Newsletter
Volume 31 | 2008 | Number 2
Vermont ABA
By Meg McGee
This past year has been one of change, development, and initiative for the Vermont Association for Behavior Analysis (VABA). For the first time since its inception in 2004, a change in the Board occurred in June, 2007. The current Board wishes to express its gratitude to inaugural Board Chair David Powsner and Vice-Chair Ed Sbardellati for their commitment, vision, and dedication to bringing “life” to VABA. Their continued efforts to support VABA’s mission and initiatives will benefit many future boards and members.
VABA has several pivotal projects in development. The first includes representation of behavior analytic practices at local conferences and the development of the first VABA conference anticipated for October 2009. We were very excited to have Mark Sundberg, Ph.D. present at the Vermont Autism Institute on June 23rd and 24th in Burlington and join us for our annual meeting on June 23rd, 2008.
After the unfortunate contamination of our Web site, a new Technology Committee is in the process of redesigning the Web page to better meet the needs of VABA members, families, community professionals, and students. We hope the people of Vermont will come to VABA if they have questions about applied behavior analysis, and it is our intent to make additional resources and educational materials readily available through our Web page. We hope to unveil this new resource at our annual meeting.
We have initiated a process of inviting new Board Certified Behavior Analysts (BCBAs) and Board Certified Associate Behavior Analysts (BCABAs) in Vermont to join our chapter. There are currently 18 BCBAs and three BCABAs in Vermont. We hope this number grows given the preapproved Johnson State Master’s program in Applied Behavior Analysis and the availability of the certification sequence through the Vermont Higher Education Collaborative. VABA developed an organizational membership category this year and is developing additional categories of membership. The Board is actively considering avenues to support our neighboring states without ABAI affiliate chapters. In addition, we continue to provide our members with free continuing education credits for VABA supported events.
VABA is nearing completion of the Vermont state legislative review process. We are seeking state regulation and licensure of the BCBA and BCABA. The decision to pursue this particular form of regulation came after researching the processes and products of state affiliate chapters who completed or were completing similar projects. Thank you to everyone who has been so supportive of our undertaking. This effort has been headed by current Vice-Chair Melinda Neff who has graciously given her time and energy. It is our intent to report on the success of this initiative next year!
A challenge facing our state and chapter is the limited availability of applied behavior analytic services. This is due to both a deficit of expertise and the localization of available services to a small number of counties. This is an area of evaluation and consideration as we approach this next year. VABA looks forward to another year of serving our community, advocating for our members, and supporting best practice in behavior analytic services in Vermont.