This is a paid post and a free read up until a certain point. And then bam! Silence. But it doesn’t have to be that way forever, you can subscribe to read it all. And all the other paid posts, for only $5/month. Plus, you’d be helping an incredible 16 year old with this communication journey if you subscribed. Alright, get into the piece below.
Please Note: I am aware that there are many of you who are unfamiliar with ABA as you joined me during the time when Substack featured me. I will one day share more in-depth things on it, but ABA is Applied Behavior Analysis and its not actually a therapy but a specific set of principles based on the study of human behavior. It is packaged as a therapy for not only Autism but for other diagnoses as well, but the Autism community is the one that is most often upset and angered by it. They feel as though it is incredibly dangerous and harmful to the community. Their feelings are valid. However, as someone who has been in ABA and yesterday’s ABA at that, its not more dangerous to me than being Black in America has been. And I feel as though my thoughts are valid as well. The challenge then becomes how do we merge these two perspectives together? That’s some posts for another day.
Advocacy is so very hard. I am unsure if many realize this. I honestly don't know how they would given that so many make it appear to be this simple thing that anyone with an internet connection and a social media account can do.
They can't.
And many suck so damn hard at it. But they pretend well.
This work ain't easy and I get stuck so many times. Like right now. I am trying to figure out what direction I want to head with my work. There's so much that needs to be burned to the ground and built up again in better and more equitable ways.
How does one tackle it all? You can't. I know this. But how does one tackle what they feel to be the most pressing matters? Especially when everything is so damn important?
I am just out here winging it these days. I am reading the content of others and I am not at all impressed. And I am not impressed with mine either. At least not the work I do online. I am better satisfied with offline work. But social media is to serve as an extension of the work I want to promote that occurs offline but that's a lot of stuff that comes with headaches if shared on social media.
For example, I am working with a large therapy organization/network for BIPOC therapists. They are a network full of all kinds of therapists, but they don't feel that they have a firm handle on recruiting those that are familiar with Autism and there are many therapists who would like to join their network that would be classified as BCBAs.
As many of you would know, there are not a lot of BIPOC BCBAs to begin with, so this organization being as inclusive as they are, would like to include them in their network so that families like ours can locate them if they need them. They understand the importance of having therapists that are culturally competent so they are not trying to turn them away. But they also don't want to spend energy and time fighting off those who are against adding them to their network of therapists.
So, they brought me on to consult. I am responsible for helping them to create criteria for inclusion in the network, teaching them about how to look for warning signs in a potential candidate, as well as teaching them and their current therapists how to care for those with Autism diagnoses.
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