Direct funding will require parents to form their child's own autism Intensive Behavioural Intervention (IBI) team. Who's who on that team?

In the US, Applied Behavious Analysis professionals have to be certified by the Behaviour Analist Certification Board. It is not so stringent in Canada. In Ontario, ONTABA (Ontario Association for Behaviour Analysis), which is a chapter of the association for Behavior Analysis International, has membership across professions ranging from education, nursing, healthcare and psychology.

Also, in this province, autism professionals usually have a university degree or community college diploma in fields such as sociology, psychology, behaviour science, early childhood education and child and youth work. What you need for ABA team are three core personnel: A Clinical Director, A Senior Therapist and An Instructor Therapist. As I understand it,

The clinical director oversees, monitors and evaluates the IBI program designed specifically for your child's needs. She or he will also oversee assessments and individual program plans. Their responsibility is to train and supervise the senior therapist, trainees within the program and for fulfilling any or all provincial information and evaluation requirements. The qualifications for this role requires
1. training and extensive clinical experience in intensive behavioural intervention for young children with autism, 

2. have a doctoral degree in psychology 

and 

3. be registered with the College of Psychologists of Ontario. 

The senior therapist supervises the instructor therapist and participate in one on one of small group instructions. They are supervised by the clinical director or psychologist. They supervise parents for home programming. 

Qualifications

1. He/she should have master’s level graduate degree in psychology or related field. 

2. Six months to a year clinical experience in IBI for childen with autism.

The instructor therapist will be involved with your child one-on-one and with small group involving you child as necessary. He/she will maintain daily data book for your child to allow for monitoring of your child's progress. Their qualification should be community college or university undergrads in a related field. But keeping an eye on any combined experience and educational background could be beneficial. The bottom line is to find an instructor therapist that rapports well with your child with autism because ultimately that will be the key to any progress. 

The real challenge will be finding each of these potential and qualified members on your team and it will need diligence and time to find each of these members because their availability might vary. In most communities, they will not be available in the same city or town. Travelling time, either for you or the team members, will have to be included in the daily schedule. This will need extra careful thought and planning especially if both parents work. But once this part is over and the team is in place, you are well on your way to successfully finding and providing support for your child with autism. It needs hard work and thorough planning but like I said before, totally doable.

My next post will be about a parent's direct funding experience in Ontario.