Inside Behavior Analysis
Volume 3 | 2011 | Number 2 | Online ISSN: 2151-4704
British Columbia ABA
By Richard Stock
The British Columbia Association for Behavior Analysis (BC-ABA) hosted our third annual conference on March 11–12, 2011, at the University of British Columbia with approximately 163 delegates in attendance from two Canadian provinces and one U.S. state. The conference was presented in association with the Autism Society of British Columbia (ASBC), Autism Community Training (ACT), the Centre for Interdisciplinary Research and Collaboration in Autism (CIRCA) and the Faculty of Education at the University of British Columbia.
Dr. Peter Gerhardt, Director of Education, Upper School, for the McCarton School in New York City, presented a preconference workshop entitled, "Bridges to Adulthood: Programming for Lives of Competence, Dignity, and Quality" and the keynote address entitled, "ABA and Evidence-Based Practice in the Promotion of Quality of Life for Adolescents and Adults With Autism." The remainder of the diverse and high-quality program consisted of 12 traditional paper presentations, six mini-seminars, and a poster session that included several submissions from local undergraduate students in applied behavior analysis (ABA). Additionally, our conference committee has partnered with ACT to offer continuing education units (CEUs) at five training events across the province. These initiatives have benefited our members by providing local opportunities for continuing education and obtaining CEUs.
BC-ABA's website and publications committee has been busy and productive this past year. The committee members have overseen substantial improvements to our website and we are now on Facebook! Our website can be found at www.bc-aba.org.
Our membership committee has evolved our registration and renewal system from a paper-and-pencil system to "online" via our recently improved website. BC-ABA's membership trends are reflected in Figure 1.
In terms of future directions, the board and membership have been concentrating on keeping abreast of national and international developments in behavior analyst licensure and taking steps to keep our members informed and updated. In order to remain "ahead of the curve," our board is actively investigating various licensure options available to our field in the province of BC, in order to protect our right to practice, ensure quality to consumers of ABA services, and promote our field.