Happy Monday! Answering questions about The Autism Helper Membership. Enrollment closes 1/29!

Monday, Instagram and Facebook. I'm doing kind of a double live, so it looks like I'm not looking at the screen all the time, it's cuz I'm not. How was everyone's Monday? You survived, so it must have been pretty good, right? Well, hopefully it wasn't too bad. I know it's like the 300th day of January, but we're somehow still in January. Does anyone else feel like that? Like it's than January forever. Um, please tell me I'm not alone on that. Um, so anyways, coming on here to answer a few questions about the Autism Helper membership and kind of go over a few questions I've been getting a lot today. Enrollment closes on Wednesday, so you've got 2 more days. So this will be the last time we're opening enrollment for this school year. We're not going to reopen until next school year. I think this is an awesome time to join Actually, I mean, September was a great time to join because you're like starting the year, but September's overwhelming as crap, right? Like, I have a million things to do, I can't add anything to my to-do list. Now is a nice time for professional development, whether I'm like going to do speaking or whether you're listening to podcasts or joining the membership, because you know your class, you know your kids, you know what you need, you kind of have the mental headspace to take on something new. And I wanted to kind of chat about tonight some of my goals about when I created the membership and why I set it up the way that it is, because I think it'll help kind of explain it a little bit more to you because it's a little different, right? Um, but feel free to pop your questions in at any time. I want to address a few of the questions I've been getting a lot today specifically. Um, one is school licenses. So we do accept school POs and school credit cards, um, and we've had people buy— schools buy one license or multiple licenses for the different teachers on their team. So if that's something you think your administrators would be interested in, you have 2 days, so no pressure. But I know school districts move a little slowly, but if that's something that you think you have a chance at your administrator saying yes, I recommend just asking them tomorrow. Like, go in tomorrow a little early, um, let them know. You can bring up my website, show them what it's about, um, and consider having your administrator sign up because why not have an administrator pay, right? So, um, I think that's a good option. We have information on there on the website that's linked on Facebook and on Instagram. Um, towards the bottom you could click school licenses and it gives all that information, um, and how we accept payment and things like that. So that's one thing. Another question I got asked today was, if I don't have Facebook, how can I join in on the lives and the community and all that? So people on Facebook Live, you you obviously have a Facebook, so this does not apply to you. But people on Instagram, maybe you don't have a Facebook. So if you don't have a Facebook, I will be posting our monthly Facebook Lives in kind of a private Facebook channel that you can still watch. I do a monthly Facebook Live with members. I'm actually doing my January one tomorrow, and it's a lot of fun. We kind of have open Q&A, so we answer all the questions, we go through things from the videos, and you really just have access to kind of chat with each other, to chat with me, get direct questions answered. I always look forward to it every month. I think it's a lot of fun. So if you don't have Facebook, we'll figure out a way to make sure that you can watch those, 'cause I think that there's always great questions asked. I love hearing what people have going on in their classrooms and what questions they ask, so it's always kind of fun. So I wanna give you guys, feel free to drop any questions you have in about the membership as we go through, but a few things I wanted to let you know about kind of the background on why I set this up the way I did. So I had a few goals when figuring this out. So this a little bit came to be by people always asking me when I went to do a professional development and traveled, people would ask me, "Can I have your slides? Are you gonna make a webinar? Are you gonna do this?" And I couldn't conceptualize how to turn like my full-day training that I like jam-packed with all this stuff into something that someone could sit and watch. Like you just can't sit and stare at a computer for 8 hours. So I really wanted First off, before I even figured out the order of the videos and how this was all set up and all that stuff, I wanted this to be easy because I know teachers are super, super busy. And the idea of adding something else to your plate, even if it's something you want to do, is intimidating and overwhelming. You're like, I— my to-do list is so long. This sounds awesome. I just don't have time for this. So I considered that a lot when creating this because I was that teacher that was like, "Oh no, no, don't try to add something else to my plate. I have enough going on." So I wanted the content to be really easy to consume. So we get videos every month in the membership and you can watch the videos like if you watch the Behavior Change Masterclass, you can watch those videos just like you did in the Behavior Change Masterclass. We have the regular videos, we have the closed captioning videos, you can watch them on mute. We can— and we also have the full written transcript so you can just print the PDFs of exactly what I'm saying. We also have an audio-only version. So if you want to listen to it like a podcast on your way to work and be like truly efficient, you can do that. So there's kind of all the options in making this really easy to consume. I also made sure the videos were short. Like, again, no one's like going to carve out 4 hours to watch something. A lot of the videos are between like 7 and 14 minutes. You could watch them on your prep, you can watch them at your lunch break, you watch them at 1 at night really quick. So I really wanted it to kind of be something easy to consume. My other big goal was I really wanted it to be useful for teachers regardless of their experience level and regardless of their, um, of the age of kids that they were teaching. So, you know, we all have different levels of experience. Some of us have been teaching for a lot of years, some have only been teaching for a few years. I really truly believe that professional development is important at any skill level. Like, I am always learning. I attend as many conferences as I can. I read as many professional development books as I can because I don't know all the things. None of us know all the things. And I think especially in the special ed field, I quote Dr. Stephen Shore all the time: if you've met one individual with autism, you've met one individual with autism. So even in this field when you are a veteran teacher and you know exactly what you're doing, man, it can take one kid or one kind of combination of students to really knock you right back to year 1. And so you always need to be revisiting the foundations and then kind of, you know, slowly leveling up. So even if you're a veteran teacher, I wanted to create something that could be really useful to you because in our roles, even as a veteran teacher, we're doing a lot of training, we're doing a lot of consulting, we're doing a lot of work within our school community, so we have to know how to talk about all these things to everyone. So a great example to kind of hear what I'm talking about a little bit more in detail is this week's podcast episode. So the episode that came out last Thursday, episode 58, I'm talking to 5 members and they all teach in different settings, in different types of classroom, different age groups, they're different experience levels, and it was so, so fun for me to chat with them and then honestly to put these episodes, these conversations together. In a podcast episode because I realized that they're all in different settings and they're all utilizing the membership differently, which I love. Like, and they're all finding value. Like, one, one of the members was like, oh, like, right when the new stuff comes out in the first of the month, I try to get that first Saturday and I binge and I watch all of them. And another member was like, oh, I just watch one, like, here and there on my lunch breaks or my preps and kind of consume it slowly. Someone else was like, "I try to watch them, you know, in a big chunk and then revisit things throughout the month." Some of them are using them with their staff. Some of them are sending them to their principal and using them in like PLC meetings and things like that, showing these training videos. So it was really cool to see the different ways that not only were they like kind of digesting the content, but then sharing it. Like the one that was like, "I share with my administrator, I'm sharing at my PLC, I'm doing all this." That is amazing. Like I wish at any level of teaching I just had something that I could rely on because I wasn't always comfortable being like, here everyone do what I say. It's sometimes a little more comfortable like, here, let's watch this training video together and let's learn together. It really changes the dynamic. And I know a lot of you use the Behavior Change Masterclass in this way. You watched it with your teams, which I loved. And we have so many videos in the membership that are really designed for that, for you to watch with your paras, with your clinicians, so you can kind of work on these things together. And if you are struggling with staff training, which I know a lot of us are because we aren't taught how to do it in undergrad or in grad school, this is going to really focus on that. And the last goal that I had that was a big one was not to overwhelm. So I am someone that is like, more is better. My full-day trainings— this is why I could not at first conceptualize how to turn a full-day training into something that could be, you know, accessed all over the US or all over the world is in my full-day trainings I pack it in. Like, people get their PDFs, like, or their handouts if the conference or the school district prints all my slides. Like, I watch these teachers' faces, they're like, "How is this girl gonna get through all this in one day?" And as you guys know, I talk really fast, so I do get through it all. But I pack a ton in and I know It's too much sometimes. We just can't take in all that information. So I really tried to resist the urge when creating the membership to just put like everything that I wanted because I knew I didn't want to log into something and see too much. Like to me, I want someone to tell me these are the 4 things you've got to focus on and that's it. Like that's what as a teacher and, or really any field, You want, you want a path, you want a plan, you want someone to help you create that path, path, path or plan. I'm going to combine those two words and really kind of guide that out. Like, okay, I know we've got a lot to work on, but this is what we're working on. And I hear from teachers probably daily and many times a day that they're struggling, that they're like, I'm trying everything, I'm doing all the things and I just feel burnt out. And the burnt-out feeling doesn't come from like being lazy or not caring. It comes from trying so much. So if that like exactly sounds like you, like, oh my gosh, I'm just trying all the things. That was my goal is to really kind of reduce that overwhelm and to have that path and that plan. And the membership really, I, I hope has created that. Like every month there is focus topics and this is what we're working on and these are the action steps. And this is how we're gonna make progress. So those were kind of my big 3 goals, was I wanted something that was easy to consume. I know people don't have extra time, like extra time is a luxury. So if the idea of like a membership feels like a big commitment, this is like kind of something you can fill in the nooks and crannies of your day. You can listen to this on the way to work, you can watch it at your prep, um, you can kind of do this at a schedule that will work for you. And I wanted it to be useful for anyone regardless of their skill level, regardless of their age level. This isn't created specifically for preschool students or high school students or elementary. It's kind of the, the basic concepts and principles that we need to run a successful classroom, to utilize ABA, to utilize successful leadership principles with our staff. Like, we're gonna need these strategies no matter the kind of age level or skill level of the students. So those are kind of my 3 big things. And when kind of I looked at what I wanted to do, the idea of how the membership is currently set up really came about. So every month you get 4 to 6 new training videos. Like I said, they're short, they're quick to watch, and you can also download 3 resources. So I haven't gotten too many detailed questions about this yet, but I wanted to kind of also chat about this tonight. So every month there'll be a selection of resources, like about 10 to 12 that you can pick from. And I did that because I know some of you already shop my TPT store and might already have some of my things. So I want to make sure that you can pick things that you don't already have. I also want to make sure that you can pick things that are well suited for your classroom. If you are all set on schedules or behavior visuals or your independent work system or your staff training plan, cool. Don't pick those things. So every month you get to utilize 3 credits and you download 3 things. Every single thing is 1 credit. So there's no like, this thing is more expensive. You just get to pick 3 things. And if some months there's not 3 things that you want at that point, or you didn't get a chance to log in that month, or you know, you didn't get a chance to download resources that month, your credits roll over. So the next month you can download 5 things if you saved 2 credits. So I'm really trying to make sure you can get things that work for you in a way that is gonna be really suitable to your classroom and the way that you're utilizing this. So if you own a ton of my TPT products and you're like, "Eh, I don't know if this is gonna really kind of be useful," It's— I'm providing a ton of variety every month, so you'll be able to always pick things you don't have. I have over almost 500 items in my TPT store, so there will be things you don't have. There's new things coming out, and a lot of the resources that are included in the videos are things I've never shared before. They're made specifically for the membership, and those you all get for free. To me, it was really like the meat and potatoes of the membership are the training videos and the resources that come along with it, and and those extra TPT resources are like just frosting, right? They're just extra. Someone recently, a member said they're kind of like a risk-free trial. She's like, I'm paying to be a member so I can watch all these training videos and use them with my staff. And then getting these 3 resources is this awesome bonus. I get to like trial things and see what works. She's like, I found all these great products that I maybe wouldn't have purchased because I didn't think they'd be a good fit. And then they end up working really well. So I love that because that was really you know, saw a way I was thinking about it as well, that it's just gonna be these extra things that you can utilize to put the strategies we use into action. So let me know if you have any other questions. I'll be checking back in on these lives. If you're not watching them live, you can drop your questions in there. If you go to our website, theautismhelpermembership.com, we have a little chat feature. A bunch of people have been using it. We can answer your questions right away so you can kind of figure out exactly what you need to know and figure out if this is the right fit for you. Because if it is the right fit for you, I really, really I really don't want you to miss out. We're closing our enrollment on Wednesday at midnight. So you have 2 more days, and this isn't like, oh, we're gonna reopen. Like, it's really close. Like, there's like a tech thing that I don't even understand. Doors close on Wednesday night, and we won't reopen again until next school year. We have some awesome stuff planned for the summer that only members will get access to, so I want you to You know, really be a part of that as well if that you think this is something that could be a good fit. Someone asked if there are materials geared towards specific assessments. So there's nothing geared towards specific assessments because I know every, every district is— every state has different on what assessments they use. And I know every classroom is very different on whether they use something like the ABLES or the VB-MAPP or the PEAK, but that's definitely something we've talked a lot about. In the Facebook group, and sometimes some of the resources that are in that resource category that you can select from are some of those Ables resources that I have in my store, 'cause I think those work for a lot of different skills. Someone asked, if you do the monthly membership, can you switch to the full year after that month? So right now we don't have a way to do that. What we are offering is if you start monthly and you'd like to switch to yearly, you can do that at our next enrollment period. So we had a few people actually do that this time, people that signed up back in September that did monthly, and they're like, "Actually, I'm loving this. I want to stay." So when we opened our enrollment this time in January, they switched over to yearly. So the two ways, as someone, you know, is mentioning on Instagram, are monthly and annual. So you can do month to month. It's no risk. There's no minimum amount of months you have to join. If you join and utilize it for a little bit and you decide it's not right for you, you can cancel at any time. If you do the annual membership, you get 1 month for free. So it'll be January to January and you get 1 month off. So it's kind of the discount. So it's up to you to decide what kind of, you know, schedule is best for you on how that's set up. But great question. And if you have any other questions on things like— and also someone had asked over the weekend Is the content the same for the monthly and yearly? And yes, the content is the same for monthly and yearly. So whether— it's just, uh, your— affects how you pay now, if you're paying by month or you're paying by year. But those members see the same things, um, within the portal. And when you sign up, you get access immediately. So you'll get an email right away, it'll have your login, your password. We'll get you all set up in the Facebook group. So it's not something you have to like wait till the Wednesday to join. Like, you can sign up tonight and you can start watching videos tonight, and you them for staff training tomorrow. Like, I wanted this all to be like real quick and to fit into your schedule so you can start utilizing it right away. So hope everyone has a good Monday. I'm gonna jump back on a live tomorrow night and Wednesday night to answer any lingering questions because I want to make sure that this is the right fit for you and get your questions answered. So feel free to drop any questions later and have a good night.