Little Leaves president Marina Major was interviewed by Bailey Bryant for Behavioral Health Business’ Inside the C-Suite Series. Marina spoke on the original idea that grew to become Little Leaves, employee retention and professional development, and goals for the companies future.

From your vantage point, what sets Little Leaves apart?

There’s a lot, to be honest, but I think what truly sets us apart is our clinical team.

From day one, we have focused on being high quality. It’s even one of our values. And like many service organizations, we recognize that we are only as good as our people, so the growth and professional development of our clinicians is key to ensuring the best outcomes of our clients.

One reason it can be hard for families to find early intervention options is the nationwide shortage of ABA workers. How are you dealing with that at Little Leaves, especially as you expand?

It’s an issue throughout the industry, and we’re all trying to figure it out. At Little Leaves, we have not tried to focus on the shortage. We have instead looked internally at what we need to do to remain a great place to work.

People have choices about where they want to work, and we want to remain the employer of choice. So things like training and professional development opportunities are important. We also regularly review our pay and benefit policies, as well as the workplace environment, to see where we can improve. We also look at resources required so our teams in the centers have what they need to be the best they can be.

We want to be the employer of choice, which we are. We are seeing clinicians coming to us because they know we’re high quality.

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