Meet our Master Trainer: Cassie Herman

What does it take to become a great trainer? For Cassie Herman, it starts with presence.

Before she ever stood in front of a room full of staff, Cassie was absorbing the world around her through a lens. A communications and photography major in college, she trained her eye on light, composition, and the quiet details others walked past. She had no idea that same observational instinct would one day make her one of Safety-Care’s most versatile Master Trainers.

“I love to see the trainers grow,” she says, describing what draws her to training. “Even in Safety-Care, those lightbulb moments where you’re like, oh, they got it, and now they see it.”

An Unexpected Start

Cassie’s path into behavior analysis began with a flyer. While pursuing her photography degree, she needed income. She answered an ad to work with children in home ABA programs in Illinois, and something clicked.

What started as a part-time job to cover art supplies turned into years of meaningful work. Cassie stayed with that family throughout college and beyond, building the foundation of what would eventually become a career in behavioral health.

She first encountered Safety-Care in 2012 as a specialist, and the preventative strategies stayed with her. “I really loved the preventative strategies I learned,” she recalls. “I continue to use them, like staying out of the midline and other safety habits.” When she later moved to Massachusetts and joined an organization that used Safety-Care, she jumped at the chance to become a trainer. The Master Trainer role came next, driven by a clear sense of purpose.

“I really saw how if you bring Safety-Care into a company, it can really benefit not only the individuals who provide services, but all of your staff as well.”

A Training Style Built on the Why

Ask Cassie how she teaches, and one word comes up immediately: why.

She gives multiple examples, slows down or speeds up based on the room, and consistently anchors instruction in the reasoning behind each strategy. Why are procedures done this way? Why does this approach work? Why does it matter?

That commitment to the why is not just a teaching habit. It is a practical tool. Cassie knows that many participants arrive at training because their organization required it, not necessarily because they sought out becoming a trainer. Helping them understand the reasoning behind each skill makes the difference between someone who tolerates training and someone who walks away genuinely equipped to teach it.

“They’re going to get a ton of questions,” she explains, speaking about trainers returning to their organization to train staff. “They need to be able to feel comfortable being able to answer those questions. So we just want to give them enough so they feel supported.”

Building the Team Behind the Training

Cassie’s contributions at QBS go well beyond the training room. During the pandemic, when in-person training paused, she and a small group of Master Trainers got to work. Working from her studio apartment, she filmed training videos that would support staff and trainers during the shutdown.

“I set up a tripod and just started talking to the camera myself,” she says. That scrappy, get-it-done approach led to resources that evolved into the blended learning content now available through Safety-Care’s Learner Connect platform.

She also played a key role in building QBS’s onboarding resources for new Master Trainers. As the team grew and new people joined from different parts of the country, not everyone had the same access to senior colleagues or to the institutional knowledge held by those who had been with QBS from the beginning. Cassie helped close that gap.

“Not everyone has worked in adult placements,” she explains. “How do they give good examples to trainers so they can take that back with them?” Working with colleagues from diverse backgrounds, she contributed to example sheets and demonstration videos covering harder-to-teach competencies, all designed to help new trainers understand not just what to do, but why.

Why Safety-Care Stands Out

Cassie has been trained in other crisis programs. The comparison is not subtle.

“Other curriculums are just like, respond,” she says. “Safety-Care is more about being proactive than reactive.”

She traces her appreciation directly to chapters one through three of the curriculum: the preventative and minimization content. What Safety-Care gave her, she explains, was language and structure for something she was already doing intuitively. “I was doing it in real life and I just didn’t know I was doing it.” Once she had the framework, she became even more effective.

The Avoiding Power Struggles section of Safety-Care is a particular favorite. The core question it asks, “Is there a better way I can support this individual?” resonates well beyond the workday. Cassie makes a point of telling trainees exactly that.

“When I teach Safety-Care, I’m like, hey guys, this will make your lives better. Because you’ll get into power struggles with your significant other, your children, your pets, everyone in life. So if we can just learn to better handle those situations, our lives get better overall.”

What Keeps Her Going

Cassie does not have one defining story from a single training. What sustains her is a pattern she sees again and again.

At conferences, during recertifications, in passing conversations, trainers come back to tell her how much Safety-Care changed their organizations. How crisis situations decreased. How staff dynamics improved. How they want to bring the program with them wherever they go, and how disappointed they are when a new employer does not use it.

“I just love how much the trainers love Safety-Care as much as we do, as Master Trainers,” she says. “We came here for a reason. We really want to show how beneficial it is.”

Hearing that enthusiasm returned to her, year after year, is what keeps her moving forward.

For Cassie, the goal is not just safer environments for the individuals being served. It is a better experience for the staff doing that work every day. She has seen Safety-Care change the culture inside organizations. Staff use reinforcement with each other. They step back from unnecessary confrontations. They come to work motivated and supported rather than depleted.

“I really want them to help improve quality of life, not only for the people they support, but for each other.”

About Cassie Herman

Cassie Herman is a Board Certified Behavior Analyst with extensive experience supporting individuals with developmental disabilities. Originally from Chicago, Illinois, she began her career in 2004 while attending Bradley University, where she discovered her passion for behavior analysis through both home-based and school-based services.

She later advanced her training at the New England Center for Children in Massachusetts, working in residential services while completing her Master’s degree in Applied Behavior Analysis at Northeastern University. Over the course of her career, Cassie has provided services in Illinois, Indiana, and Massachusetts across home-based and center-based settings.

Her diverse professional experiences have allowed her to develop expertise in behavior reduction—particularly with severe self-injury and physical aggression—as well as in skill acquisition using verbal behavior, precision teaching, the Essential for Living curriculum, and fluency-based instruction. Beyond the Master Trainer role, she has made significant contributions in developing QBS’s e-learning and blended training resources