How do I know if I have met the requirements for starting supervision?

The BACB Fieldwork Requirements document can help with this. It will include coursework requirements, as well as what to expect when accruing supervision hours. Haven’t read these over yet? —> Click here.

How long will my supervision hours take?

There are a lot of variables that impact the answer to this question, and we can help you crunch the numbers to map out your timeline during a Supervision Information Meeting. Schedule one here.

The BACB does require a minimum of 20 and a maximum of 130 hours to be accrued per month. If you are needing to accrue 2000 hours for supervision, and can accrue 130 hours per month, the fastest you will be able to complete your total hours would be 1 year and 3 1/2 months. If you are unable to accrue 130 a month, it will take longer.

Here are a few variables that impact your timeline and things to consider:

1 - How many hours are you available to devote monthly to work on unrestricted supervision activities?

2 - Does your current employment situation provide you with restricted supervision activitites?

What’s the difference between Restricted and Unrestricted Activities??

Restricted Activities.

The BACB restricts the overall amount of hours you can spend when delivering therapeutic and instructional procedures during fieldwork ( i.e., working directly with client implementing programs, runnings trials, providing instruction). This restriction is in place to ensure that trainees have sufficient time to acquire the other skills necessary for practice as a BCBA (see Unrestricted Activities below). Restricted activities may comprise no more than 40% of the total fieldwork hours (i.e., not per supervisory period). Please note that this restriction does not necessarily refer to all time spent working with clients.

Unrestricted Activities.

Activities that are unrestricted are those that are most likely to be performed by a BCBA. Unrestricted activities must comprise at least 60% of the total fieldwork hours (i.e., not per supervisory period). Examples of unrestricted activities include, but are not limited to:

• Observation and data collection • Training staff and caregivers on behavior-analytic programs or content

• Conducting assessments related to the need for behavioral intervention

• Meeting with clients about behavior-analytic programming and services

• Conducting behavior-analytic assessments (e.g., functional analyses, stimulus preference assessments)

• Data graphing and analysis

• Researching the literature relevant to a current client’s programming

• Writing and revising behavior-analytic programs

Read more about this on the BACB website here.