Senior Community Services’ (SCS) centers, namely Chester, Friendship Circle, Good Neighbor and Schoolhouse Senior Centers are in the process of achieving Accreditation from the National Institute of Senior Centers’ (NISC), a unit of the National Council on the Aging, Inc. (NCOA). The Center’s were awarded this achievement in 2004. The certification only remains in effect for five years.
      Accreditation is the official recognition that a senior center is meeting its mission in a nationally accepted professional fashion, based on compliance with nine standards of senior center operations developed by National Institute of Senior Centers (NISC), a unit of the National Council on the Aging, Inc. (NCOA).
     All materials from SCS were submitted in July to the accreditation office in Mesa, Arizona. In late October and early November, NISC’s Certified Standards Trainers will visit each center to determine its readiness for accreditation. By the end of the visit SCS will know if its Centers were recommended for accreditation.
SCS Executive Director, Arthur Weisfeld, describes accreditation as the official mark of excellence.
      “It shows our senior centers as viable, fundable and qualified provider of services within the community,” Weisfeld relates. “Accreditation says that we do everything we can to go the extra mile for our clients.”
NISC has already awarded national accreditation to 153 senior centers that meet their standards, including accreditation centers in 27 states across the country.
     “Receiving accreditation “concludes Nikki Panico, SCS Associated Director of Senior Centers, “will place our centers at the pinnacle of recognition for all the effort and hard work the staff have put into making each center a success. It also shows older adults in our area that SCS’s centers are definitely the place to visit.”