Our Founder and Executive Director, Ruth Tello-Di Leva, was pleased to speak to 200 students in Dr. Ellie Kazemi’s Industrial Organization Psychology Class at CSUN recently. Ruth offered her perspective as a first-generation Latina entrepreneur in the Applied Behavior Analysis field.
Ruth is the first Latina in California to own an agency that specializes in providing Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA) services. Her experience as a first-generation woman of Mexican descent, solidified Ruth’s commitment to creating an organization providing quality services in an equitable manner to all clients, especially clients who are underserved in our field. From its inception, Familias First has celebrated the diversity of its clients and employees. On average, 96% of our staff are BIPOC. Ruth is also a co-founder of the Latino Association for Behavior Analysis (LABA), a non-profit organization dedicated to disseminating evidence-based practices, training opportunities, networking, and mentoring professionals of Latino descent, and all professionals who serve BIPOC.
Ruth made it a priority to be open about both the highs and lows of being a Latina entrepreneur and starting and running Familias First for over 17 years. A wonderful and very interactive Q & A followed her presentation.
Below are just a few of the comments from the students themselves about the presentation:
- I thoroughly enjoyed Ruth’s presentation. Not only did she make me feel less alone in having to face barriers due to culture and language, but she also gave me the hope to accomplish great things regardless of those barriers. She reminded all of us to not back down, to not give up, especially in a time where the social climate is a bit intense and scary to face at times.
- Ruth was wonderful. You can tell how passionate she is about ABA. She was knowledgeable and her career path to get to where she is now is very encouraging. As a first-generation student it was very refreshing to relate to someone.
- I really enjoyed this presentation because it was very woman empowering…
- I enjoyed her question about barriers and challenges we have faced in our lives. She didn’t just have us passively recount our experiences, but instead encouraged us to reframe them as a source of strength which I loved.
Ruth sends a big thank you to Dr. Kazemi and her entire class at Cal State Northridge for their attention and engagement. It was an absolute pleasure.