our vision and our people
Our Mission
Teamwork was founded to transform autism therapy and treat it like the individualized education it truly is.
Our purpose is to systematically target each of your child’s needs in order to make meaningful improvements for your family as a whole. We believe that, with better-trained clinicians, a focus on data-driven decision making, and collaboration with the people who care most about your child, your loved one will receive the best possible treatment to achieve their full potential.
Our Values
How do we make sure we stay clinically focused?
The first thing we did: create a clinical board. We created a clinical board comprised of clinicians from fields related to ours (e.g., speech-language pathology) so that we are constantly learning, collaborating, and are always up to date with the newest strategies being published in academia.
Additionally, it’s a firm company mandate that each clinician dedicates at least five hours per week to ongoing professional development. We do this because we know it matters to the quality of services that we provide to you. We want to make it clear that while other companies focus on “billable hours” (hours that they can bill to insurance companies), we make sure our clinicians are constantly educating themselves and honing their skills outside of this time. By supplementing our practice with integrated professional development, our aim is to provide your family with the most knowledgeable and current clinicians possible.
Why do we try so hard to keep our team happy?
Employee turnover can have the single greatest negative impact on your loved one’s progress. If your loved one becomes attached to one of our clinicians and the therapist ends up leaving out of frustration with us (and at no fault to you), then it may take a while for the child to become engaged with a new clinician, regardless of how amazing the new clinician is. Frustrated employees tend to quit when they can’t find satisfaction or meaning in what they’re doing. That’s why Teamwork is so focused on keeping our team happy. Not only that, we believe that when our team is happy, they not only continue to show up, but they care more and do better work.
So how do we try to make our people happy? First, we’re betting heavily on it. Our business model is based on making sure every single employee is salaried, provided benefits, and given all the support needed to grow and have a rewarding career within our organization. To be more specific, support isn’t something we just threw in there like many people throw in the word “etc.” when they run out of ideas. We view support as developing a career trajectory within our platform, or giving them the proper communication channels to share novel best practices easily with the whole organization, or providing the proper training to do a very complex job. We strive to make our therapists feel like we’re looking out for them, so they can do the same for you.
Leadership
- Erika Byers Co-Founder/Chief Clinical Officer
Erika began her career working with adults with intellectual disabilities when she was enrolled in undergraduate studies at Hampton University in Hampton Virginia. She worked as a direct care worker and worked 1:1 with adults in a residential placement. During the two years in this role, Erika knew there had to be more she could do to serve these individuals. She met with a behavior analyst who guided Erika to pursue a career in Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA). In the fall of 2010, she enrolled in the master’s degree program in ABA at Teachers College, Columbia University in New York City.
During her matriculation, she worked in Early Intervention and Preschool classrooms as both teacher assistant and head classroom teacher. She worked with children ranging from pre-listener/pre-speaker to reader/writer levels of verbal behavior. She implemented various tactics from the science to induce the first instances of speech, as well as improve the existing communication repertoires of her students. After a successful two years in the master’s program, Erika enrolled in the doctoral program, with the goal to add to the existing research on ABA, learning, communication and verbal behavior development.
While working on her doctoral degree, Erika mentored master’s students at Columbia University, taught in the classroom, supervised special education and general education classrooms and worked in home program settings as both a 1:1 ABA provider, as well as a supervisor. In her tenure, Erika has worked with toddlers, pre-school and school-aged children, adolescents, and adults across all levels of verbal behavior and functionality. She brings expertise, rigor, and a client-centered research focus to Teamwork’s clinical model. Erika is a Licensed Behavior Analyst in New York State and also holds four NYS teacher certifications (Birth-Grade 2, Grade 1-6 for General Education and Students with Disabilities).
- Megha Aggarwal Clinical Director
Megha Aggarwal is a Board Certified Behavior Analyst and a Licensed Behavior Analyst in New York State. She began her career in 2005 as a special education teacher for the NYC Department of Education, where she worked with school-aged children and adolescents with learning disabilities and intellectual disabilities.
In 2007, she graduated with a Master of Education in Special Education from The City College of NY, CUNY through the New York City Teaching Fellows. She holds two New York State professional teaching certifications- Teacher of Students with Disabilities (grades 5-9) and General Education Specialist in Middle School Education (grades 5-9). In 2009, Megha enrolled in the post masters certification program in Applied Behavior Analysis at Rutgers University. During that time she worked at the McCarton Center for Developmental Pediatrics, where she gained the experience working with toddlers, pre-school, and school aged children with autism and other developmental disabilities. She became a Board Certified Behavior Analyst in 2013.
Megha has provided ABA services in homes, center-based facilities, and special education classrooms as well as general education classrooms and has worked in the capacity as both a direct service provider and a supervisor in all settings. She has provided supervision for BCBA applicants, registered behavior technicians, teachers, teaching assistants, and paraprofessionals. She has conducted trainings on the science of applied behavior analysis to parents, school staff, and related service providers. During her career, she has also worked with children with varying exceptionalities and typically developing children with behavioral problems.
During her free time, Megha enjoys running, spending time with her friends and family, and traveling!
- Anirudh Sathya Co-Founder/Chief Executive Officer
Anirudh supports all efforts at Teamwork. He helps families coordinate funding and schedule care. He helps therapists by providing them with the technological tools needed so they can spend more time with families and less time on administration. On an organizational level, Anirudh helps with culture building, recruiting, human resources, billing, marketing, accounting, and finance.
Prior to Teamwork, Anirudh worked in healthcare private equity and investment banking. He graduated college early from NYU Stern with majors in Finance and Economics and a minor in Psychology.
Anirudh became passionate about applied behavior analysis after volunteering and spending time with children, parents, and practitioners at various autism-focused schools and Autism Speaks town hall meetings. Through the numerous conversations he’d had, it became evident that families needed far better care that was also affordable, and that clinicians, while incredibly devoted and great, needed more support to reach their potential as well.
Anirudh enjoys playing basketball but also spends his spare time reading, learning to code, cooking, and spending time outside playing other sports such as volleyball, kickball, football or rock climbing.
LICENSED BEHAVIOR ANALYSTS (LBAS):
Our highly qualified LBAs received graduate degree education and training in applied behavior analysis and maintain a license to practice in the state of New York. An LBA will be assigned to your child’s team and will be responsible for assessing your child based on his or her current needs, developing a comprehensive treatment plan based on the assessment results, providing ongoing Behavior Technician supervision and parent training, and ensuring that your child is progressing through data-driven analysis. Our LBAs will even attend Committees on Special Education (CSE) reviews, sit in on Individualized Education Program (IEP) meetings, visit schools, and even help you find the right lawyers, if needed.
BEHAVIOR TECHNICIANS:
Our Behavior Technicians receive significant training in order to provide ABA services for your child. Each Behavior Technician is required to meet the Certified Behavior Analyst Assistant (CBAA) requirements as well as complete a 40-hour training through the Behavior Analyst Certification Board and receives a specially designed training package upon joining our team. Along with daily and rigorous tracking of your child’s progress, Behavior Technicians also provide the compassion to fulfill your child’s needs.
CARE COORDINATORS:
Care Coordinators are here to take the burden of working with your insurance carrier off your shoulders so you can continue to support your family. Care coordinators will help you through diagnosis, enrollment, scheduling, and anything else that your family may need throughout the therapeutic process.