Hello Australia!

Summer is almost here, restrictions are being eased, and COVID-19 is getting a boot with hand washing, mask wearing, and a heap of rule governed behaviour. It has been a long 9 months but we are finally starting to see the benefits of this hard work. That being said, the last 9 months have not been easy for most, people have been deeply impacted by COVID-19, and it will continue to dominate our lives until a vaccine is available to all. Nevertheless, behaviour analysis doesn’t have to stop and wait too.

First let’s get the conference out of the way. As a board, we have a number of concerns about running a conference with COVID-19 still knocking at our borders. To help us make future decisions with our members' viewpoints in mind we’ve created a survey for our members to give us their opinions on having a conference or another postpointment and what could be viable alternatives. 

1. Under the current restrictions in NSW the 4sq metre rule is still in place. That means the number of people at our venue is 125 maximum. This also means that lunch will not be a buffet but a boxed meal. Finally, our social hour will need to a seated event, making networking and socialising much harder... in NSW you are not allowed to stand and hold a drink. Poster session can go on, but again the 1.5 metre social distancing must be followed. 
2. We will also have to consider the border restrictions between states, and whether delegates can travel interstate. We have recently seen how quickly these restrictions can be imposed.
3. Our presenters will more than likely be only Australian and possibly our Kiwi friends, as we are not going to ask anyone to go through hotel quarantine to speak at the conference. 
4. Additionally, dining out requires bookings, which could make planning food for the weekend a bit challenging. 
5. Alternatives are that we postpone another year, and host a number of webinars throughout the year. This option would allow access to content from experts from around the world. With this option, a number of webinars would have to be pre-recorded due to time differences. 

Self-Regulation

Our workgroups have been busy and we cannot thank them enough for all their time and energy they have contributed to this project. Here is a list of tasks that have been completed:

• Self regulation business plan created
• Literature search and review on ABA and regulation
• Summary of articles on ABA and regulation
• Powerpoint created about regulation in Australia
• Standards of practices template and suggestion created
• Code of ethics template and suggestions created
• Stakeholder engagement plan developed
• Stakeholder registry being created 
• Complaints process created

There are still more projects to do but we are focusing next on creating the code of ethics and standards of practice and reaching out to our stakeholders. We would like to see a big push in this area in the next few months to be able to roll out our self-regulation. 

BACB Application

We are very excited to announce that our application has been approved by the Behavior Analyst Certification Board (BACB). This means that BACB exams will continue to be available after 31 December 2022. Our status will be reviewed every 5 years to see if we continue to meet the necessary requirements. However, the BACB does caution that their regulations and legal issues may change at any time and we are subject to those changes. The BACB encourages us to continue to pursue our own regulation to ensure that we will have our regulatory body to continue to establish ABA a safe and ethical career in Australia.