Talks from Nicola Booth, Amy O'Keefe and Maggie Hoerger.
About this Event

Nichola Booth: Autism In The Air - Try Before You Fly.

Nichola’s talk will focus on ‘Autism in the air – try before you fly’ an initiative conducted in collaboration with Belfast City Airport since 2014. Nichola was instrumental in helping develop this programme and will discuss the project and how it was established and how it has continued to grow and advance. This initiative allows 50 families the opportunity to visit the airport annually, providing them with a 'practice run' to familiarise themselves with the environment before embarking on a holiday. This is the first event of its kind offered across the island of Ireland and the United Kingdom and was featured on BBC1’s 'The One Show.'

Nichola has been a BCBA since 2009 and is a UKBA(cert). She is a Senior Lecturer in Behaviour Analysis at Queen’s University Belfast where she also serves as the Programme Director for the MSc Applied Behaviour Analysis programme. She also lectures across various Postgraduate degree programmes across the University.

Amy O'Keefe: Applied Behaviour Analysis & the Human Rights Agenda

· To address issues around Human Rights and Applied Behaviour Analysis, with particular focus on the neurodiversity movement and Autism.

· To present critiques levelled at the field of ABA from neurodiversity advocates.

· To address where the field of ABA may be perceived as being in violation of Human Rights.

· To address what we as field “get right”.

· To discuss how we can adapt the science of Behaviour Analysis to ensure we practice in line with international Human Rights conventions.

Amy O’Keeffe is an Autistic Behaviour Analyst and BCBA who has worked in the area of Autism-specific Early Education since 2013. When not pretending to be a pirate or a dinosaur with her preschool aged pupils, Amy is passionate about disseminating the importance of working within the Neurodiversity Framework when providing behaviour analytic services to Autistic and other neurodivergent populations. Since graduating from the University of Galway, Ireland with a Master of Science in Applied Behaviour Analysis in 2022, Amy has delivered a keynote talk and a number of symposia on Neurodiversity and Applied Behaviour Analysis at the Psychological Society of Ireland Division of Behaviour Analysis Annual Conferences in 2023 and 2024, and delivered a lecture on “Human Rights & Applied Behaviour Analysis” to Masters students at Trinity College Dublin.

Maggie Hoerger: Supervision workshop: Training Ethical Practitioners

The workshop is intended for cerficants who are providing or receiving supervision using the UKBA(cert) competence framework. We will consider the UK-SBA practice values and attendees will consider how those values are reflected in their practice. We will discuss the competence items and devise practical strategies for teaching and evaluating supervisees. There will be opportunities for attendees to ask questions, and work in groups to develop training standards that apply to their practice.

Dr Maggie Hoerger, UKBA(cert) is a Senior Lecturer in the School of Education at Bangor University, where is she the course director of the MSc in Applied Behaviour Analysis. Her research interests and practice include working with school leaders and teachers to integrate positive behaviour support into maintained schools. She works with Local Authorities, SEN schools, and Pupil Referral Units to establish universal behaviour analysis provisions and function-based interventions. Maggie is the President of the UK Society for Behaviour Analysis.