Develop and Maintain Competence Through Professional Development Activities

If you’re a BCBA, clinic director, or senior supervisor, you’ve probably faced this question: When you’re asked to work with a client population or intervention you’ve never done before, how do you know if you’re ready? The answer isn’t “just attend a webinar” or “read a few articles.” Developing and maintaining competence is an intentional, ongoing process at the heart of ethical ABA practice. This article walks you through what competence really means, how to build it, why it matters to your clients, and what it looks like when you’re doing it right.

We’ll cover the distinction between learning and demonstrated competence, the role of supervision and documentation, when and how to seek professional development, and the ethical weight of this responsibility. Whether you’re expanding your practice, training staff, or facing credential renewal, understanding how to develop and maintain competence will help you stay safe, effective, and aligned with professional standards.

What Does It Mean to Develop and Maintain Competence?

Developing competence means actively acquiring new knowledge and skills relevant to your scope of practice. This might be your first time learning a specific intervention, working with a new population, or mastering a skill you need for a role change. Maintaining competence is the ongoing work of keeping those skills sharp through refreshers, monitoring, and real-world application.

Professional development activities come in many forms: formal workshops and CEU courses, one-on-one supervision, peer consultation, structured self-study, reading current literature, and hands-on practice under observation. They all serve the same purpose—ensuring you can deliver safe, evidence-based, and effective services.

Here’s the critical distinction many clinicians miss: attending a training or earning a CEU is not the same as being competent. A webinar might teach you new concepts, but if you never practice those concepts, get feedback, or measure whether they work in your setting, you haven’t demonstrated competence. Competence requires observable, verifiable ability to perform a skill in a real clinical context—not just knowledge about the skill.

The Core Difference: Learning vs. Demonstrated Competence

Learning is acquiring information and ideas. You can learn a lot by reading a research article or watching a training video. But competence is the ability to do something well, consistently, and in a way that helps your clients. It’s measured through direct observation, supervisor feedback, fidelity checks, and client outcomes—not just your confidence or a certificate on your wall.

This matters because it protects both your clients and your professional standing. If a colleague tells you, “I took a training on feeding interventions,” you can’t assume they’re competent to lead feeding intervention. Have they practiced under supervision? Received feedback? Demonstrated the skills in their own clinical setting? Those are the questions that matter.

When you’re developing a new skill, expect to move through stages: acquiring knowledge, practicing under supervision, receiving feedback, demonstrating competency, and monitoring maintenance over time. Skipping any of these steps puts clients at risk and can expose you to ethical and regulatory concerns.

Why Competence Maintenance Is an Ethical Obligation

The BACB and professional ethics codes make clear that providing services outside your demonstrated competence is a violation. But the reasoning goes deeper than rule-following. Clients deserve your best work. They’re relying on you to know what you’re doing, stay current, and know your limits. When you work outside competence—even with good intentions—you risk delivering ineffective or harmful interventions.

Consider the practical impact: a clinician trained on outdated behavior reduction techniques might rely on strategies that research has since shown to be less effective or contraindicated. A supervisor who doesn’t stay current with new functional assessment methods might miss important details. A behavior technician performing a skill without recent practice might implement a protocol with drift, leading to slower progress or unintended consequences.

Maintaining competence also protects your credibility with employers, insurance companies, families, and credentialing bodies. Documentation of your professional development demonstrates that you take your role seriously and invest in ongoing improvement.

Building a Culture of Intentional Professional Development

Competence doesn’t happen by accident. It starts with intentionality: identifying what you need to learn, choosing relevant activities, practicing with feedback, documenting what you’ve done, and measuring whether it worked. Here are the key features of a sound professional development process:

Relevance to your role and client needs is essential. If your clients mostly have severe feeding challenges, a workshop on feeding intervention is highly relevant. A workshop on organizational leadership might be less urgent unless you’re moving into a supervisory role. Ask yourself: Does this skill directly support my clients or my professional responsibilities?

Measurable outcomes make competence real. Instead of vague goals like “learn more about autism,” set specific targets: “Demonstrate functional assessment skills with 90% fidelity by [date]” or “Implement a new communication protocol with all staff and verify implementation via fidelity checklist within 30 days.”

Documentation and reflection are how you prove competence when someone asks. Keep records of workshops attended, supervision hours, competency checks, and how you applied what you learned. A note like “Attended ACT workshop on March 15. Implemented three new techniques with client K.M. during the week of March 20. Supervisor observed and provided feedback. Will reassess fidelity monthly” is far more credible than “Completed ACT workshop” alone.

Supervision or peer feedback for new skills is non-negotiable. You need someone with relevant expertise to observe you, give honest feedback, and confirm you’re ready to work independently. This isn’t a burden—it’s your safety net and your client’s protection.

When Professional Development Is Necessary

You’ll know it’s time to seek formal professional development in several situations. The most obvious is when you’re asked to work with a new population or implement an intervention outside your experience. Don’t assume you can “learn as you go” without support. Plan for supervised training, practice, and competency verification before taking full responsibility.

Supervision or peer review might also reveal gaps. A supervisor watches your work and notices treatment drift—small deviations from the protocol that add up. Or client outcomes start declining. These are red flags that competence maintenance is needed. Retraining, refresher supervision, and fidelity checks become the next steps.

Changes in your role also signal that new competence is needed. A seasoned BCBA working in a clinic for 10 years may need entirely new skills when moving to private practice or a different service setting. Honoring that reality protects your clients and your reputation.

Policy or credentialing changes can also drive professional development. Your state might adopt new certification requirements. Your insurance contract might require competency in a specific model. These external changes aren’t optional—they’re part of staying in compliance and serving your community ethically.

Examples in Practice

Scenario 1: Adding a New Intervention

A BCBA receives a referral for a child with severe feeding challenges but has limited hands-on experience with feeding interventions. Rather than diving in, she takes a targeted workshop on pediatric feeding assessment and intervention. She then arranges for direct supervision from a feeding specialist who observes her conducting assessments and planning interventions. The supervisor provides written feedback and signs off on a competency checklist after three supervised sessions. The BCBA documents everything and continues requesting periodic supervision for the first two months. Now she’s not just knowledgeable about feeding—she’s competent and can work more independently while staying accountable.

Scenario 2: Training Staff on a New Protocol

A clinic introduces a new functional communication training (FCT) protocol. The clinical director doesn’t just send staff the manual. She schedules an in-service where she models the protocol, discusses the evidence and implementation details, and answers questions. She then observes each staff member implementing FCT with their own client and completes a fidelity checklist for each. Staff who miss the in-service complete one-on-one coaching. The director monitors fidelity monthly using spot-checks. If fidelity drifts below 80%, she re-trains the staff member. This isn’t a one-time training—it’s a system to ensure competence is built and maintained.

The Role of Formal CEUs and Informal Learning

Continuing education units are important and often required for credential maintenance. But they’re not a sufficient measure of competence on their own. A BCBA who completes 40 CEUs in a year hasn’t necessarily become more competent—especially if those hours are spent passively watching videos without application or assessment.

Formal learning matters when paired with practice and verification. A workshop followed by supervised practice and a competency check is a solid model. Self-study through reading, podcasts, or webinars can also count, but only if you document what you’ve learned, apply it with your clients or team, and receive feedback on whether your application is effective. The learning itself is the beginning; demonstration is the proof.

Common Mistakes to Avoid

One frequent error is treating attendance as competence. A clinician sits through a four-hour webinar on trauma-informed practice and assumes they’re competent in trauma assessment. They’re not—at least not yet. They’ve learned concepts, but they haven’t practiced, received feedback, or shown they can apply those concepts with real clients.

Another mistake is ignoring documentation. You attended a workshop, completed a supervision session, or practiced a new skill, but you didn’t write any of it down. Months later, when someone asks about your qualifications, you can’t point to evidence. A brief note with the date, activity, learning goal, and how you applied it is enough.

A third pitfall is assuming one training covers everything you need for a complex intervention or population. Feeding intervention, trauma-informed care, autism assessment—these areas require ongoing learning. You can’t master something in a single eight-hour workshop. Plan for refreshers, deeper study, and continuous monitoring.

Finally, don’t confuse confidence with competence. You might feel confident doing something because you’ve done it many times. But if outcomes are declining, clients are struggling, or a supervisor spots errors, that confidence isn’t reliable. Objective measures—fidelity checks, supervisor observation, client outcome data—tell you whether competence is present and maintained.

Ethical Boundaries and Transparency

Competence matters ethically in several ways. First, you must not misrepresent your competence to clients, families, employers, or payers. If you’ve never formally trained in a specific intervention, don’t claim to specialize in it. If you’re learning under supervision, disclose that to the client.

Second, decline work if you genuinely lack competence and can’t access supervision to develop it. This is hard when you need the work or feel pressure from an employer. But protecting clients comes first. You can say, “I don’t have direct experience with this intervention yet, but I’d be happy to pursue training and supervision if the family is willing to wait” or “This is outside my scope of practice, but I can refer you to someone who specializes in this area.”

Third, obtain informed consent when you’re learning on the job. Don’t hide supervision or downplay your experience. A family might agree to have you learn a new intervention under supervision, but only if they know that’s what’s happening. Transparency builds trust and allows families to make informed decisions.

Finally, document everything related to your competence and its maintenance. Keep records of trainings, supervision notes, competency assessments, and outcome data. If an audit, complaint, or credential review ever happens, this documentation shows you took your professional responsibility seriously.

Moving Forward: Your Next Steps

Take time to assess your current professional development approach. Are you intentional about what you’re learning? Do you document your activities and how you apply them? Are you seeking supervision when you need it? Are you monitoring whether your new or refreshed skills translate into better client outcomes?

Consider using a simple professional development checklist. For each new skill or intervention: document the training attended, plan supervised practice, set a competency-check date, reflect on what you learned and how you’ll apply it, and schedule regular monitoring. This isn’t bureaucracy—it’s a system that protects your clients and your career.

Talk with your supervisor or a colleague about your professional development goals. What gaps have they noticed? What does your client population need? What changes in your role might require new competence? These conversations keep you grounded in what actually matters.

Remember: competence isn’t a destination you reach and forget about. It’s an ongoing commitment to knowing what you’re doing, staying current, and being honest about your limits. That commitment is what makes you trustworthy, effective, and aligned with the core values of ethical ABA practice.

Key Takeaways

• Competence is demonstrated through observable, verified performance—not just knowledge or training attendance.
• When learning something new, plan for formal instruction, supervised practice, objective feedback, and documentation before working independently.
• Pair any formal CEU with real application and competency checks to ensure the learning sticks and improves your practice.
• Document your professional development activities, reflections, and evidence of competence to protect yourself and demonstrate accountability.
• Maintain honesty about your limits, seek supervision when needed, and disclose your learning status to clients and families.