Building Lighthouse School of Fort Worth with Ashlyn Wimmer

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There just wasn't a place for a child like Graham here that provided what he needed.
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He was worthy of academics and education, and there's just such a limited capacity for that in ABA.
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And so it was one or the other.
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And it didn't feel fair to have to choose.
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And that's just what was the most, I think, heartbreaking thing for me as a mom was to go to the special needs school in town and to be told that my son was essentially two special needs for that school.
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And I just didn't want other parents or children having to go through that.
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And so I literally left a tour.
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I was driving back home from that tour in tears on the phone with my husband and was like, I'm just so discouraged.
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I'm so done.
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Like, I'm just gonna open my own.
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And he kind of laughed and things got rolling from there.
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Welcome to the Speech Source Podcast.
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My name is Mary Brzeek, and I'm Kim Dylan.
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We are two pediatric speech language pathologists with a combined 25 years of experience.
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We are your source for speech, language, feeding, play, and much more in between.
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Today we have a special guest on.
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Her name is Ashlyn Wimmer.
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She is the founder of Lighthouse Therapy Center in Fort Worth.
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And we wanted to have Ashlyn on today to tell us about her why in starting Lighthouse and also to walk us through exactly what Lighthouse is for the community of Fort Worth and her process in building this amazing place that serves our community.
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I wanted to share something that's on their website that I think really describes what Lighthouse is.
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And it says Lighthouse Therapy Center is unique.
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We provide ABA therapy and offer an opportunity for education in partnership with Lighthouse School of Fort Worth.
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Autism families are often forced to find the balance between school, ABA services, speech, and other needed therapies.
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Lighthouse creates balance for every family.
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And as a speech therapist getting to come into this center, I have really felt that collaborative approach.
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And so I'm just really excited to have Ashlyn on today to talk more about Lighthouse.
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So welcome, Ashlyn.
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Thanks for being here.
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Thanks.
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Yeah, it just kind of came out of nowhere.
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I always tell people that I literally called my husband one day in the car and was like, I'm gonna just open my own.
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And he was like, Okay, dear.
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And I was like, okay.
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And then we did it.
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So here we are.
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And that's what Mary and I were talking about.
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It's really easy to think about what's missing and the need for something.
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And then it's a whole nother game to be like, okay, I'm actually gonna do something, actually make the change.
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Will you just share a little bit about your family and why you felt like there was a need for Lighthouse in the community?
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Sure.
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Yeah.
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Our oldest son is eight.
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His name's Graham, and he was diagnosed with autism when he was two years old.
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He was actually just shy of two years old.
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So he had some pretty significant signs that led us to that early diagnosis.
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But we put him in ABA therapy at that point.
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I didn't know much about autism, ABA, anything like that really in general.
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So it was just like going with the recommendations that I got from doctors and his diagnosis and all of those things.
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So he went to a center that was recommended to me, and it wasn't great.
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It wasn't a great experience at all.
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And at the time we lived in Burleson for a brief while.
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And so I was driving him to Fort Worth to that center.
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And we eventually left there and he went to a new center that was also in Fort Worth.
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It's actually not here anymore, but it was at the time.
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And he was there for three years, and we had a really good experience there.
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I loved his BCBA, I loved his team.
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I still have contact with a lot of his team from that center, and a lot of them work here at Lighthouse now.
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What that center did was really what I was aiming for in the beginning because it was such a good model of giving the kids real life.
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And it abruptly shut down one day.
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And by this time, Graham was probably five.
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And I remember I called all of the local places that have the bigger names.
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Like when you Google, they pop up.
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I made appointments at all of those places to tour and see where our next move would be.
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And that's where I would lead the next tour feeling just so defeated and seeing those boundaries that were being put into place as like the norm of ABA.
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And at the time, Graham was only five, but our future of is he gonna go to school?
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Is he gonna do ABA forever?
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What does that look like?
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And all the places I was touring was like early intervention is key.
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We serve children till age six or till age eight or till age 10.
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And that was the deciding point for me was that there was just nothing in Fort Worth that I wanted to send him to.
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I felt like I looked at the public school option, the ABA options, the private school options that kind of were geared more towards special education, but there just wasn't a place for a child like Graham here that provided what he needed.
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He was worthy of academics and education, and there's just such a limited capacity for that in ABA.
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And so it was one or the other, and it didn't feel fair to have to choose.
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Or if there was a program that did focus on academics and had a little bit of the behavior aspect, he wasn't quote, I hate this word, but he wasn't quote unquote high functioning enough to go to that program or skilled enough to go to that program.
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And that's just what was the most, I think, heartbreaking thing for me as a mom was to go to the special needs school in town and to be told that my son was essentially two special needs for that school.
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And I just didn't want other parents or children having to go through that.
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And so I literally left a tour.
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I was driving back home from that tour in tears on the phone with my husband and was like, I'm just so discouraged.
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I'm so done.
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Like, I'm just gonna open my own.
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And he kind of laughed and things got rolling from there.
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And then eventually he's oh my gosh, you were serious.
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And I was like, Yeah, I think I was like full-blown looking at real estate when he was like, Okay, wow, I guess I need to get on board.
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So here we are.
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Wow, that is incredible, just to hear that disappointment that you went through and all of those struggles.
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And I know that a lot of Kim and my patients and a lot of children in Fort Worth, a lot of families are just feeling the same tug of okay, like you're saying, that what is their functioning?
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What kind of needs do they have?
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But we want functional, functionality, we want skills, we want community.
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There's they're just there's so much that school offers.
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And when you're looking at a school for your child, regardless of their needs or where they are, you want everything.
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And they there's so many, they're there for so many hours during the day, and they have such a profound effect on your child.
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So I totally am I'm so impressed that you decided to, and not that you had anything else on your plate, you just decided, hey, I know I'm just going to start a school.
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So I guess what my question is first is in do you have a background in education or in any sort of business field that would help you know how to start a school?
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And then the second part to that is is there any school in Texas or in the country that you knew about and thought that's the kind of school that I'm looking for?
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Background.
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No, I have a bachelor degree in rehabilitation studies.
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I had planned on graduating and then maybe going to OT school or something like that.
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I did an internship in college at an occupational therapy clinic and got a little bit of experience with children with autism at that place.
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I was a college student and didn't even really know what the word autism meant or anything like that.
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But that was really my only experience with the special needs community at that time.
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And then my husband and I got married shortly after college, after we graduated, and I got pregnant with Graham that same month.
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I obviously did not go to OT school.
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I had him, and then, like I said, at birth, his first year of life, really around 12 to 15 months old, I was pretty worried about him.
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And so there wasn't a whole lot of time for much else between him being born and then us being launched into this community.
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So, no, I did not have a background.
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I did work at a nonprofit organization after college while I was pregnant with Graham.
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Um, and that's like the first thing that I went to when I decided to open Lighthouse.
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My intention was never to open an ABA center, it was always to open a school.
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And I wanted to do that through a nonprofit organization because I did have the background in fundraising and developing those programs.
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So that's what I did.
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I created Lighthouse School of Fort Worth first and kind of used an outside vendor to help us create the 501c3 organization just because I had no idea how to do that.
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They filed all the paperwork, they got it started for us from there, and then I realized that it costs a lot of money to open a school.
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That's where the ABA piece came into play.
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My husband's background is in healthcare management.
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So his he has a master's degree and he ran different healthcare facilities for probably eight years from the time we finished college up until this year.
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He's been an executive director at smaller healthcare facilities.
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So he had the background of what billing for ABA looked like, how to set those things up, because at his facilities he also had speech, OT, PT, things like that.
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So we had that little bit of knowledge in ABA, but we decided to open the ABA center to help launch and support the school.
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And that's really how the school got started.
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First couple of years were pretty rough.
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The first year of getting prepared, and then the first like operating school year were pretty rough financially.
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Living like month to month through tuition and fundraising wasn't really there yet, but that's how we came to be.
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I had never seen a school does what we do.
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Now I've come across a few here and there.
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I think there's one in Florida that we know of.
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And then I believe there's one in Austin.
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I haven't toured, but I've heard really good things about it and had somebody reach out to say that they were glad we were here because they were leaving Austin and wanted something similar to where they were.
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But yeah, I just it just grew as time went on, and there was a lot of trial and error and to see what worked and what didn't.
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And we've just developed naturally from there.
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Everything just happened very divinely and very naturally, and we've just been going with the flow.
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I think just coming from being the speech therapist, like I had no background in business or marketing or anything like that in school, which I would tell anybody now in college to get like a minor in business or marketing, no matter what you do, because I didn't know anything and that process of learning just to start your own business.
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I can't imagine school and then also all the different just insurances you would have to know for ABA billing, that seems like a lot all at once.
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Was there anyone that was really instrumental in helping you just get going, whether that was a billing person or a marketing person, or it sounds like your husband, obviously, he had that background, which is amazing.
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But was there anyone else from the outside that came in and pointed you in a direction that just really supported you?
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So it was mainly my husband.
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He knew the insurance world as far as what he did at his healthcare facilities.
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He would bill PTOT, all the things.
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And so had that base of what that looks like.
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But as far as like getting credentialed with all of the different insurance providers, we just took a shot in the dark to see if it would work.
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And of course, insurance is a nightmare, it's never easy.
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Like to this day, it's not easy.
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But they would just come back and be like, wow, this application looks terrible.
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This is what you're missing.
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And so we would fix those things and then try again.
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And my husband's a very getter type of person, he didn't really know what he was doing, but just did it until it worked.
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And so that's how we got credentialed in the beginning.
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And now, two and a half years in, we're having audits and things like that.
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And he has left his company that he was with for eight years to be at Lighthouse full-time now.
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That just happened this year, and so it's new, but it's necessary.
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We've grown so much that I think we're credentialed with every insurance provider to an extent.
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And yeah, it's just they're just a lot of work.
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We just had our first United Healthcare audit for our ABA billing, and we got like a 96%.
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Oh, that's awesome! Wow, congrats.
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Stressful, but we're done.
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That is a lot of growth very quickly.
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So often when you start a business, there's many questions, there's so many different directions you can go in.
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And then there's also so many different kind of chicken and egg scenarios of okay, but what should I do first?
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What needs to be done?
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How do I do this process?
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So, as you guys were building your school and all the therapies to support it, what kind of came first in the structure that you guys put into place?
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And how have you created measures or maybe a board of trustees or something to ensure that as you guys are making decisions and answering questions, that you're staying in line with your mission and vision for your school?
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Yeah, one of the clinics that I toured back in the day that was actually the one that made me call my husband, that we were gonna open our own.
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There was a BCBA there named Caitlin Klim.
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And I had met her through our church at the time.
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We went to the same church.
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They had they were newer to Texas, they had just moved here, and I had signed up at my church to start a special needs group because there wasn't one.
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It's like another service that seems to be very lacking within church homes, is a special needs community, but that's for another day.
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And so she had also done the same thing where she was like, Hey, I'm new here, my work with special needs children.
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I'd love to join a program or start a program for them here at church.
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And so our church connected us two together, and we planned to meet, and they actually ended up living in the neighborhood just across from ours.
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We just have to cross a little highway, old highway, to get to each other's houses.
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And it was actually in 2021 when there was that like horrible snowstorm.
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I think people called it Snow Mageddon.
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That was the day we were supposed to meet.
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And I was like, oh, like we'll meet some other time.
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It's terrible weather.
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And she put on snow boots and sled to my house for hers.
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That's like my first memory of her.
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And I was like, wow, you're committed to to meet up.
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And so we started a program at our church that was called Kaleidoscope, that was a room and curriculum and all the things for special needs children at our church.
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So that's how our relationship started.
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And so I called her that same day when I hung up with my husband and said, Hey, I'm starting an ABA clinic or I'm starting a school.
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I think it'll need a clinic.
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Do you want to do it with me?
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And she was like, Yeah, sure.
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Just went from there.
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Her husband is also, he's in the insurance world.
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He has a little bit of a background, but we all would meet at my house.
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So at the time they didn't have children.
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We would all meet at our house and after the kids went to bed.
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So from 8 to 10 p.m.
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once a week for probably six months, just planning and dreaming and visioning and coming up with mission statements and core values and all of those things.
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And then it became a reality.
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The therapy center opened first so that we would be able to get a lease and start creating an income so that we'd be able to support the school.
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And that's what we did first.
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And we opened that in December of 2022.
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And then we opened the school six months later in August of 2023.
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The school obviously also has a it's a nonprofit organization, so it has a board of directors, and they've been people that I have either walked the journey with, one of them, her name's Caroline Poe.
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She has an autistic son, and we met, we met actually in a speech therapy waiting room when our sons were probably two or three years old, and she's very involved in the special needs community in Fort Worth.
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And so she's on our board.
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And Ashley Jockins, I don't know if you guys know her.
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She's a speech therapist in Fort Worth as well.
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And she was Graham's very first speech therapist when he was two, and she's still with him and he's eight.
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And she was all in, let me know what I can do.
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She's at all of our board meetings, helps with fundraising, all of the things, and several other community members that have knowledge and things that I don't, such as taxes.
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We have a really good tax person on our board.
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And yeah, just like other people in the community that have an interest.
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We have a local principal on our board just to help me with the school aspect of things, a local nurse to help me with like health care policies and things like that for the school.
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Just trying to piece together community members that have a background, maybe not necessarily in special needs or autism, but in school that have a heart for just giving us their time to go through those things.
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It's a group effort, but also at the same time, I tell people like when people ask, like, how did you do it?
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It just feels like it was done for me.
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I don't know y'all's faith background or anything like that, but sometimes it just feels like I did nothing and that everything fell into place and I was just walking where I was called.
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Most of the time I say I don't know how I did it because when I needed something, it would come.
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And it is just like a divine plan.
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I think when we opened our doors, we had five kids, and now we have 70 or so, close to 80 with the school and therapy.
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We have close to 90, but they just all needed somewhere.
00:19:53.839 --> 00:20:02.319
And if I can share like a little bit of light and faith with them while they're here, I feel like that's part of our mission as well.
00:20:02.400 --> 00:20:03.680
So that's amazing.
00:20:03.839 --> 00:20:11.680
I actually wanted to ask you about that earlier, and I'm so glad that we came back to this because you used the word divine earlier, and now the second time.
00:20:11.759 --> 00:20:20.000
And I my question was now Lighthouse was not established as a Christian or faith-based institution, correct?
00:20:20.400 --> 00:20:21.119
Correct.
00:20:21.440 --> 00:20:26.880
So, what made you make that decision to not have it be faith-based?
00:20:27.039 --> 00:20:40.880
And then are there ways that you infuse faith or spirituality or something within your school outside of being an official or religious organization?
00:20:41.279 --> 00:20:41.680
Yeah.
00:20:42.000 --> 00:20:45.119
I did not want to label Lighthouse.
00:20:45.279 --> 00:20:51.359
The name Lighthouse in and of itself is gives away that there is some type of faith-based aspect there.
00:20:51.599 --> 00:20:56.160
The name Lighthouse actually came from a song called My Lighthouse by Ren Collective.
00:20:56.319 --> 00:20:57.279
I couldn't think of a name.
00:20:57.359 --> 00:21:01.279
Like I was coming up with the most horrible names for Lighthouse, like horrible.
00:21:01.599 --> 00:21:07.680
I finally was just driving in the car, and that song came on, and the lyrics were talking about being led safe to shore.
00:21:07.839 --> 00:21:09.839
And that's how I felt at the time.
00:21:10.079 --> 00:21:27.599
That's how I felt that like Graham was finally going to see the shore and not have to worry about where he goes next or what happens next when he gets too old, or if he gets too aggressive, or he gets too complex, or whatever it is.
00:21:27.839 --> 00:21:30.400
I just knew that wouldn't be a worry anymore.
00:21:30.480 --> 00:21:34.079
And I didn't want parents to worry about that anymore either.
00:21:34.240 --> 00:21:37.519
And so that's kind of where the name Lighthouse comes from in general.
00:21:37.759 --> 00:21:47.440
But I didn't want to put a label on Lighthouse because I wanted I didn't want it to deter non believers from coming here.
00:21:47.680 --> 00:21:53.599
I didn't want them to feel unwelcome or judged or whatever it is.
00:21:53.680 --> 00:21:57.359
And that goes for staff and for families.
00:21:58.000 --> 00:21:59.759
But having said that.
00:22:00.000 --> 00:22:09.839
I do think that gives me an opportunity to love on people who believe differently than I do and to show them God's love through Lighthouse.
00:22:10.000 --> 00:22:18.160
And so I have little things here and there, like on both lobbies at our Hemp Hill location and Camp Bowie location.
00:22:18.240 --> 00:22:34.000
We have Bible verses hanging in the lobbies and our school, we don't do any forced faith-based curriculum, but we do have parents who choose to do more faith-based curriculum, like additions into our regular ones.
00:22:34.240 --> 00:22:35.680
So that's always an option too.
00:22:35.759 --> 00:22:58.799
And I do hope at some point we'll have a Bible class enrichment that kids can either sign up for or opt out of if they don't want to, but that's been our general basis for like families and kiddos and just hoping that they are able to see God's love for them through Lighthouse without putting a label on it that makes them not want to come here.
00:22:59.039 --> 00:23:00.160
Because we have seen that.
00:23:00.319 --> 00:23:05.599
I've seen both scenarios where a family will come into tour and they'll be like, oh my gosh, is this a faith-based place?
00:23:05.759 --> 00:23:06.559
This is so amazing.
00:23:06.640 --> 00:23:07.359
This is so cute.
00:23:07.519 --> 00:23:08.240
This is great.
00:23:08.400 --> 00:23:09.359
I didn't expect this.
00:23:09.519 --> 00:23:11.200
And then I've had families come in.
00:23:11.279 --> 00:23:13.359
That's like, why is there a Bible verse on the wall?
00:23:13.519 --> 00:23:14.799
Do we have to believe in God?
00:23:14.880 --> 00:23:19.920
But it's just like I've seen both and I love them both, and both are welcome here.
00:23:20.000 --> 00:23:24.240
And I just hope that whoever it is feels love when they're here.
00:23:24.480 --> 00:23:30.559
And then on the other side of that, for staff, that's a whole other thing that I didn't even think of when I opened Lighthouse.
00:23:30.640 --> 00:23:36.240
I opened it for the children, and now there's 90 something staff members, and they are also like my children.
00:23:36.400 --> 00:23:41.519
But we have a Lighthouse Bible study group where we've done a couple different studies together.
00:23:41.680 --> 00:23:45.119
We meet on Fridays before the clinic opens.
00:23:45.359 --> 00:23:47.359
Staff can sign up to join that.
00:23:47.519 --> 00:23:53.440
And that's also been really sweet to see those therapists get to know each other in that way.
00:23:53.519 --> 00:24:00.480
And then it's also cool to grow a relationship with people at work through faith and not just through work.
00:24:00.720 --> 00:24:08.880
So it's like when you're having a bad day or being on the floor is crazy, you can just look at each other and know that we're thinking about what we just went over before the day started.
00:24:09.039 --> 00:24:11.920
I've had staff members that told me they didn't really know who God was joined.
00:24:12.079 --> 00:24:13.359
It's been really cool too.
00:24:13.680 --> 00:24:14.480
I love that.
00:24:14.640 --> 00:24:32.480
I feel like it's an amazing place that you've established, not only for the kids, but it sounds like for your staff and just a place where they want to be and want to be working, which is really important, especially in this field when it can be really hard and draining and it takes a lot of energy.
00:24:32.559 --> 00:24:43.119
And it sounds like you're definitely filling their cup in a lot of different ways, which, like you said, you probably had not thought about that aspect of it when you were thinking about opening all of this.
00:24:43.680 --> 00:24:58.160
The questions I wanted to go back to is when you were talking about not having to worry about the age limit for your son, how have you, whether it's in your intake form or when families are starting, what does that process look like?
00:24:58.319 --> 00:25:02.559
Do y'all do up to 18, or are you going to 21 like public school?
00:25:02.640 --> 00:25:04.480
What does that look like for your process?
00:25:04.799 --> 00:25:11.839
Yeah, so families are rightfully so very untrusting when they come in for a tour.
00:25:12.160 --> 00:25:17.920
I find that we have to work really hard to get them to trust us.
00:25:18.000 --> 00:25:27.839
And I don't blame them just from the services that are offered here in Texas in general, and especially in our local community.
00:25:27.920 --> 00:25:31.680
It's just been mainly geared towards early intervention.
00:25:31.839 --> 00:25:40.559
And so I think we are one of the only ABA centers in the in Fort Worth, but also in the general area.
00:25:40.799 --> 00:25:42.559
Our oldest client is 20.
00:25:42.720 --> 00:25:50.000
We have two 20-year-old clients and one 19-year-old and one 18-year-old, and then a lot of 13, 14-year-olds.
00:25:50.240 --> 00:25:57.759
One of our very first clients, he's our 20-year-old, and his mom met with me before we even opened the clinic.
00:25:57.920 --> 00:26:02.960
She had heard we were starting and just wanted to meet me because she didn't trust me.
00:26:03.119 --> 00:26:08.880
She's I don't want to sign up for this another clinic that's just gonna fall apart or he's gonna get too old for.
00:26:09.119 --> 00:26:11.440
So we met up at a coffee shop and she grilled me.
00:26:11.519 --> 00:26:16.000
And at the time my son was five, so she was probably like, What does this girl know what we've been through?
00:26:16.240 --> 00:26:25.680
He eventually did start with us, and two and a half years in, he's still with us, and he's like my current inspiration for what comes next.
00:26:25.839 --> 00:26:31.440
I know what comes next for Graham because he's eight, what comes next for him because he's 20.
00:26:31.519 --> 00:26:35.279
And we do have things in the works for him.
00:26:35.440 --> 00:26:52.240
I want him to be our catalyst to our belief that his parents don't have to worry about where he goes next or worry about what's gonna come next because we want for them to trust that we aren't ever going to tell them he's too old or he's too severe or he's too whatever.
00:26:52.480 --> 00:26:54.559
So we do have plans in the works.
00:26:54.640 --> 00:26:57.680
We have a little program that we're starting called Build Aboat.
00:26:57.920 --> 00:27:11.759
I'm starting it with several other Lighthouse staff members that kind of have the same vision that I do for like vocational things for him and his peers and just what comes next for them.
00:27:11.920 --> 00:27:18.079
Obviously, the older kiddos get, the more insurance fights with us, and the more their hours get cut, and that's a very real thing.
00:27:18.400 --> 00:27:22.000
And so we just don't allow that to be an option.
00:27:22.160 --> 00:27:30.480
We have a classroom here that we call that's separate from the school, it's a part of the therapy center, and that we're calling it the Life House.
00:27:30.559 --> 00:27:39.119
And so they can utilize their ABA hours in the morning and then utilize the Life House room in the afternoons where they're doing like group activities.
00:27:39.279 --> 00:27:42.000
It's a little lighter of a therapy load for them.
00:27:42.079 --> 00:27:59.359
They're not doing as intense therapy as ABA, but they're doing like group activities, group games, relaxing, and just having a safe space for them to be with their peers and to be themselves and give their parents peace of mind that they're somewhere safe and that they're loved here.
00:27:59.680 --> 00:28:18.559
As you're talking about these different spaces within the Lighthouse School, one thing that really struck me about you all that has been pretty different than other schools and centers that have started up is your purposefulness and eye for design.
00:28:19.039 --> 00:28:24.720
You all have a beautiful space, just professionally designed.
00:28:24.960 --> 00:28:30.960
And I know that you have commissioned several works of art that you have put in your space.
00:28:31.279 --> 00:28:43.839
You have so obviously spent an enormous amount of time thinking about the environment and the kind of impact that would have on the children that come in.
00:28:44.240 --> 00:28:50.640
And the parents tell us more about the design of your school and what was your ideas behind doing that?
00:28:50.720 --> 00:28:53.279
It you clearly spent a lot of time and effort there.
00:28:53.519 --> 00:28:59.759
Yeah, the main thing behind it is that I do want parents and kids.
00:28:59.839 --> 00:29:10.400
I'm sure kids don't care near as much as adults do, but I did want parents to come in and to feel like I cared enough about where they sit or where they wait more than a plastic chair.
00:29:10.559 --> 00:29:17.039
And that was always something that kind of I enjoy being in a aesthetically pleasing environment.
00:29:17.359 --> 00:29:20.160
My house has to be clean, like things have to be put in place.
00:29:20.240 --> 00:29:21.119
It's just how I am.
00:29:21.200 --> 00:29:24.880
I feel much more relaxed and at ease when I'm sitting somewhere that's pretty.
00:29:25.039 --> 00:29:29.519
And so I wanted parents to feel that we cared enough about that for them.
00:29:29.759 --> 00:29:38.960
It didn't matter if it cost more money to have that put together nicely for them, but it was important for me for them to know that's something that I cared about.
00:29:39.119 --> 00:29:46.480
I care about their experience here and their environment here, and that was just always a non-negotiable for me.
00:29:46.720 --> 00:29:50.880
And my one of my very best friends, her name's Ashley Higgins.
00:29:51.039 --> 00:29:52.400
She's also known as A.
00:29:52.559 --> 00:29:53.920
Higgins Interiors.
00:29:54.319 --> 00:29:56.319
We started our businesses at the same time.
00:29:56.640 --> 00:29:59.920
She does our design for me.
00:30:00.079 --> 00:30:07.119
So she's done both lobbies at both locations, conference rooms, anywhere where a parent is going to have to spend time.
00:30:07.359 --> 00:30:13.200
I had her put her touch on to just help them be cared for when they're in our environment.
00:30:13.440 --> 00:30:20.480
Kids stuff is another story because it gets so destroyed and yucky and has to be wipable and all the things.
00:30:20.559 --> 00:30:24.400
So our toys are always on like a constant auto ship thing.
00:30:24.559 --> 00:30:31.680
But as far as like the spaces that we are going to spend time, um, and the staff, not just families, but the staff too.
00:30:31.759 --> 00:30:43.759
I want the staff to have somewhere where they can retreat to at lunch or after work to where they feel that I cared enough to give them comfort instead of something sterile and plastic.
00:30:43.920 --> 00:30:45.680
So that's behind the design.
00:30:46.160 --> 00:30:56.640
You talk about the kids, and you talked earlier about so much being geared towards the younger kids, and it is, but you guys have done some amazing job with some of those older kids.
00:30:56.799 --> 00:31:00.400
Also, I called you, Mary, like after I left the first time.
00:31:00.480 --> 00:31:06.319
And when I went in to see a girl, I was seeing, and it's like her room had her name on the door.
00:31:06.640 --> 00:31:07.599
The bingbag chair.
00:31:07.680 --> 00:31:14.160
It's like the preteen stuff in the hot pink, and her mom was in tears.
00:31:14.319 --> 00:31:20.799
Those things do matter, they matter so much when you're sending your child somewhere for hours a day.
00:31:21.119 --> 00:31:25.440
I did the girly room when we were moving to the pill just because it's so fun.
00:31:25.599 --> 00:31:34.480
We don't have too many girls here, and so I was like, this is gonna be a girly room, and I got that like Van Gogh tapestry or whatever it was for the wall.
00:31:34.720 --> 00:31:38.000
Because you can really find anything that's like aesthetically pleasing and also safe.
00:31:38.160 --> 00:31:48.559
I didn't want to put like a glass frame on the wall that might fall and break or whatever, but there was there it was a Van Gogh tapestry on Amazon that I just had brought over.
00:31:48.720 --> 00:32:00.079
And but that's really important to me for everybody to feel that we care about them during the day and that they're in that they're in an environment that was made just for them.
00:32:00.240 --> 00:32:03.039
I like having their rooms be personal to who they are.
00:32:03.200 --> 00:32:06.079
There, I think we have a what are those little yellow guys called?
00:32:06.240 --> 00:32:10.720
Minions, and we have a minion room, and whatever they're into is like what we gear that towards.
00:32:10.880 --> 00:32:14.960
And all of our art pieces here that are hanging in lobbies and things like that.
00:32:15.119 --> 00:32:20.640
Our art teacher, so this year was our first year to have for Lighthouse School to have an art show.
00:32:21.119 --> 00:32:23.839
They worked all year on their pieces.
00:32:24.160 --> 00:32:30.400
My friend, one of my very good friends, Veronica Dummett, she is a mom of four girls, so that's her main job.
00:32:30.559 --> 00:32:34.880
But she paints in her free time and is an amazing artist.
00:32:34.960 --> 00:32:49.920
And she donated her time every single Wednesday for this entire school year to come teach art to our kids, which she had no, she had no experience with a special education school or autism or anything like that.
00:32:50.079 --> 00:33:00.960
And she just jumped right in and has just done such an amazing job with them this year, and she has painted all of the things that hang around Hempel and Cambuoy.
00:33:01.119 --> 00:33:04.880
And we had our art show at William Campbell Gallery this year.
00:33:04.960 --> 00:33:11.039
They donated their space to us to host our art show, and all the kids had their pieces up and all the families came.
00:33:11.119 --> 00:33:15.200
I think there was probably over 300 people at their art show this year.
00:33:15.440 --> 00:33:17.839
So that was wild, but it was really cool.
00:33:18.000 --> 00:33:20.079
It was really cool to see them be proud of their work.
00:33:20.240 --> 00:33:23.759
The art show was named Created for Purpose, and it's exactly what it was.
00:33:23.920 --> 00:33:34.559
They just had so much purpose that evening, showing their family around what they've been working on all year, introducing them to Miss V, the art teacher, and it was just really fun.
00:33:34.720 --> 00:33:39.519
There's lots of cool people behind the things at Lighthouse, too.
00:33:39.839 --> 00:34:10.159
What strikes me about your story and the creation of Lighthouse as well is not just how purposeful your vision was and how every detail down to the interior design and the fabric choices of the conference room were important to you about how people felt cared about and loved, but you have also had to delegate and had to hire so much to make your vision come to life.
00:34:10.400 --> 00:34:27.760
You can have the best mission statement in the entire world, you can have the best school, and yet if you don't hire the right people to work with, that is not going to work and it's not going to promote and do exactly as you wanted.
00:34:28.079 --> 00:34:36.960
Can you tell us a little bit about how you have found the right staff to support you in this school?
00:34:37.280 --> 00:34:43.119
Because I know that they must be the best of the best to be at this school.
00:34:43.440 --> 00:34:43.679
Yeah.
00:34:43.760 --> 00:34:48.320
So Caitlin, obviously, who started Lighthouse with me, she's a BCBA.
00:34:48.639 --> 00:34:56.239
And so it started with her and then one of Graham's BCBAs that we met at the center he was at for three years.
00:34:56.480 --> 00:35:01.920
She was his BCBA for a brief time before they closed down, and we just kept in touch after they did.
00:35:02.079 --> 00:35:03.599
And she's here with us now.
00:35:03.760 --> 00:35:05.840
She's opened Lighthouse with us.
00:35:05.920 --> 00:35:09.519
She was there on the first day, and she's been his BCBA ever since.
00:35:09.679 --> 00:35:11.679
Her title now is director of quality assurance.
00:35:11.760 --> 00:35:12.880
Her name's Kayla.
00:35:13.039 --> 00:35:18.639
And then JC is our director of our clinical side of things.
00:35:18.800 --> 00:35:20.719
And she also does the same thing.
00:35:20.800 --> 00:35:23.760
She was with us when we opened and exerted with them.
00:35:23.840 --> 00:35:28.559
They're all three BCBAs, and they're like our core and our standard for what we're looking for.
00:35:28.719 --> 00:35:35.360
They all perform ABA the exact way that I, as a mom, envision for our kids.
00:35:35.519 --> 00:35:39.679
And then a lot of our current BCBAs were our students when we first opened.
00:35:39.760 --> 00:35:47.920
So we had RBTs who were in school to become a BCBA, and they were able to finish their master's program with us and move on to become a BCBA.
00:35:48.079 --> 00:35:54.960
And so our first round of students have all been graduated and in that BCBA role for a year now.
00:35:55.039 --> 00:35:58.719
And we're at our second round of students who are all graduating next week.
00:35:58.880 --> 00:36:06.320
And so I think that really helps us hire the right BCBAs when they get to do the bulk of their training here.
00:36:06.559 --> 00:36:12.400
It's really hard to hire outside BCBAs because they've been trained somewhere else.
00:36:12.639 --> 00:36:16.400
They could perform ABA much differently than we do here.
00:36:16.880 --> 00:36:21.199
Our ABA center is very naturalistic and it's just very realistic.
00:36:21.280 --> 00:36:22.880
There's no proper term for it.
00:36:23.039 --> 00:36:29.760
I don't do anything clinical, but I call it the realistic version of ABA because it's what I cared about as a mom.
00:36:30.000 --> 00:36:35.599
I would get so frustrated going to Graham's parent meetings and then being like, oh, he mastered his 3D puzzle goal.
00:36:35.679 --> 00:36:36.639
And I'm like, what?
00:36:37.119 --> 00:36:38.159
I don't care.
00:36:38.639 --> 00:36:51.199
I don't care about a puzzle if like he elopes out of our home and is unsafe or doesn't understand, you know, that he can't just walk out of our house or doesn't understand stop signs or can't eat certain things.
00:36:51.360 --> 00:36:57.920
There's just so many more things that are so much more important than what he's doing here day in and day out.
00:36:58.239 --> 00:37:02.960
And so that's really what I wanted our ABA center to be about.
00:37:03.119 --> 00:37:07.760
And so we do community outings, we do field trips, we do all of the things.
00:37:07.840 --> 00:37:13.760
We go to doctor's appointments, dentist appointments, everything that you can think of that parents need help with.
00:37:13.920 --> 00:37:17.840
We are more than willing to do that with them just to make ABA worthwhile.
00:37:17.920 --> 00:37:23.679
Like they're just not getting dropped off here for us to fill their day and time with something.
00:37:23.840 --> 00:37:31.360
I want it to be worth it to these families that are committing to bringing them every day and for it to actually improve their lives.
00:37:31.840 --> 00:37:38.079
I think Candolyn, who is now our clinical director, she was an outside hire.
00:37:38.480 --> 00:37:44.880
I always like to say she's like the rare one, but we hired her from another company probably like a year and a half ago.
00:37:45.199 --> 00:37:46.480
And she's amazing.
00:37:46.719 --> 00:37:52.639
She is the BCBA to probably our hardest client here.
00:37:52.800 --> 00:38:00.800
And just to see the way his life has changed from her programming and her skills has just been the best part.
00:38:00.960 --> 00:38:03.199
So it's been the part of like why we're here.
00:38:03.360 --> 00:38:04.320
Team is very important.
00:38:04.480 --> 00:38:05.440
Team is hard.
00:38:05.599 --> 00:38:16.559
Like right now, we have a wait list of kids that we need to start, and they're not starting, not due to space, but due to I can't find a BCBA I like enough to hire.
00:38:16.719 --> 00:38:17.760
So here we are.
00:38:18.000 --> 00:38:23.199
It's such a privilege and honor to be able to talk with you, Ashlyn, and hear your story.
00:38:23.519 --> 00:38:32.800
Just really inspirational, incredible, and a real testament of following God's call for what needed to be done in Fort Worth.
00:38:32.880 --> 00:38:36.719
And you're just a really amazing asset to our community.
00:38:36.800 --> 00:38:37.920
We're really thankful for you.
00:38:38.239 --> 00:38:38.800
Thank you guys.
00:38:38.880 --> 00:38:51.920
If you're like Simone and Veronica, like you guys obviously do have a tie to this community, but you don't have to spend your time educating the community and putting these podcasts out to better the services here.
00:38:52.000 --> 00:38:54.000
So thank you guys for doing this.
00:38:54.400 --> 00:38:55.519
Thanks for listening.
00:38:55.679 --> 00:39:01.119
Make sure you subscribe to our podcast and check out our website, thespeechsource.com.
00:39:01.360 --> 00:39:06.719
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