The School of Professional Psychology at Forest Institute
– St. Louis is proud to partner with the Special School District of St. Louis
County to formally train its employees to become Board Certified Behavior
Analysts® and Board Certified Assistant Behavior Analysts®.
"Forest Institute recognizes that the Special School
District is a nationwide leader among public school systems offering applied
behavior analysis (ABA) services to children and young adults,” said Dr. Brian
Nedwek, Director of Forest Institute – St. Louis.
For this reason, Forest Institute is offering reduced
tuition to employees within the district in order to meet the growing needs of
ABA services in St. Louis County.
"Programs like those at Forest are things we need quite a
bit when dealing with the growth of autism and the push for behavior analytic
services,” said Donald McCary, Director of Applied Behavior Analysis for
Special School District.
SSD says having a training school that is local and in
touch with what is going on in St. Louis County makes the partnership
invaluable.
"We can bring people in and give them training and
background, but to allow them to have that class time and the ability to sit
and focus on the behavior analytic end of things is a key to having quality
programming for us,” said McCary.
Forest Institute says there may also be a future option
for students to gain the necessary supervised experience for board
certification through the context of their current employment with SSD, which
already provides expertise in the classroom.
"For the students from SSD who enroll in Forest’s
programs, their professors are the people they already work with on a daily
basis,” said Program Director Dr. Michele Williams.
Dr. Williams has more than two decades of experience
working in ABA, and was trained in the experimental analysis of behavior. She is currently a Board Certified Behavior
Analyst – Doctoral® and a Licensed Behavior Analyst.
Forest Institute’s Applied Behavior Analysis program
kicked off in St. Louis in the Fall of 2011.Forest currently offers a Master’s in ABA, as well as BCBA® and BCaBA®
certificate programs. Two SSD employees
are already students of the master’s program.
"Being in on the ground floor and being part of the
genesis of the program excited me. I
didn’t know what to expect from a graduate program, but it’s everything I hoped
it would be so far,” said student and SSD employee Steve Schwenke.
Forest Institute – St. Louis will hold an open house March
2, 2012 from 5:00 to 7:00pm at its site located in the Golfview Building at
11477 Olde Cabin Road, Creve Coeur, MO63141. The open house will
celebrate our partnership with Special School District and will be one of the
first chances for the community to see what programs we offer.
• For more information on partnerships like the
one between Forest and SSD, contact Dr. Brian Nedwek at (314) 997-3447.
• For information on the programs offered in
St. Louis, including the Applied Behavior Analysis program, please contact Forest
Institute’s admissions team at 1-800-424-7793 or at admissions@forest.edu.