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Volunteers sought for senior center accreditation team

Date: 3/29/2011

March 30< 2011

By Debbie Gardner

Assistant Editor

WEST SPRINGFIELD — The Council on Aging (COA) is looking for volunteers with time, talent and an interest in guiding the senior center through the process of accreditation by the National Council on Aging (NCOA).

"Basically what I'm proposing to my current COA board is to slowly begin looking at the elements required for accreditation," Laurie Cassidy, executive director of the West Springfield Senior Center, said. "I see this as laying the groundwork for understanding where we've been, where we are and where we'd like to go as an organization."

According to materials provided by the NCOA, the areas to be examined for accreditation include such things as the center's mission statement, outreach plans and procedures, bylaws and constitution, programs and services, budget, self-promotion and collaboration with other community resources.

"It's sort of like a SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats) analysis," Cassidy said. "But this is much more intense."

The first meeting for interested volunteers took place on March 22 at the center. Cassidy said she had three volunteers attend that initial session, but is looking for more help to guide the center through the accreditation process.

"We went over the elements [of accreditation] and began with looking at our mission statement, which will set the tone for the rest of the documentation," Cassidy said.

The group will continue to meet on the fourth Tuesday of every month to work on the center's self-assessment, which Cassidy said is the first step to meeting the standards set by the NCOA.

Interested individuals can contact Cassidy for more information either by e-mail at lcassidy@west-springfield.ma.us or by phone at 781-2214.

"Anybody that's interested in helping us walk through this process is welcome," Cassidy said, adding that volunteers need not be elders to take part in the evaluation. She noted that "there's a whole looming population of baby boomers out there" that will be using the center's services in the not-too-distant future.

Her optimal group would be about "eight to 10 [volunteers] and then if we had to split off into groups of four to five, that would be good," Cassidy said.

She said there would be a cost involved with submitting the accreditation application when it's completed, something she hopes the Friends of the Senior Center will be able to help the center fund.

Ultimately, Cassidy hopes achieving national accreditation status will better position the center to apply for additional funding and grants as those opportunities become available.

"I will be interested to see who comes to the first meeting," Cassidy said. "We will begin, albeit slowly and steadily [to evaluate ourselves] and I believe this will be a positive experience for us here, and one in which we hope to learn more about ourselves as an organization."

For more information about the NCOA national accreditation process for senior centers, visit www.ncoa.org.



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