“BEYOND THE 40 HOURS”

Building West Virginia’s Behavior Technician Apprenticeship

CARES invites you to spend the day helping shape a new registered apprenticeship for behavior technicians, built for the children and therapists of West Virginia.

Its purpose is to move beyond the floor of the RBT toward true expertise with therapists who build relationships, exercise clinical judgment, and help children thrive.

Your voice will shape how we get there.

Lunch & 6 CEUs included

WORKSHOP LED BY DR. SHAHLA ALAI-ROSALES

Dr. Shahla Alai-Rosales, PhD, BCBA-D, CPBA-A

An internationally recognized leader in early autism intervention, ethics, and clinical supervision, Dr. Alai-Rosales has spent four decades teaching and mentoring behavior analysts across the U.S., Europe, Latin America, and the Middle East. She is the author of more than 40 publications and two books, including Building and Sustaining Meaningful and Effective Relationships as a Supervisor and Mentor. Now she brings that expertise to West Virginia as CARES’ Director of Clinical Innovation & Applied Research.

SCHEDULE

9:00 – 10:00 AM: Registration

10:00 – 11:50 AM: A Childhood Therapeutic Priority: Balancing the Right to Agency with the Necessity of Belonging Considerations and practices for long-term wellbeing and thriving. 2 BACB Ethics CEUs

12:00 – 1:00 PM: Lunch Provided

1:00 – 4:50 PM: Supervisory Considerations in the Meaningful Development of Therapist Repertoires A review of the research foundations, and a discussion about dispositions, knowledge, skills, accomplishments, and success indicators of highly skilled therapists. 4 BACB Supervision CEUs

CONTACT

With any questions, please contact CARES Data and Communications Coordinator Abigail McCollam.

Abigail@wvcaresforautism.org

A Childhood Therapeutic Priority: Balancing the Right to Agency with the Necessity of Belonging

Considerations and practices for long-term wellbeing and thriving

2 Ethics CEUs

Ethics: Core Values (Specifically: Focusing on the short- and long-term effects of their professional activities; Respecting and actively promoting clients’ self-determination to the best of their abilities, particularly when providing services to vulnerable populations); 1.07 Cultural Responsiveness and Diversity; 2.11 Obtaining Informed Consent; 3.01 Responsibility to Clients

Presenter:

Shahla Alai-Rosales, Ph.D. BCBA-D, LBA 

Director of Clinical Innovation and Applied Research
CARES / Bright Futures Learning Services
shahla@brightfuturesaba.com

BACB Certificate:

Children come to therapy for a reason, to build the skills, reinforcers, and relationships that support a meaningful life during childhood and across the lifespan. This presentation presents a values-driven framework for high-quality behavioral intervention with autistic children, grounded in the understanding that the quality of early experiences, supports, and learning directly shapes future opportunity, relationships, wellbeing, and self-determination. Drawing on developmental progressions and quality of life research, the presentation examines what it means to orient therapeutic practice toward increasingly complex and meaningful skill development, embedded within the natural rhythms of child-led and therapist-led activity. Two interconnected quality of life domains, self-determination and interpersonal relationships, serve as the organizing framework for understanding what children are building toward. Assent and connection are explored as clinically significant early behaviors within this larger developmental arc, illustrating how therapeutic decisions carry long-term consequences for a child’s capacity to navigate their world with agency and belonging. Case activities are used to ground the framework in clinical practice and to support ongoing reflection on our purpose and responsibility in each child’s life.

1. Describe how quality of life develops across the lifespan and explain how intentional skill development during childhood, including the cultivation of healthy reinforcers and adaptive behaviors, can expand opportunity, choice, and wellbeing into adulthood.
2. Explain how assent and connection functions as two early and foundational behaviors within the broader developmental domains of self-determination and interpersonal relationships.
3. Describe the features of a quality therapeutic process including goals, contexts, and clinical judgement practices.
4. Discuss goals, contexts, and clinical judgement considerations in relation to self-determination and interpersonal skills.

Supervisory Considerations in the Meaningful Development of Therapist Repertoires

A review of the research foundations, and a discussion about dispositions, knowledge, skills, accomplishments, and success indicators of highly skilled therapists

4 Supervision CEUs

Supervision: Ethics Code, Core Values (especially related to benefiting others, affording dignity and respect to children and therapists, and ensuring competence), Section 1.04 and 5 ensuring and maintaining competence, Section 4.8 supervisory performance monitoring and 4.10 evaluating effects of supervision ; Advanced skills related to 6^th edition task list Section I.4 methods to assess supervisees skills and I.7 efficacy of practices

Presenter:

Shahla Alai-Rosales, Ph.D. BCBA-D, LBA 

Director of Clinical Innovation and Applied Research
CARES / Bright Futures Learning Services
shahla@brightfuturesaba.com

BACB Certificate:

The most central role in the therapeutic relationship is that of the direct therapist. A child’s day is filled with pivotal interactions that potentially help children reach important early intervention goals. Therapists are the people who translate clinical goals into everyday practice. In the best of circumstances, they do more than just implement protocols. They form a strong relationship with the child, observing, judging progress, adjusting procedures, and advocating for the child. The purpose of this presentation is to provide an overview of the therapist competency areas that foster this relationship and help both the therapist and the children they serve reach their full potential. The goal is to support caring, effective, and expansive therapeutic interactions. High quality clinical training for practitioners can result in reflective, enthusiastic and engaged therapists that interact with young children and their families with informed understanding, basic technical skill, and genuine relational care and commitment. In training, therapists will also master autism specific content knowledge, learn crucial clinical judgment in the EIBI curricular domains and develop the capacity to produce meaningful behavior changes and to articulate the importance and process of that behavior change. And most importantly therapists learn to be eager learners who can work collaboratively within therapeutic teams dedicated to accelerated development. The format of this workshop will involve a review of early intervention research related to each competency area, in-depth descriptions of each area, and some associated accomplishments and indicators of success in each area. The workshop includes round table discussions about these competencies, their relative importance, and training considerations. The content being presented is part of a CARES apprenticeship project being designed to teach therapists critical skills beyond the 40-hour BACB RBT requirements and to specifically benefit the children and therapists of West Virginia.

1. Describe the importance, qualities, and desired dispositions of the therapist in early intensive behavioral interventions.
2. Describe the foundational competencies, knowledge, skills, and accomplishments of high quality, well-trained therapists.
3. Describe the curricular competencies, knowledge, skills, and accomplishments of high quality, well-trained therapists.
4. Describe at least one foundational accomplishment tied to each competency area.
5. Describe at least one curricular accomplishment tied to each competency area.
6. Describe at least one measurable indicator of success for a foundational competency.
7. Describe at least one measurable indicator of success for a curricular competency.
8. Develop a plan to focus on an area that seems most applicable to your supervisory context.