California ABA

By Jocelyn Thompson

The California Association for Behavior Analysis remains committed to actively serving our membership, community stakeholders, and consumers of ABA. The last-minute cancellation of the 2020 regional conference due to COVID and local shelter in place orders was particularly devastating to our organization. CalABA launched a massive fundraising campaign last spring/summer, which had a positive impact on the organization. For 2021, CalABA hosted a virtual conference in leu of their annual in person event with approximately 461 individual registrations. CalABA anticipates returning to an in-person conference for 2022 in Santa Clara, CA.

Throughout the pandemic, CalABA continued to support both behavior analysts working in academia and those practicing in clinical settings. Numerous townhall meetings and free webinars were held to help support the behavior analytic community with up to date COVID information and the state of ABA services in CA.

CalABA has continued to be actively involved in public policy matters related to the practice of ABA in CA. CalABA was scheduled to host its second Legislative Day at the state capitol in Sacramento. However, due to COVID restrictions, this event was also cancelled at the last minute and was cancelled for 2021. The public policy committee plans to host this event again in March 2022.

Outreach continues to be priority for our organization. We have established a separate Stakeholder Advisory Committee to increase communication and collaboration between CalABA and various stakeholder groups throughout CA. Recommendations from this committee have resulted in CalABA’s participation in a number of events that provided information about the science and applications of ABA to a wider audience. For 2020–21, the stakeholder committee and other CalABA board members partnered with Autism Society of CA to launch a campaign around fire safety, specifically, what do parents and behavior analysts need to know to develop fire safety programs.

CalABA continues to support three special interest groups (SIGs)- Behavior Analysts in Education, Diversity and Inclusion, and Business Practices. Participation in these special interest groups lead to the development of a new CalABA diversity, equity, and inclusion board position.