The Social Impact Entrepreneur

Using a proven methodology recommended by the medical community and a scalable platform developed by the Company, Daniel Etra leads a team of education, clinical, business and industry experts with a shared commitment to making best-practice treatment solutions available to every child with special needs. Beginning with a focus on families caring for a dependent with a developmental disability, Rethink, under Etra’s leadership, has expanded its product range to serve all entities revolving around the care of this population. Today, Rethink’s three divisions – Education, Employer & Behavioral Health – provide treatment tools and supports for caregivers in the public school system, for employees of Fortune 500 companies in over 120 countries, and in the healthcare system through public and private behavioral health agencies.

" Rethink serves individuals at all levels of development and ages ranging from point of diagnosis through early adulthood. "

As per Etra there is a significant dearth of trained professionals (there are only approximately 30,000 Board Certified Behavioral Therapists) available to meet the needs of a growing population with a developmental disability (approximately 450 million individuals birth-21 globally). Hence, Rethink set out to create a scalable solution that would make clinical best practice treatment tools and supports available to the individual and their caregiver(s) no matter where they are located. Rethink’s key focus has become to help children with special needs through an effective web-based program that puts clinical best practice treatment solutions caregivers’ fingertips.

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 over 1,500 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.

The platform’s 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 to augment coaching caregivers and other support staff. Rethink also offers a range of technology-enabled remote service options, ranging 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 the tracking of service authorizations and cost of treatment as it relates to clinical outcomes. Rethink serves individuals at all levels of development and ages ranging from point of diagnosis through early adulthood.

As an example, Costco Wholesale decided to be proactive and offer unique supports such as the Rethink program to employees caring for a child with a developmental disability such as autism or ADHD, a population which comprises nearly 20% of the workforce. As Donna Sexton, the Director of Employee Benefits at Costco, notes, “I can't think of any benefits we've ever added to our suite that got so much attention and so many letters to our President, thanking him for bringing Rethink on, and what a difference it was going to make in their lives.”

Advising the budding entrepreneur, Etra suggests to stay focused on finding a problem in the market that is not yet addressed with an effective solution, develop a vision of a solution to address that problem, and surround oneself with capable people that are smarter than you to create a product that will solve the problem. “And always continue to innovate and improve that solution!” says Etra. For the days to come Rethink is in the process of expanding their core product offering beyond treatment tools and supports for dependents with a developmental disability and their caregivers to adults with a developmental disability, including supporting those individuals in the workplace.