How To Become A Therapeutic Support Staff: What It Is and Career Path

What is a therapeutic support staff and how to become one

Updated January 8, 2025

4 min read

The therapeutic support staff is a specialist that specializes in providing one-on-one guidance and counseling to individuals, mainly children, with emotional support needs. As a therapeutic support staff, you are responsible for building trust and rapport with clients and at the same time accessing their different needs and conditions. It is with this assessment that you can develop specific treatments in conjunction with mental health practitioners. However, your duties may vary. Typically, you are to seek to support and reinforce the behavioral, emotional, and academic features of individual functioning. It is your duty to preserve your clients' independence and safety. Essentially, you are to maintain every client's record and monitor their progress while updating the assigned caseworker regularly.

You should have at least a bachelor's degree in criminal justice, social work, or psychology for this role. A therapeutic support staff makes an average salary of $30,767 per year.

ScoreTherapeutic Support StaffUS Average

Salary

2.7

Avg. Salary $34,086

Avg. Salary $59,228

Stability level

8.9

Growth rate 12%

Growth rate 0.3%

Diversity

10.0

Race

American Indian and Alaska Native 1.87%

Asian 5.47%

Black or African American 9.49%

Hispanic or Latino 12.49%

Unknown 4.92%

White 65.76%

Gender

female 74.61%

male 25.39%

Age - 43

Race

American Indian and Alaska Native 3.00%

Asian 7.00%

Black or African American 14.00%

Hispanic or Latino 19.00%

White 57.00%

Gender

female 47.00%

male 53.00%

Age - 43

Stress level

8.9

Stress level is very high

7.1 - high

Complexity level

8.1

Complexity level is challenging

7 - challenging

Work life balance

6.2

Work life balance is fair

6.4 - fair

Key steps to become a therapeutic support staff

Explore therapeutic support staff education requirements

Most common therapeutic support staff degrees

Bachelor's

78.8 %

Master's

9.9 %

Associate

8.5 %

Start to develop specific therapeutic support staff skills

Skills	Percentages
Autism	11.85%
Social Work	10.04%
Rehabilitation	7.91%
Emotional Support	5.83%
Mental Health	5.67%

Complete relevant therapeutic support staff training and internships

Accountants spend an average of 1-3 months on post-employment, on-the-job training. New therapeutic support staff learn the skills and techniques required for their job and employer during this time. The chart below shows how long it takes to gain competency as a therapeutic support staff based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data and data from real therapeutic support staff resumes.

Research therapeutic support staff duties and responsibilities

Earn reputation for working with some of the most trouble adolescents in district using compassion and patience to achieve goals.
Observe patients and strategically prepare and manage clinical analysis of individuals and their progress in conjunction with formulate behavior goals.
Provide one-on-one interventions, including crisis intervention, behavior management support, emotional support, time-structure activities, and psychological rehabilitation.
Implement specific ABA therapeutic interventions that are developed to stabilize and improve the child's behavior.

Prepare your therapeutic support staff resume

When your background is strong enough, you can start writing your therapeutic support staff resume.

You can use Zippia's AI resume builder to make the resume writing process easier while also making sure that you include key information that hiring managers expect to see on a therapeutic support staff resume. You'll find resume tips and examples of skills, responsibilities, and summaries, all provided by Zippi, your career sidekick.

Choose from 10+ customizable therapeutic support staff resume templates

Build a professional therapeutic support staff resume in minutes. Browse through our resume examples to identify the best way to word your resume. Then choose from 10+ resume templates to create your therapeutic support staff resume.