Inside Behavior Analysis
Volume 1 | 2009 | Number 1
British Columbia ABA
By Elizabeth Sparling
The British Columbia Association for Behaviour Analysis (BC-ABA) had an exciting inaugural year. We became incorporated as a society within our province in March 2008, and at our first general election the following members: Elizabeth Sparling, Richard Stock, Cristin Johnston, Emily Keats, Miriam Elfert, Sara White, Anna Matcheneva, Theresa Tournemille, Sharon Baxter, Marecel Cleto, Alexia Stack, and Jan Palmer were chosen to represent the membership as the Board of Directors. In addition, BC-ABA became an affiliated chapter of ABAI in May 2008 and grew to a membership of over 100 people, representing behaviour analysts, educators, and autism behaviour interventionists from all around the province!
British Columbia continues to be one of the only provinces in Canada that provides early intensive autism intervention to families through direct funding. Although there are three provincial programs in BC, they are woefully too small to meet the capacity in their own cities, let alone within the province. As a result, the provincial government continues to make $20,000/year available to families of children with ASD under the age of six to help with the expenses of treatment. As a result, British Columbia has an exciting developing ABA community with many opportunities for education and employment supporting children with ASD.
Our chapter hosted its first annual conference at the University of British Columbia in March 2009, offering a variety of workshops and research presented by faculty, graduate students, practitioners, and other members of the community to over 250 attendees. Our keynote speaker was Dr. Ilene Schwartz from the University of Washington. She provided an outstanding keynote address on the compatibility and importance of both ABA and inclusion in school programs. Moreover, she encouraged educators and behaviour analysts to work more closely to insure appropriate programming for the children we support. We are looking forward to our second conference in 2010. In the meantime, we will be co-sponsoring a number of applied behaviour analytic conferences in our community.
We are developing a number of sub-committees that are working on a number of issues important to behaviour analysts in our province: local and regional conferences and seminars that provide opportunities for CEUs, BCBA/BCABA Supervision, and recognition of certification of providers on the RASP list. Our goal is to keep the behavior analytic community in British Columbia united locally as well as connected to ABA International.
In addition, our first newsletter was printed in early June and our Web page is evolving and we are hoping to make it a useful tool for ABA practitioners in British Columbia. We would like our members to be able to go to the Web site and quickly find information and links to conferences and events that will support their practice. Thank you to the BC-ABA Board and to our membership who have supported our first year!