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RethinkFirst—Providing behavioral health solutions to support individuals and their caregivers where they work and live

RethinkFirst—Providing behavioral health solutions to support individuals and their caregivers where they work and live

In today’s day and age, our whole world revolves around smartphones, tablets, and the internet. “Google it!” or “I’ll ‘friend’ you later” or “Did you see that tweet?” are just a few of the famous phrases associated with the internet and online networking that can be heard almost everywhere we turn.

The goals and uses of technology are very different for adolescents and young adults. These tools can be very empowering for adolescents transitioning into young adulthood, especially for individuals with developmental disabilities. Technology can help your child become more independent, work on their challenges, and improve their strengths.

Knowledge empowers. Having a dependent with a developmental disability necessitates finding out as much as possible about all aspects of the condition, treatments, and available services to ensure that you are getting the most appropriate services for your child’s needs. Knowing also helps parents converse on an equal footing with professionals and service providers.

Current treatments for developmental disabilities such as autism spectrum disorders (ASD) seek to reduce symptoms that interfere with daily functioning and quality of life. ASD affects each person differently, meaning that people with ASD have unique strengths and challenges and different treatment needs. Therefore, treatment plans usually involve multiple professionals and cater to the individual.

Treatments can be given in educational, healthcare, community, home, or a combination of settings. Providers must communicate with each other, the person with the developmental disability, and their family to ensure that treatment goals and progress meet expectations.

The leading provider of training, treatment tools and clinical supports to families, educators, and behavioral healthcare providers is RethinkFirst. Rethink aims to provide its clients with affordable, best-practice treatment solutions for individuals with special needs as well as mental health supports for their caregivers. Rethink is unique in its global footprint, offering best-practice tools, clinical support, and research-based content via technology to all market segments, reaching more individuals with special needs and mental health issues than any other solution.

Rethink’s platform supports professional development, curriculum planning, parent training, and tracking of progress. Through online and video-based tools, they bring to life best-practice teaching, treatment, and intervention strategies that help educators, parents, and clinicians personalize instruction for every individual. Employers currently using the Rethink program include a third of the US Fortune 100 as well as entities such as the US Department of Defense, Managed Care organizations, Medicaid, federal, state, and social service agencies, public school districts, and families nation-and worldwide.

In conversation with Daniel A. Etra, CEO of RethinkFirst

Q. How can families benefit from your digital tools?

Rethink offers the industry-leading training and support platform for employees caring for dependents with various issues, including mental health challenges and developmental disabilities. Rethink’s hundreds of corporate clients range from employers with under 1000 employees to over 500,000 employees, and across its book of business, Rethink covers over 7 million lives. Research demonstrates the impact of caring for a dependent with a developmental disability – from over twice the rates of anxiety and depression to thousands of dollars annually in lost productivity. Indeed, over half of caregivers work fewer hours or leave the workforce to accommodate their child’s needs. The Rethink program helps support these employees, directly impacting their productivity in the workplace, and helps employers create a culture of wellness for their entire workforce.

Shed light on Rethink’s platform.

Only approximately 50,000 Board Certified Behavioral Therapists globally are available to meet the needs of a growing population with a developmental disability, approximately 450 million individuals birth to 21 globally. With a significant shortage of trained professionals, Rethink set out to create a scalable solution that would make clinical best practice treatment tools and supports available to individuals and their caregiver(s) no matter where they are located.

By providing research-based teaching strategies grounded in the principles of Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA), the award-winning Rethink program includes a comprehensive online individualized treatment program with thousands of video-based demonstrations—developed by internationally-recognized experts in the field—to train caregivers, parents, professional and paraprofessional staff how to manage problem behaviors as well as teach an individual with a developmental disability critical skills.

Automated data-based reports track progress in real-time, facilitate coordination across care team members, and allow for robust data analytics on outcomes. In addition, Program Specialists can also utilize Rethink as a form of job-embedded professional development and augment coaching caregivers and other support staff. Rethink also offers a range of technology-enabled remote service options, from short-term web-based consultations with Rethink’s Board-certified behavioral therapists to ongoing program development initiatives supported by an in-house team of clinicians. In addition, Rethink’s practice management offering allows for tracking service authorizations and treatment cost as it relates to clinical outcomes. Rethink serves individuals at all levels of development and ages, ranging from the point of diagnosis through early adulthood. Lastly, Rethink provides a suite of global solutions to support caregivers’ mental health and wellbeing.

Q. What is the most satisfying moment you had in RethinkFirst?

Rethink was founded with a mission to address the significant challenge of effectively and affordably meeting the treatment needs of the enormous and growing population with developmental disabilities worldwide faced with a significant shortage of trained professionals. Together with my Co-Founder, we determined that the only way to deliver clinical best practice treatment in a scalable way was to leverage technology to train whoever was caring for the individual with the developmental disability on how to deliver the treatment. This would impact all the entities revolving around the care of this population, including the school, home, and healthcare system. Rethink found extensive research on the effectiveness of video modeling for training in fields such as medicine and the military and decided to combine this proven method of instruction with the proven and medically-recommended ABA treatment methodology, creating an online training and support system for individuals with a developmental disability and their caregivers worldwide.

Share details about care management solutions.

Rethink offers the industry-leading practice management platform for behavioral health providers specializing in individuals with autism and related disorders. Used by hundreds of providers serving tens of thousands of individuals nationwide, the software helps improve treatment outcomes by simplifying/automating workflows, improving staff training, and ensuring standardization and clinical fidelity of care delivery. Rethink also helps managed care organizations establish the appropriate level of intervention for a patient with an autism spectrum disorder and manage care across provider networks.

Q. Why do you think team culture is necessary?

A thriving team culture brings together the people within an organization and keeps them aligned. Different perspectives can gather behind the culture with a common purpose when it is evident. An organization’s culture sets expectations for how people behave and work together and how well they function as a team. This way, culture can break down the boundaries between siloed teams, guide decision-making, and improve workflow. As a mission-oriented company, Rethink’s culture is focused on having a social impact.

Leading RethinkFirst to impact the lives of millions worldwide

Daniel A. Etra is the Co-Founder & CEO of RethinkFirst. With almost three decades of successful international business experience, including 20 years as a serial entrepreneur, Mr. Etra was Co-Founder & CEO of RER International, a global supplier of printed materials to the retail industry. He was a Consultant at Bain & Company, helping establish their NY office, and served as a Managing Director of Promodex Ltd., an importer and distributor of consumer appliances and industrial equipment in the Middle East. In addition, Mr. Etra served in the Israel Defense Forces and worked at Wasserstein, Perella & Co., specializing in M&A in healthcare, technology, and natural resources.

Mr. Etra has won numerous awards, including the Inc. 500, the Deloitte Technology Fast 500, the SmartCEO Future 50, and the CEO of the Year from Industry Era and Corporate Vision Magazines. He is also a Young Presidents’ Organization (YPO) member. Mr. Etra has an MBA from Harvard Business School and a BA in Economics from Yale University. Born and raised in New York City, he has been active in a variety of children’s causes and volunteered with organizations such as NY Cares and Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center.

“Transforming behavioral health together.”


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