Dear Dr. NAACLS,

I heard that NAACLS has significantly revised the Guide to Accreditation, the Paper Review and the Site Visit Report. My Self-Study Report is due soon. I am concerned that the revisions may affect my review. What should I do?

Signed,
Nervous

Dear Nervous,

It is true that NAACLS has revised the Guide to Accreditation, the Paper Review and the Site Visit Report for the CLS/MT, CLT/MLT, HTL and HT levels. Specifically, within the Guide to Accreditation, the new Description of the Accreditation Process has replaced the former Content of the Self-Study Report. This document was designed to make the accreditation process more "user-friendly" for both program directors and volunteers. The new guide contains more specific information as to what should be contained in a Self-Study Report and what the role of the site visit team is once they arrive at your program. For those program directors who are just beginning the self-study process, please download the new documents, or contact your NAACLS program coordinator for a copy.

How have the documents changed? The new documents are designed to consider the three main steps of the accreditation process (the self-study process, the paper review and the site visit) as a whole, rather than three separate reviews of the program. The requirements for each part of the process are streamlined to reduce duplicative paperwork. The questions on the Paper Review correlate closely with the questions on the Site Visit Report, which should clarify the precise documentation to be verified by the site visitors once they arrive on campus.

For those programs that began the process using the old documents, there is no reason to panic. If your Self-Study Report is nearly complete, please download the new Paper Review from the NAACLS website, or contact your program coordinator for a copy. There is no need to change the Self-Study Report. These new forms follow the Essentials very closely, and if your program is in compliance with the Essentials, you shouldn't experience any difficulties.

Before the site visit, you will receive a copy of the Site Visit Report. If you examine the questions closely, you should easily be able to provide the site visit team with the appropriate documentation. Remember, any documents the Paper Reviewer cannot locate may be submitted with your Response to the Paper Review. This response is sent to the site visitors prior to the site visit. Since the Paper Review and the Site Visit Report correlate closely, your response can clarify many questions before the site visitors arrive on campus. Please read the Paper Review and respond appropriately, particularly if your program completed the Self-Study Report using the old Guide to Accreditation. If you have any questions regarding that response, NAACLS staff can help you. Please do not hesitate to call.

We are very proud of the revisions we have made to our documents. The changes were made largely with program directors in mind. The aim was to clarify the sometimes ambiguous requirements of the accreditation process while maintaining the high standards of NAACLS review. If you have any further suggestions in regard to the process, please contact us.

Sincerely,

Dr. NAACLS

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