simple. I'm quantifying it by 10 and making it over complicated. Right. And then you also try to change that
about yourself, right? Because you don't want it. And the moment person who is always angry,
because you have so much to bring. Yes, yes. You have so much positive to bring, but those are things
“that are saying, you know, they're like, they're barriers for you at times. So that's what that's”
all we're trying to do, right? We're trying to give you ways to overcome barriers. They're say they're like obstacles in your success. And it's not like, I'm not going to try to change who you are. Correct. If you're coming to therapy, I'm just going to try to help you. And hands and go like, yo, right. Right. So that's I think that's a big misconception. And the other misconception is I think it's gotten a little bit very divided at the point, because you have individuals on the
spectrum who are a little bit older and they are very vocal about you shouldn't intervene. Autism is a blessing. You know, and then you have parents of children with autism who are non vocal, you know, there's just very aggressive, very self-injurious, and they're like, it's not a blessing for us. And the fact that these these people can't understand, there's different forever, but it's very hard to manage in this time. Yeah. Exactly. We're expectations are all over the map. And, you know,
Dr. YouTube tells me one thing, but my family doctor tells me other thing and my great-great-grandmother tells me other. You're just, it really comes down to culture, you know, depending on who you ask. Yeah. And that's a podcast within a podcast, podcast, podcast session, if you will. Let's talk about you. And, and where did this why come from? Where did this reason for starting this come from?
So, for me, the why started way back when I was in high school. I always wanted to work with kids.
Actually, even though, you know, because I always liked kids, you know, as the neighbor of a granny. So, I always wanted to work with kids. But when I started working in this industry, which, um, in this ABA field, um, I noticed that there were some things that were really taught at all, not necessarily bad or good. They were just weren't taught at all. And that was social skills, because the belief was that if you teach somebody to talk, then they'll automatically become social,
“which is not true. So, that's when my wife started, that's why I wanted to open this to kind of”
provide the whole teaching across all domains, basically. Yeah, I remember at an early, young age, I knew it to speak. I just didn't want to. I just looked at people like I was confused. And it wasn't like eighth grade that I developed for a person that I have today, where it's like, well, Ray, if you open up and kind of crack jokes all the time, people will express themselves so you differently. It's like kind of carried that, I don't know, yying to the young, the PTSD or
whatever it is. It's kind of helped me throughout life. But I've always kind of known there's
anything, something right upstairs, 100%. So, I need to like, I take moments like you, I always take the moment to be like, just to quietly diagnose myself in front of you and get your feedback. So, it's a free consultation on this podcast, if you will. How you spoke about speaking to older men or older generations? How much of your work is dealing with folks that are on my age? Men and their forties are in their thirties. As patients?
That's patients. No, we all have because not a lot of them. But let's let's do this. Do you see the correlation with a father and their son? Yes. Okay, perfect. Let's do that. I think those parents should come to therapy for sure. There you go. There's absolutely, there are some parents who, there's some parents who know they're on the spectrum and come to us. There's some parents who don't know, but they've always said like,
it's always been something. So, yes, we don't necessarily treat them because of many reasons. Most of them don't seek help. I don't think I've ever had a person over 30. Okay. Reach out? Sure. But I'm sure you've had parents like you've mentioned. Parents, yes. Parents of children, we do. And do you use that as a diagnosis to kind of figure out what's wrong with the third child? No, not really because they come with a diagnosis.
“I see. Do you have to have a diagnosis to come for our therapy that's an insurance requirement?”
Got it. So when they come to you, you already built in the curriculum. You've already figured out the advancements or the advancements and further out of their spectrum. Wow. How do you, like, I hear a lot of folks saying, oh,isms are you're on the spectrum? What does the spectrum look like? Is it essentially a, like, I'm here or here? Is it a color? Is it how do I identify where I'm in the spectrum? From least the greatest I suppose. How does this work when I was here this terminology?
Well, the spectrum refers to now we called it the level of support needed or ...
Got it. Okay. So you have, I look at it as a,
“as a line, if you want, because you don't have quantities on a line, you don't quantify people in”
the spectrum. They're all worth it. You know? So you have, on this end, you have people in the spectrum who are extremely affected. And they need 24/7 support for everything they do. So you have they're, they're not, they're not talking, they're not party trained and, you know, adults. They, they're extremely aggressive, self-injurious, like you have the whole, um, everything that could be, they you see in the spectrum is in that right here. And then you have it this end.
You have those individuals who are highly verbal, highly, um, intelligent, highly competent,
but they're missing the social aspect. If you look at all the high functioning, we call the high functioning individuals who need the least support, um, are the ones who lack the social skills. And those are the ones that are considered what we call on the spectrum, the end. Be it. The, the, like, the, the, this end versus this end. Got it. Got it. That end of the spectrum is all these individuals who have a lot of skills can function, but they need the
social awareness, the social skills, um, the executive functioning and all that stuff. So do you feel like they can function? Do you feel like these people that can function would function even more? They just got the, the random phone call. Hey, you're doing a great job. Good for you.
Because they're always, I feel like, not, not to, to my own, but I almost feel like I'm operating
in this spectrum. But no, but I, I've always have a chip of my shoulder where it's just like, in my own mind, I'm, I'm, I'm my own, what, or my, my worst critic, my, my best critic, but I'm always in my own mind, like, being viciously to myself saying, do better, do better, do better. It's interesting to say that because it apply behavior analysis is basically, um,
“using a lot of reinforcement. So it's, uh, we use reinforcement to teach everything, right?”
Yeah. Because the, there's, there's a lot of science behind it that says that, you know, if you're getting reinforced for something, then you're more likely to do it again in the future. Got it. Um, but beyond that, um, it's more so the fact that sometimes there's so much confusion in social situations, if you don't get that reinforcement, you don't know if you did something right. Yeah. That's very much like that. So you, we look at reinforcement, both ways,
something that increases the, the probability of behavior to occur in the future, but also, it shows you what it did right. Yeah. Um, and, and to your point, telling people a great job, it, it's, it's a great thing to, you know, and people are just here that. Yeah, because it's just, it's giving you, it's giving you feedback. Yeah. Right. And, and in a society, and even when a lot of the times we get a lot of negative feedback, it's important to balance that out a little bit. Absolutely.
Yeah. Completely agree. Thank you so much for, for, for, for, for, for indulging me with my questions. And I hope you had a lovely time and experience with coffee in film your episode.
“Where could folks find you and learn more about you and continue following your journey?”
Well, we have our website, obviously, help observations.com. And you can find information there on all the services we offer. And then we also have a Facebook, we have Instagram, and we do have a TikTok, which it was a long, it took a lot for me to get on the clock for professionally, but we do have some videos on TikTok. So, people can see how that therapy actually is done. Right on. Yeah. I, I would encourage anyone to hop on there, because I'm going to do the
same Christina, thank you so much. Great name, help hope solutions. Doesn't get any better than that. Again, thank you so much for lovely time and energy and happy Monday. If you're hopefully listening to this on a Monday with Insight Success, I will read your tears. And this is Christina with help hope solutions. Thank you. Good night.
