Gabriella Barrientos PhD(c) MAE, BCBA, CDE, LBA, IBA, CSSC (she/her)
Gabriella Barrientos (pronouns: she/her) the co-owner of Twice Consulting Services (TCS) LLC and Director of Twice Affirming Behavioral Services LLC, which provides affirming behavior analytic services for clients meeting the intersection of LGBTQAI+ and autism as well as parent coaching to increase supportive and affirming parenting strategies. Gabriella is a PhD candidate in the school of Social Work & Social Science with Queen’s University in Belfast, one of the United Kingdom’s Ivy League schools and member of the Elite Russell Group where she is engaging in groundbreaking, primary research to support clinical recommendations for transgender and autistic youth. Gabriella is a licensed, international, and board-certified behavior analyst. She has experience in early intervention, intensive behavior intervention, adaptive skills training, school services, adult group home intervention, vocational skills training, as well as parent and family training. Gabriella’s practice values center on the affirmation of transgender youth, and intersectionality. She advocates and fosters diversity, equity, and inclusion of historically marginalized and underrepresented populations. Her work, particularly with minors and disabled populations, is client centered and relies on trauma informed, assent and consent practice to prevent abuse.
Gabriella applies her knowledge in human behavior to increasing equitable and inclusive practices across clinical and professional settings. She is a Certified Diversity Executive (CDE) The CDE® qualification credential is designed to strategically position an organization to remove systemic barriers to inclusion, lead culture change, and transform the brand. CDE® was created for leaders who manage or oversee large scale and complex equity, diversity and inclusion efforts, particularly Chief Diversity Officers. The CDE® requires at least five (5) years of experience and a current leadership role in order to sit for the exam.
In partnership with her public health counterpart, Gabriella has designed and facilitated justice, equity and inclusion training which include implicit bias, anti-racist and allyship behaviors as well as DEI literacy designed to build cultural humility, ethical and inclusive practice, and affirming personal and professional environments. These trainings have been utilized as company onboarding practices to support inclusive working environments for diverse and intersecting identities for companies located across the globe as well as continuing education units for board certified behavior analysts. Gabriella has developed and facilitated supervision and mentorship frameworks centered in diversity, equity, and inclusion.
Gabriella is passionate about dissemination and international work. She lived for almost 2 years in West Africa, Conakry Guinea. Where she was the only BCBA in the country. Through pro-bono work, she organized sustainable intervention for a local special needs school and local orphanage. She trained and developed intervention models for a developing world and utilized networking resources to ensure quality of life improvements for socially significant barriers. Prior to her posting in Conakry, she lived for 2 years in Malta, a small Island off the coast of Sicily. Serving as the only behavior analyst on the island of Malta, she implemented a three-part plan to ensure evidenced based intervention and treatment for children with developmental disabilities. Since her time abroad, Gabriella has used Telehealth modalities to support policy development to support scalable outcomes across the globe. She has competency in supporting clinical work via remote platforms as she firmly believes accessibility is a cornerstone of inclusive work.