WELCOME TO COA

Dear Colleague:

Welcome to COA's family of excellence - a family comprised of more than 1800 public and private organizations throughout North America serving some seven million children, families, and adults each year.

For over 30 years, COA's mission has been to partner with agencies such as yours to improve the lives of the people you serve. To achieve this mission in today's difficult environment, COA has developed Contextual Accreditation^TM.

Simply put, Contextual Accreditation is a strategy to strengthen, measure, and validate your agency's effectiveness. To make this strategy effective, Contextual Accreditation focuses on each agency's unique mission, resources and culture, as well as the unique needs and aspirations of the people it serves.

This approach results in a process customized to reflect the capacity of each agency in terms of realistic timetables, areas for technical assistance and the most appropriate peer review team.

Also, in response to the unique needs of our large state systems, COA has enhanced and redesigned the accreditation process for state-administered public agencies. This redesign assures a comprehensive review and understanding of the entire agency, including all administrative offices, and takes into account a large state agency's need to ensure oversight of multiple administrative and service-providing offices. Your COA Coordinator will work with you to develop a customized plan for your agency's accreditation that includes consistency in Peer Reviewers and a comprehensive implementation plan that allows you to demonstrate your progress throughout the accreditation timeline.

Achieving COA accreditation will not be easy. While the process and the new 8th Edition Standards have been streamlined to ensure they are relevant and achievable by agencies of every size and mission, they continue COA's unwavering commitment to excellence, client rights and essential life and safety standards.

I think you will find that Contextual Accreditation transforms your agency by challenging your administration, staff, consumers, and senior leadership to continuously identify, implement and measure your strengths and opportunities. These Guidelines to Accreditation are intended to help you accomplish this goal.

That's why we say that Contextual Accreditation is not an end - it is a means to an end.

Richard Klarberg
President & CEO