Senior Center Pursues National Accreditation

Its local reputation is already well-established as a bustling, vibrant part of the community, and the Johnston Senior Center is now taking steps to earn national accreditation, which will further add to its prestige.

Center Director Anthony Zompa, during a recent interview in his office, explained that the facility's staff and newly-formed Advisory Board have been compiling information, doing surveys, and organizing data in pursuit of accreditation by the National Institute of Senior Centers, a division of the National Council on Aging in Washington, D.C.

The certification "provides recognition of the efforts taken every day by the staff and volunteers to provide excellent quality of service to our seniors — and that's what it's all about," Zompa explained. "There's no money attached to it, per se, (but) if you're recognized as providing exellent service to seniors, that's a step up when you're going for funding and grants."

Zompa said the work "is just like any accreditation process — whether it be for a school, a health facility, or a police department, They all have standards they should be held to (and) this is just a process to verify that you are holding to these standards of service."

Kathy McKeon, a retiree from the Rhode Island Department of Elderly Affairs, has volunteered to serve as consultant for the local center's application, Zompa added.

"She was involved in the development of the standards for senior centers, so she knows what's behind them," Zompa said, adding McKeon has also guided the advisory council in the process. "We're about 85 percent completed with the self-assessment portion, documenting some of the things that have been done so we can share them with the accreditation committee when they come in."

Most recently, the advisory committee reviewed the results of questionnaires given to volunteers and seniors who use the center's services, and went through the entire program to set up priorities as the center moves forward.

"When we got the survey results, we were 96 to 100 percent effective in almost every single area," said Zompa. "We were very pleased with that result."

Also part of the recent retreat was a chance for advisory committee members to prioritize 26 items in the center's programs and facility. Members would visit each item and place stickers on each one to show where they placed the item on the list.

"A lot of people learned what was going on in the senior center through that process," Zompa said. "It was a good experience for our new advisory committee (who) were sworn in three months ago."

The national accreditation committee is scheduled to visit the local center in October, which may seem like a long time, Zompa acknowledged — but it's going to be time well-spent in ensuring that the application is completed thoroughly.

"We're going slow and easy," he said. "We want to get everything done and we want it to be done the first time."