Hi, I’m Michelle.
I’m a Board Certified Behavior Analyst who believes behavior science is most powerful when it helps people build lives that are meaningful to them—not simply when it produces the next behavior in a list of skills.
After nearly two decades working in behavior analysis, I’ve seen both the incredible potential of our science and the limitations that can emerge when behavior change focuses only on observable behavior.
Values Driven Behavior grew from my work bringing Applied Behavior Analysis and Acceptance and Commitment Therapy together in practical, behaviorally grounded ways.
Here, I create tools for clinicians, educators, families, and leaders who want to understand behavior more deeply, build meaningful skills, and help people do more of what matters.
Guided by science. Driven by values.
Why Values Driven Behavior?
Behavior analysis gives us incredibly powerful tools for understanding behavior and creating meaningful change. But over the years, I began noticing that traditional behavioral interventions only went so far for some of the people I worked with.
This was especially true for highly verbal clients. Sometimes the barrier wasn’t a lack of reinforcement, an ineffective teaching strategy, or a poorly designed behavior plan. Language itself had become part of the problem.
Thoughts like “I can’t do this,” “This is going to be terrible,” “I’m not good at this,” or “It has to happen this way” could stop meaningful behavior change in its tracks—even when the person had the skills and opportunities to move forward.
I needed behavioral tools that could address what was happening when rigid language, negative self-beliefs, and inflexible patterns of thinking became barriers to action.
That’s what drew me to Acceptance and Commitment Therapy.
ACT gave me a behaviorally grounded way to work with language and private events without treating thoughts and feelings as behaviors that simply needed to be eliminated. Instead, we could help people build psychological flexibility—the ability to notice difficult internal experiences, respond more flexibly, and continue taking meaningful action even when those experiences came along for the ride.
Values Driven Behavior grew from bringing these approaches together: using the science of behavior to understand what gets people stuck, and helping them build the flexibility and skills to keep moving toward what matters.
Sometimes knowing what to do isn’t enough. We also need the flexibility to do it when our own thoughts get in the way.
What You’ll Find Here
Behaviorally Grounded
Built from the science of behavior, with an emphasis on observable, teachable, and meaningful skills.
Practical By Design
Tools made for real life—not just theory. Resources are designed to be picked up, understood, and put into practice.
Focused on What Matters
Behavior change should serve a purpose. Values help keep meaningful outcomes at the center of the work.
Experience Behind the Resources
I’ve worked in Applied Behavior Analysis since 2007 and have been a Board Certified Behavior Analyst since 2017. My career has covered the full lifespan and a range of service settings, from ABA clinics to residential services for adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities.
For the past 15 years, I’ve held Director-level positions, managing multiple teams across locations totaling more than 150 employees and independent contractors. That work has included supervising direct support professionals across multiple sites, and today I lead a team of BCBAs and RBTs. My master’s degree is in Applied Behavior Analysis with a certificate in Organizational Behavior Management, so I bring both clinical and organizational perspectives to the work I create. My supervision and leadership resources draw directly on that experience.
My interest in Acceptance and Commitment Therapy grew from a practical need. I was looking for better ways to support people when language, rigid thinking, avoidance, and difficult private experiences got in the way of meaningful behavior change.
Since then, I’ve spent years studying how ACT, Relational Frame Theory, and behavior analysis can work together in everyday practice. The resources at Values Driven Behavior come from that ongoing study and from years of turning behavioral science into tools that practitioners and the people they support can actually use.
BCBA • Behavior Analyst • ACT-Informed Practitioner • OBM-Trained Leader • Resource Developer
Behavior Science in Service of What Matters
Explore practical resources designed to help turn behavioral science into meaningful action—for the people you support, the teams you lead, and the lives you’re helping shape.
