Keesler AFRC earns accreditation

Published Dec. 4, 2013
By Susan Griggs
81st Training Wing Public Affairs

KEESLER AIR FORCE BASE, Miss. -- The Keesler Airman and Family Readiness Center has been endorsed by the Council on Accreditation, an international, independent, not-for-profit, child- and family-service and behavioral health accreditation organization.

COA's military and family readiness program accreditation was developed in collaboration with the Department of Defense and each of the military branches to develop national accreditation standards specific to the family readiness services offered to service members and their families on military installations. Accreditation is a strategy to strengthen, measure and validate a family readiness program's effectiveness by focusing on its unique mission and resources, as well as the specific needs and aspirations of the people served.

The council accredits more than 2,000 private and public organizations that serve more than seven million individuals and families in the U.S., Canada and overseas. COA standards cover more than 60 different service domains and hundreds of programs and organizations.

When the Air Force Personnel Center asked for seven AFRCs to follow the test base, Scott Air Force Base, Ill., in applying for accreditation, Jackie Pope, Keesler's AFRC chief, was quick to volunteer her 16-member team. After all, the Keesler center was recognized as Air Education and Training Command's top AFRC for 2012.

Pope expected that after earning an "excellent" rating on last year's consolidated unit inspection, earning COA accreditation would be a "piece of cake," she said. However, she was quick to admit that the accreditation process was much more demanding and labor-intensive than she had ever anticipated.

"The COA process was much more rigorous on the administrative side, while the CUI involved a detailed review of our programs," Pope explained. "There was very little correlation between the two processes. On more than one occasion, I asked myself what I had gotten us into."

Pursuing accreditation for an agency that has no real counterpart in the civilian world presented its own set of challenges.

"Accreditation has a nice ring to it, and we certainly wanted to lead in any standard for an AFRC," remarked Becky Stanley, one of the center's community readiness consultants. "In the civilian world, accreditation is the key - without it, you'd struggle to get staff or to qualify for legitimate money and grants."

"For example, when given a choice of child development centers, a parent is likely to choose an accredited facility with standards that meet certain nationally-recognized levels," said Stanley's colleague, Lana Smith. "A family readiness center has no direct equal on the civilian side because some activities are purely military."

To meet the COA challenge, Pope recruited Smith, Stanley and community readiness consultant John Lowe to help her tackle the accreditation self study in addition to their regular duties. The team met weekly to review progress on more than 150 questions in the study. One of the dubious advantages of last summer's furlough was a one-month extension on the self-study deadline.

Before the package was submitted Sept. 9, a community stakeholder committee made up of first sergeants, customers, key spouses, an American Red Cross representative, Guard and Reserve counterparts and other representatives helped to review and fine-tune the documents. COA evaluators replied with more questions about Keesler's operations.

A two-member peer review team visited Oct. 28-30, for onsite evaluations and interviews.
"We spent the first day explaining who we are and what we do," Pope said. "Then on the second day, we expanded our stakeholder committee and they were interviewed behind closed doors to let the evaluators know how we were serving our customers."

"I felt particularly proud when our community stakeholders came and talked with the validators," Stanley remarked. "One hundred percent of the people who said they'd come were there to give their vote of confidence in their AFRC."

"The inspectors were blown away, and said if they had interviewed these folks the first day, it would have laid the foundation for the rest of the review and saved them a lot of time," Pope pointed out.
Since completing the accreditation process, Keesler has provided feedback to Air Force officials and other bases about ways to improve the process to meet the needs of military installations.

"The process is still evolving," Pope stated. "We've been able to talk to other bases to let them know what we learned from our experience."

"The accreditation confirms that we are professionals doing an outstanding job," Stanley stressed. "That painful process just made us stretch and get better. The returns on our investment are smoother internal processes and confirmation that our work and programs stand up to the standards set for the civilian world. It's a reassurance to our leadership and customers that we provide quality programs and services."

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