Ethical behavior in applied behavior analysis organizations cannot be left to chance or assumed to emerge from individual virtue. It must be systematically designed, reinforced, and maintained through organizational structures that support ethical decision-making at every level.
Provider: BehaviorLive — via BehaviorLive
Take This Course →Including ethics, supervision, and topics like this one. New live CEU every Wednesday.
Join Free →Ethicality can be difficult to measure and to teach. The difficulties involved in measuring and teaching ethicality become incredibly salient when we must teach ethical repertoires not solely to an individual person, but to a large group of people working across different geographies, settings, and with varied backgrounds. In this talk, I will outline a systems approach to enabling and supporting ethicality in a large ABA organization. I will teach the audience how to establish ethics leaders, to empower ethics advocates, and to create a system of reinforcement for behaviors that allow for ethical decision making: Talking, Asking, Listening and Learning (The TALL approach). I will show the inner workings of an ethics hotline and how difficult ethical situations can be managed effectively, calmly and quickly. Finally, I will provide the audience with actionable steps they can take to establish a similar ethics infrastructure within their own organization.
| Certification Body | Credits | Type |
|---|---|---|
| BACB® | 1 | Ethics |
Dr. Amber Valentino is a board-certified behavior analyst with a doctoral degree in clinical psychology. Amber has over 20 years of experience in the field of applied behavior analysis, working in a variety of healthcare settings. She currently (and enthusiastically!) serves as the Chief Clinical Officer of Mindcolor Autism (https://www.mindcolorautism.com/). Amber's professional work has concentrated on developing clinical standards and leading impactful research initiatives designed to ensure high-quality service provision and oversight within ABA organizations. She is the author of a book that tackles the research-to-practice gap in behavior analysis and has contributed to the research literature through numerous peer-reviewed articles and book chapters. Furthermore, she has dedicated eight consecutive years as the associate editor for two leading behavior analytic journals (The Analysis of Verbal Behavior from 2015 to 2018, and Behavior Analysis in Practice from 2018 to 2023). Currently, she remains actively engaged in the editorial realm, serving on the editorial boards of the Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis (JABA), and Behavior Analysis in Practice (BAP), as well as taking on roles as both a guest associate editor and guest editor for various publications. Beyond her accomplishments in the field, Amber values her role as a mother and enjoys spending quality time with her young son and her supportive husband. She resides in the San Francisco Bay Area.
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All behavior-analytic intervention is individualized. The information on this page is for educational purposes and does not constitute clinical advice. Treatment decisions should be informed by the best available published research, individualized assessment, and obtained with the informed consent of the client or their legal guardian. Behavior analysts are responsible for practicing within the boundaries of their competence and adhering to the BACB Ethics Code for Behavior Analysts.