Cultivate: Behavioral Health & Education
We’re diving deeper into the story of Cultivate BHE, formerly known as Progressive Behavioral Science, who have been providing the ADA community of South Florida with engaging, individualized and compassionate care for over a decade. Big thanks to Jose, the Outreach Coordinator for the South Beach areas who was kind enough to take the time to sit down and talk about the journey that has brought him and Cultivate BHE to being partners with Bike to the Beach.
The story of Progressive Behavioral Science, or PBS, begins in 2009 when it was founded by Maria Arizmendi. Looking around, Maria saw there was a lack of organizations providing the families of children with autism hands-on support in their day to day lives. Yes, there was a chance their children received help at school, but outside of that it could get difficult to handle the small things such as going to the grocery store or spending an afternoon at the movies, especially if the family has more than one child. This is the space that Maria wanted to step into and provide the families and their ADA children with the support she knew that community needed. After making some headway on her own, Maria found a partner in Dr. Robert Tuschman who was instrumental in making connections with the exact ADA community Maria was looking to help across Miami. Through that partnership, Progressive Behavioral Science was able to expand their reach outside of Miami and into the upper reaches of Dade County, Palm Beach/Boca Raton, and Broward County. After a decade of growing PBS and helping ADA children and families across South Florida, Maria was offered the opportunity to partner with Cultivate BHE, an organization that essentially works as an umbrella partner bringing together ADA-focused companies across the United States. Seeing the new doors that the partnership would open up, allowing PBS to expand and improve upon the services they already offered, Maria decided to partner PBS with Cultivate, becoming the Regional VP for the Southeastern region of the U.S.
Throughout the entire journey, Cultivate has continued to provide a variety of services to the ADA community across South Florida. Their focus is on offering families in-home ABA services, giving them the personalized and convenient support they need for their child’s autism therapy, from first detection until the child is 18 although the clients generally top out at 16. This can include family therapy, going with the families on trips to the store or other activities for in the field learning sessions, providing online support groups for both parents and the children, and even heading into school with the children if the school is open to it. According to Jose, early detection and intervention is crucial in creating the proper environment and lining up the right services. One of his responsibilities is reaching out and maintaining relationships with a network of diagnosticians focused on early detection across Miami as it allows him to get in touch with the families and point them in helpful directions. Even if the families don’t end up working with Cultivate, Jose and Cultivate take pride in being able to provide them references and resources that will allow them to understand the new path they are going to be walking down.
The connection between Bike to the Beach and Cultivate BHE came about because of a Google search. Jose was looking around for local events focused on autism awareness and found a provider connection event that Autism Speaks was hosting where Bike to the Beach was the guest speaker. Hearing Ben speak on the amazing work they were doing in the ADA community, Jose knew that he wanted to get Cultivate involved. Listening to Ben and Hector speak in a break-out room only confirmed his initial thoughts. After reaching out and emailing B2B, Jose and Cultivate set up a partnership to be at the finish line of the Florida ride. Overall, Jose thinks that they are already working together well and is excited to see where this partnership will go!
Thanks again to Jose for taking the time to sit down and talk about Cultivate and the great work they are doing to help support the ADA community in South Florida.
