Devon Sundberg started working with people with disabilities as a teenager in Terre Haute, Indiana. After she graduated from college she answered an ad in a newspaper (like for reals, an actual printed newspaper) looking for people interested in working at an Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA) clinic. Little did she know this would become her career. Devon met her husband, Carl, at the clinic they both worked at and in 2009 they started their own ABA business, the Behavior Analysis Center for Autism. Indiana was the first state to pass an autism health insurance law and Devon spent a lot of her time advocating and fighting for services for her clients at BACA. She loved her company, but spent more time fighting for services than being a clinician. In 2019 Devon was in a meeting with the president of an insurance company when he told her, “You’re too difficult to work with…” and immediately cancelled BACA’s contract. This was the last straw for Devon and Carl and they worked tirelessly to have BACA acquired by a larger ABA company to ensure that their families and staff could continue to receive quality care.
Devon is also the founder of the Women in Behavior Analysis (WIBA) conference. She started it because she believed there needed to be a conference that focused on the contributions that women have made in the field of Behavior Analysis. The next WIBA conference will be held IRL (and online) July 29-31st in Nashville at the Renaissance Hotel. The link to WIBA’s website and registration is in the show notes!
Show Notes:
Want to learn more about the Women in Behavior Analysis conference? Check out their website!
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