Founder

Ben Cordoba has 3 years’ experience working directly with adults with intellectual disabilities. He provided one on one care in areas of daily living, social and independent functioning skills, feeding and medication oversight in a group home setting. He planned and accompanied residents on community trips and functions in the community. Ben was a strong advocate for residents to have as many opportunities as possible for them to have the opportunity to do something they enjoy outside and inside the home. Ben assisted in deescalating behaviors whenever needed. He is calm and kind by nature and patient with residents’ with behaviors. He quickly became lead staff and assisted with training new employees.

Ben volunteers to mentor young men with varying disabilities partnered with an educational advocacy group. He coordinates and attends events in the community with them. His focus with them is on physical, mental and emotional development. He understands the need to meet the young men where they are and build from there. His goal is to improve confidence and build a trusting relationship simultaneously.

During these combined work and life experiences, Ben and Alyssa have acquired skills necessary to work with individuals with varying disabilities and to work with staff as a team in order to best treat the behavioral issues that arise with individuals with intellectual disabilities.

Behavior Analyst

Kimberly is a Board Certified Behavior Analyst with 34 years of experience in the field of developmental disabilities.

She has been certified as a behavior analyst since 2002. She received her Bachelor's in Psychology from Lee University in Cleveland, Tennessee in 2001. She then received her Master's in Applied Behavior Analysis from Florida Institute of Technology in Melbourne, Florida. She has experience in foster care, family home therapy, group homes and parent training.

Her passion is training new behavior analysts and educating those new to the field.

She has been a member of the Local Review Committee with the Agency for Persons with Disabilities since 2005 and has chaired committees since 2008. She currently serves as the Clinical Director of Behavior Services at Always Promoting Independence. She is the Oversight Behavior Analyst for Club Court Behavior Focus group home. She has a wealth of experience working with Behavior Focus group homes, providing oversight behavior analysis services. She has provided this service since 2005 in the Suncoast Region. She has assisted homes to get homes through the process of opening a home, setting up the home and choosing residents for the homes.

Program Administrator

Alyssa Krouse has 12+ years’ experience working with individuals with varying disabilities in a role as Exceptional Student Education Teacher, Specialist and Department Head for Hillsborough County Public Schools. She began her career as a teacher of students with emotional/behavioral disabilities. In this position she was required to work one on one and in groups with individuals with varying behavioral issues. In this position, she learned how to negotiate, use decision making skills, ignore and diffuse junk behavior and how to handle more dangerous and possible life-threatening behavioral issues. The goals in this position were to build cohesiveness with other teachers and teacher assistants so there was unity in the belief not to punish but to help rehabilitate individuals so that they could return to their general education settings. She helped to create a point system with rewards and reinforcements which overtime led to decreased behaviors. Her foundational approach to working with all students with emotional/behavioral disabilities was to begin by building a positive, trusting, respectful relationship.

Overtime she gained experiences working with students with varying disabilities such as, but not limited to: intellectual disabilities, autism, cerebral palsy, ADHD, orthopedic impairment, visual impairment, speech/language impairments. Eventually she advanced to a leadership position overseeing compliance for students with varying disabilities. She managed up to 15 special education teachers and 10 teacher assistants at a time while overseeing compliance for hundreds of students with varying disabilities. In this position, trainings and real world opportunities were provided to ensure students with disabilities had a fair opportunity and success connecting socially and in the community. She worked with individuals to ensure that stigmas regarding individuals with disabilities were removed and the concerns were alleviated so that these individuals could work within their chosen community. Some of the duties included in this role included, coaching and training adults who worked with individuals with intellectual disabilities and autism.