How did you come to collaborate with the Faculty of Education?
The story started with an email from a mother of a child with autism named Jana Gandalovičová, who wrote to me. She knew that I was working in the field of applied behaviour analysis (ABA) and contacted me to ask for help and collaboration in the Czech Republic. I immediately responded, along with Professor Mickey Keenan. Our assistance in the Czech Republic was aimed at providing support, methodologies, and know-how on ABA. However, the people in the Czech Republic had to create the education system themselves, and we could not do that for them. In 2015, only a few trained behavior analysts (experts in behavioral interventions) were in the Czech Republic. The first step was to find a university teacher interested in ABA.
Jana knew Professor Karel Pančocha from the Faculty of Education at Masaryk University, who is fantastic, responded quickly, and we created a team including parents, academics, and politicians. Professor Pančocha also visited us in Belfast, and within a month, he organized a large conference in Brno at which our research and practical experience were presented. Professor Pančocha has done an admirable job from the very beginning of our collaboration. This action had a significant impact on the 2016 parliamentary hearings in Prague. We had discussions with the Minister of Health and the Minister of Education of the Czech Republic, which directed further developments. Our collaboration led to the amendment of the Non-Medical Health Workers Act, the creation of educational courses on ABA at your university, and the initiation of research in this area. Prof. Pančocha created a great team of collaborators, who trained at our University in Belfast on our MScABA first online course. We helped until the MU Faculty of Education staff were qualified to provide behavior analysis instruction.