Thompson Rebecca L, Belokas Jessica, Johnson Katherine, Williams Ashley L
Wisconsin Early Autism Project (WEAP), Brookfield, WI USA.
Wisconsin Autism Providers Association (WAPA), Brookfield, WI USA.
Behav Anal Pract. 2023 Nov 20;18(2):594-611. doi: 10.1007/s40617-023-00874-1. eCollection 2025 Jun.
Public policy advocacy is crucial to ensure equitable access for all those seeking applied behavior analysis (ABA) services. Based on their experiences engaging in state-level public policy advocacy, the authors created a Public Policy Advocacy Actions Checklist that summarizes specific strategies they found to be successful with a variety of public policy issues relevant to ABA. Although this article focuses on advocacy efforts related to Medicaid reimbursement rates and Medicaid policies for ABA service provision, the strategies presented have also been used to advocate for coverage of telehealth ABA services, licensure for behavior analysts, and mandates for commercial insurance to cover ABA and/or autism intervention. The State of Wisconsin is used to illustrate implementation of the Public Policy Advocacy Actions Checklist, and the states of Arizona and Massachusetts are presented as additional examples of successful advocacy efforts using these strategies. This article walks behavior analysts through the process of identifying the local challenges and opportunities, developing advocacy goals, implementing an action plan, collecting data, recruiting support from the community, and influencing policy makers to implement favorable policy changes. The authors present additional resources to support new behavior analyst advocates including links to free advocacy toolkits, tips on selecting a lobbyist, recommendations for meetings with policy makers, a sample budget request, and two examples of "call to action" communications encouraging members of the community to contact their representatives regarding a specific issue. Finally, the successful advocacy outcomes and remaining opportunities for advocacy in each of these three states are discussed.
The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s40617-023-00874-1.
公共政策倡导对于确保所有寻求应用行为分析（ABA）服务的人能够公平获得服务至关重要。基于他们在州级公共政策倡导方面的经验，作者创建了一份《公共政策倡导行动清单》，总结了他们发现的在与ABA相关的各种公共政策问题上取得成功的具体策略。尽管本文重点关注与医疗补助报销率以及ABA服务提供的医疗补助政策相关的倡导工作，但所介绍的策略也被用于倡导远程医疗ABA服务的覆盖范围、行为分析师的执照颁发，以及强制商业保险覆盖ABA和/或自闭症干预。以威斯康星州为例来说明《公共政策倡导行动清单》的实施情况，并将亚利桑那州和马萨诸塞州作为使用这些策略成功进行倡导工作的额外示例。本文引导行为分析师经历识别当地挑战和机遇、制定倡导目标、实施行动计划、收集数据、争取社区支持以及影响政策制定者实施有利政策变革的过程。作者还提供了额外资源来支持新的行为分析师倡导者，包括免费倡导工具包的链接、选择游说者的技巧、与政策制定者会面的建议、一份样本预算申请，以及两份“行动呼吁”通信示例，鼓励社区成员就特定问题联系他们的代表。最后，讨论了这三个州中每个州成功的倡导成果以及剩余的倡导机会。
在线版本包含可在10.1007/s40617 - 023 - 00874 - 1获取的补充材料。
