The forthcoming issue of the National Institute for Literacy's NIFLNews is devoted to the topic of professionalizing the literacy field. The following article is excerpted from that newsletter. LVA Accreditation: A Commitment to Quality The primary concern of every literacy program is quality services for its students. In the volunteer literacy sector, a long-time goal has been a set of consistent standards that can be depended on from program to program and from state to state. The Literacy Volunteers of America (LVA) Accreditation Initiative is an ambitious program that responds to that concern by establishing quality and accountability standards for volunteer literacy service providers nationwide. "Students are our customers," states Andy Hartman, NIFL Director, in an LVA video presentation about Accreditation. "Students are looking for a service that will help them meet their needs and goals. Accreditation provides a language and a process for creating that information so that students can make good, smart decisions for themselves, and programs can explain to students what it is they do, and how well they do it." Accreditation will raise the acceptable performance threshold for LVA affiliates, ensuring that everyone who receives tutoring from LVA receives quality services. But the Accreditation Initiative goes much further than establishing minimum standards. It also identifies outstanding educational and management practices within the LVA network and beyond, and encourages every volunteer literacy organization to excel. Each three-year Accreditation cycle will build on the previous cycle, so that current best demonstrated practices become new minimum standards in a dynamic, ongoing process of continuous improvement. "There's nothing more important than our ability to deliver good quality services," says Taylor Willingham, Executive Director of LVA Santa Clara County, CA. "With Accreditation, we still have the flexibility to do what we do best -- it's just a way of helping us to do it better. And it's going to open opportunities to document those best demonstrated practices and share them with each other." The LVA Accreditation Initiative was driven by the needs of the field. Literacy programs across the county called for: creation of standards that are synonymous with excellence in literacy services identification and dissemination of exemplary practices from the literacy and nonprofit fields support and technical assistance enabling individual programs to attain and maintain new, higher standards for management practices and instructional services a nationally recognized "Seal of Approval" for programs that meet Accreditation standards "This Initiative was designed by field representatives to respond to the needs expressed by the field," says LVA President Marsha L. Tait. "There are three steps in the process: self-assessment, carried out by the affiliate; technical assistance, provided by the LVA state and regional mid-level systems and by the national office; and sharing of best demonstrated practices, which leads to continuous improvement." Flexibility is the cornerstone of the LVA Accreditation Initiative. LVA will no longer mandate specific instructional methods and materials. Local programs must, however, prove their effectiveness by documenting outcomes -- both in terms of learner achievements and management practices. This approach maximizes accountability while encouraging innovation. While all LVA organizations will undergo a rigorous Accreditation process in order to retain LVA affiliation, for the first time other literacy providers may also apply for LVA Accreditation. According to Anne DuPrey, Executive Director of LVA Nassau County, NY and a member of the Accreditation Task Force, "Our hope is that LVA's quality standards will become a benchmark for the entire adult volunteer literacy community, and may become a model for other educational providers as well." In addition to providing more effective literacy instruction for students and more effective nonprofit management systems for affiliates, Accreditation will enable literacy programs to be more accountable to their supporters. According to Sarah Jane Batt, Executive Director of the Greater Indianapolis Literacy League, "Today a lot of donors are looking much more closely at the organizations that they give money to. They want to know the money they're giving is going to be well spent. Knowing that we meet national standards is going to be really valuable to them." Maureen Gorman, Vice President of the GTE Foundation, adds, "Accreditation not only will help professionalize LVA's network of local affiliates, but also fuel donor confidence in the entire organization's ability to deliver measurable results and, ultimately, win the battle against illiteracy." Taylor Willingham gives a striking example of the value of Accreditation to potential supporters of literacy programs: We were approached by a funder who wanted us to provide services to migrant farm workers, and we would like to do that through a mobile literacy lab. We have an opportunity to purchase, at very low cost from government surplus, a bus. But we had to demonstrate that we were accredited or licensed. Since there is no accreditation or licensing process for literacy programs, I was afraid we were going to miss out on this wonderful opportunity, But I called them and explained that we are going through this process with Literacy Volunteers of America, and that we will be accredited. I think we might get the bus! According to Marsha Tait, "Accreditation is LVA's most far-reaching plan since its founding in 1962. We expect its impact to reach beyond our 375 affiliates, deeply and essentially changing and improving adult education in the volunteer sector and, ultimately, the entire field." Back to Accreditation