Recruiter Chris Hampson Says ABA’s Problem Is Retention

The Care Team That Changed His Career

MANCHESTER, ENGLAND – Chris Hampson did not plan a career in healthcare staffing. He fell into insurance sales at 23, in the early 2000s, with a newly finished history degree from Liverpool Hope University and two young children, one of them living with Duchenne muscular dystrophy. He spent nearly four years in telesales at Aviva, then 12 years at Barclays UK in Liverpool, where he rose to customer service manager. As his son’s needs grew, he held himself back at work, he told BreakingNewsABA, “preferring the flexibility to be there for him over the career goals.” His son died in 2017. Six months later, his father was diagnosed with heart failure, causing him to reflect on what he should be doing with his life.

What stayed with him was who came to the funeral. “The fact that all of these carers and specialists were at my son’s funeral just showed how much they cared,” he said, and he does not think their effect on the family’s life can be overstated. He wanted out of a job where he “was just a corporate number” and into “something that makes an impact on people’s lives, the same way all these people had done for us.”

A Telehealth Directory Turned Recruiter

At the time, Hampson said, his best friend was selling his recruitment company, and the two began discussing “something high impact for the community, something that had heart.” Both, he said, “had found great benefit from mental health professionals over the years.” The first idea was not a staffing firm. Take a Seat launched in spring 2020 as a UK mental health platform where counselors could advertise telehealth appointments, “something that was not very popular pre-Covid in the UK,” with free workshops, and a community space for counselors along with a podcast to promote mental health. Hampson left Barclays in May 2019 and has been Take a Seat’s founder and director since April 2020.

The timing was bad. “We launched, but then Covid happened literally one month later; it went quiet for a while, and then everyone started using Zoom for free. Nobody wanted to pay for a Telehealth platform anymore,” Hampson said. The pair kept the network and trust they had built and switched to recruiting for UK mental health companies, then moved into neurodevelopment because, as he put it, “Many people we knew had ADHD and there was a huge need for autism support; waitlists were as high as 4 years in some areas.” He said the firm helped “some of the UK’s now biggest autism providers scale by becoming specialists in one area. Being able to understand the challenges clinicians and providers faced, along with having a clear mission, gave us an advantage over the generalist recruitment firms”

The US move drew on personal ties. Hampson spent 2001 at Ball State University in Indiana studying American history, and his business partner “had offices in New York when he had his recruitment company.” We have both always loved the US, not just to visit, but the people we have met over the years; everyone has always been so friendly and welcoming. They stayed inside one specialty on purpose. “We wanted to keep within the neurodiversity field as we believe in really understanding your niche and being a specialist,” he said. Take a Seat People, the US-facing recruitment business, dates from January 2022, when Hampson took the vice president title he still holds.

Building a US Book From Manchester

Take a Seat People now describes itself as a US behavioral health recruiter covering all 50 states, with pay published on every role and credentials verified before a shortlist goes out. Its site listed 108 live roles across 20 disciplines as of mid-September 2026, from BCBAs and RBTs (registered behavior technicians) to SLPs, OTs, LCSWs and psychiatric nurse practitioners. Its BCBA salary guide, last reviewed in August 2026, puts advertised pay at $75,000 to $115,000, calls the BCBA “the single most requested role we recruit,” and says demand concentrates in center-based and hybrid ABA in Texas, Florida, California, Arizona and the Carolinas. The firm calls the guide “a market guide, not a survey.” Employers get a 45-minute scope call, a first shortlist in about 10 working days, and check-ins at 30, 60 and 90 days after placement.

By Hampson’s count, the firm has “partnered with more than 100 ABA businesses across 25 states in the US, from small independent clinics to some of the largest providers in the country.” The US-facing team includes Heidi Donoghue, vice president of ABA and BCBA recruitment, and Josh Towne, a specialist ABA and BCBA recruiter, according to business directory listings. Towne alone has more than 115 LinkedIn recommendations, Hampson said.

The company is deliberately small, with fewer than 10 employees according to business directory estimates. Since May 2023, Hampson has also co-founded EQ Group, a Manchester investor that says it backs “high-end niche recruitment startups in the US and UK with capital, operating infrastructure, and market intelligence.” EQ Group lists Take a Seat among six brands, alongside Take a Seat Tech, Scale Health and GrowNeuro, and says each brand keeps “its own founder in the chair.” EQ Group Ltd was incorporated in August 2019, according to Companies House.

“What drives me is making sure the companies we sign up with are committed to supporting their clinicians, from RBT to their senior leaders.” – Chris Hampson, Co-Founder and Vice President, Take a Seat People (2026)

Retention, Not Recruitment

Hampson’s central argument cuts against his own business model, and he says so. “I also think the sector sometimes focuses too heavily on recruitment (strange for a recruiter to say) when the bigger issue is retention,” he said. “Hiring more BCBAs will never completely solve the problem if good clinicians keep leaving because they feel unsupported.”

He hears the same complaints on repeat: “High billable expectations, weak RBT support, too much admin, limited mentorship and not enough access to experienced clinical leadership.” His conclusion is structural. “I do not think burnout is simply about resilience. Often, it is a sign that the role itself has been designed badly.”

The data he is describing exists. An ABA Trends 2026 survey published by ABA Matrix found 58 percent of BCBAs had considered leaving the profession and about a third reported extreme stress lasting two years or more, BreakingNewsABA reported in April 2026. On the technician side, a BACB exit survey of RBTs whose certification lapsed in 2024 found the most-cited reason for leaving was “I like the work, but life took me in a different direction” at 58 percent, followed by inadequate pay at 57 percent, poor treatment by their company at 44 percent, and lack of supervisor support at 41 percent. The survey drew 1,386 responses, a 4.6 percent response rate. The BACB counted 85,587 BCBAs and 260,174 RBTs as of July 1, 2026.

“Hiring more BCBAs will never completely solve the problem if good clinicians keep leaving because they feel unsupported.” – Chris Hampson, Co-Founder and Vice President, Take a Seat People (2026)

What he says the better employers do is unglamorous: “Manageable caseloads, strong leadership, properly trained teams, autonomy, and a working week that still allows people to have a life outside ABA.” He also describes the clinicians who stay. “I see so many BCBAs talk about leaving the field. I also speak to lots of BCBAs stuck in terrible roles they won’t leave, as they know the families they support will be left without anyone.”

He is blunt about the field’s present. “At the moment the field is at a crossroads, there is a lot of mistrust, there is fraud, there are changes almost every week,” he said. “I’m an optimist and hopeful the changes happening now and in the future will create a better ABA.”

Adults, Mixed Teams and Maybe an Agency

Hampson’s second argument is about who ABA serves. He called the adult population “significantly underserved” and said that broader work “could reinvigorate a lot of BCBAs who may feel limited by the traditional clinic model.” Most states end Medicaid ABA coverage at 21, BreakingNewsABA reported in June 2026. The organizations he said he admires most “support multiple age groups and build genuinely multidisciplinary teams, bringing BCBAs together with SLPs, OTs and, in some cases, LCSWs to work around the same individual and family.”

The firm’s stated plan is to keep growing in the US without becoming a generalist shop, with longer-term interest in neurodevelopment and health technology. Hampson also floated a step most recruiters do not take. “And who knows, maybe one day we will start our own ABA agency,” he said. “We already know a huge number of great clinicians that could lead it, and by working with so many providers we get to see what works really well, and what does not, across the industry.”

AT A GLANCE

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