Walk a mile in my shoes: Understanding the Perspective of Caregivers and Families is the kind of topic that looks straightforward until it collides with the speed, ambiguity, and competing demands of joint consultation, shared care planning, school-team communication, and interdisciplinary handoffs. For this course, the practical stakes show up in clearer roles, fewer duplicated efforts, and better coordinated intervention, not in abstract discussion alone.
Provider: BehaviorLive — via Women in Behavior Analysis
Take This Course →Including ethics, supervision, and topics like this one. New live CEU every Wednesday.
Join Free →The first step to collaborating effectively with caregivers is understanding their past, their values, their trauma. In order to build trust and to elevate the relationship to give feedback and teach, behavior analysts need to understand their reinforcement and learning history. This presentation, given by two caregivers in the neurodiverse community, as well as behavior analysts, will focus on collaborative programming aimed at improving the social validity and outcomes through effective caregiver and therapist relationships.
| Certification Body | Credits | Type |
|---|---|---|
| BACB® | 1 | General |
Melinda received her master’s degree in special education from Governors State University and PhD in applied behavior analysis from The Chicago School of Professional Psychology. She has experience working with individuals aged 2-70 years old. As a teacher, she worked at a cooperative as well as a therapeutic day school. As a BCBA, she has worked with clients in their homes (personal homes, CILA, and ICF/DDs) as well as in a pediatric clinic, schools, and developmental training programs. Additionally, she has experience as a QIDP/case manager and program manager for adults who are dually diagnosed DD/MI. Currently, Melinda provides supervision to aspiring certificants and services to adults in a short-term stabilization program. Most importantly, Melinda is the mother of two Autistic children. She has worked as a parent advocate for over a decade assisting parents through the IEP process and obtaining services they both need and deserve. In her life and work, she aims to serve marginalized populations, create a more culturally humble and diverse field, provide caregiver support and education, teach and mentor the next generation of behavior analysts, and advocate for change both in the state of Illinois and the country in regard to disability rights and the field of behavior analysis. Melinda brings a unique perspective to the table. It combines that of a parent, an advocate, an educator, and a behavior analyst.
Dig into the research behind this topic — plain-English summaries written for BCBAs.
280 research articles with practitioner takeaways
258 research articles with practitioner takeaways
256 research articles with practitioner takeaways
You earn CEUs from a dozen different places. Upload any certificate — from here, your employer, conferences, wherever — and always know exactly where you stand. Learning, Ethics, Supervision, all handled.
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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.