South Carolina ABA

By Katie Wolfe
2022 was a successful year for South Carolina ABA (SC ABA). Board members included past president, Kerri Pakurar, president Katie Wolfe, secretary Kim Snyder, treasurer Anslie Patrick, at-large board member Katie Franke, and student representative, Tameeca Comer.

In 2022 we provided multiple, high-quality, free CEs to SC ABA members in addition to our annual conference, including ethics events and journal clubs. We continued our licensure efforts, detailed below, and continued conversations around working towards diversity, equity, and inclusion in the organization. We held a hybrid conference in 2022 and, with 292 attendees in-person and live-streaming, had our largest conference to date. For the first time, SC ABA offered concurrent sessions – we held two sets of 3 concurrent breakout sessions in addition to workshops, a keynote, and an invited session.

Legislative Affairs Committee: The chair of our legislative affairs committee is David Green. Committee members include Kerri Krauss, Zahra Haji, Scott Braud, and Anna Craft. In 2022, a bill for licensure of behavior analysts in the state of South Carolina was proposed in both the House and Senate. A hearing was held in March, with testimony from David Green and Zahra Haji in support of the bill. Katie Wolfe provided written testimony in support of the bill. Two individuals, one on behalf of the South Carolina Alliance of Health Plans and one on behalf of the Department of Labor, Licensing and Regulation, testified with concerns related to how the scope of practice was defined and to the perceived lack of specificity in the bill about a) educational requirements to become a behavior analyst and b) continuing education requirements to maintain licensure. The bill did not explicitly outline these requirements but instead referred to the Behavior Analyst Certification Board (BACB) in both of these areas to accommodate future changes that the BACB may make in terms of entry-level education and ongoing continuing education. The subcommittee ultimately voted to adjourn the debate on the bill, meaning that it did not move forward during the legislative session in 2022. Based on the advice of our lobbyist, we decided to temporarily pause our efforts on putting a bill forward. Instead, we are focusing on grassroots efforts to build legislators’ awareness of behavior analysis to set the stage for a more successful licensure push in the future.

Social Committee: We had transitions in our social chair position in 2022 as our existing social chair relocated. We identified a new social chair, Jennifer Elkins, and successfully held two social events in 2022.

Ethics Committee: We held three Zoom ethics CE events in 2022 that were well attended by SC ABA members. Our ethics chair stepped down, and we have identified a new ethics chair, Nicole Orsini, who began in January 2023.

We had a few other changes in leadership in 2022:

Kerri Pakurar (past president) transitioned off the board and Jacqui Abrams was elected
President-Elect.

Tameeca Comer (student representative) transitioned off the board and Amy Eacho was appointed as the new student representative.

In addition to these efforts, SC ABA hosted the following presenters at our annual conference on October 23-24, 2022 in Charleston, SC. We were pleased to be able to offer a hybrid conference to our members to allow those to attend who were unable to travel to Charleston.

Dr. Steven Lindauer presented a workshop titled, “Incorporating Parents Into Behavioral Interventions for Their Children”

Dr. Tyra Sellers presented a workshop titled, “Supervision: Some Strategies for Success.”

Dr. Tyra Sellers presented a keynote titled “Ethics: Embracing the Gray”

Dr. Elizabeth Fong presented, “An Overview of DEI in ABA”

We also held breakout sessions for the first time! We had 2 sets of 3 concurrent sessions:

Dr. Laura Seiverling, The Importance of Interdisciplinary Collaboration When Providing Behavioral Feeding Interventions

Dr. Paul Gavoni, OBM and Educational Leadership for Improving Discipline Issues in Schools

Andy Patrick, Dr. Zahra Hajiaghamohseni, & Dr. Kerri Krauss Mihalik, Effectively Communicating with Legislators About Behavior Analysis

Dr. Becca Tagg, Values Based Bonus Card as an Organization Wide System of Reinforcement

Dr. Jillian Dawes, Teamwork Makes the Dream Work: Special Considerations in School-Based Behavioral Service Provision

Dr. Elizabeth Fong, BACB certificates Self-Reported Knowledge of LGBTQIA+ Topics

Attendees appreciated the hybrid option for our conference, and we received great feedback on the presentations from our members!

Our 2023 conference will be in Columbia, SC on October 16-17, 2023. For more information about our conferences, membership, or upcoming events, please visit our website, www.sc-aba.org, or like us on Facebook (South Carolina Association for Behavior Analysis). As a perk of SC ABA membership, updates are regularly provided to members on the relevant legislature, area events related to behavior analysis, and changes affecting providers.