Corrections_Today_Fall_2024_Vol.86_No.3

STANDARDS & ACCREDITATION

The audit process is a mechanism to ensure ACA’s expected practices are being implemented and complied with daily. It is only one part of the accreditation process, not the final determination for accreditation. However, audits occur only once every three years. In 2019, then ACA President Gary Mohr proposed an initiative for a Performance Moni toring Visit during the three-year accreditation cycle. The intent was to strengthen the validity of continued compliance, provide an intensified view of the process and help the facility be better able to maintain expected practices daily. Implementa tion of the initiative was delayed due to the COVID-19 pandemic. In January 2023, the Commission on Accreditation for Corrections (CAC) briefed the ACA Board of Governors on the Performance Monitoring Visit initiative. The plan was to conduct three Performance Monitoring Visits at a test site and finalize the process for review and approval by the ACA Board of Governors. Visits to all three test sites were successful with comments ranging from describing how it helped and how essential it seemed. At the 2023 August ACA Conference, the ACA Board of Governors approved Per formance Monitoring Visits as part of the accreditation process. The first Performance Monitoring Visits will occur in the latter half of 2024. What is a Performance Monitoring Visit? It is not an audit. A Performance Monitoring Visit will occur between 14–24 months following an ACA

audit. It is scheduled with limited notice to the facility. Visits will be conducted by an ACA auditor or ACA staff over one or two days. A visit will start with guidance by an ACA staff member to the auditor on what will be reviewed during the visit based on the last ACA audit, panel minutes from the CAC hearing, annual reports, critical incident reports and letters addressed to ACA. The schedule includes an en trance interview, a partial tour of the facility as identified by ACA, review of some current ACA files identified by ACA to ensure accreditation is being maintained, review of current Serious Incident Summary and Outcome Measures, interviews of staff and prisoners (clients, etc.) and an exit interview. “A Performance Monitoring Visit will occur between 14–24 months following an ACA audit. It is

The auditor will also be looking at any plans of action for non-com pliance of expected practices from their last audit. They will check if the plan of action has brought it into compliance; and if not they will ask for a status update and what issues there are. The auditor will then write a report for the Director of Standards and Accreditation to review and if needed send it to the CAC. All ACA accredited organizations and facili ties will go through this process since it is written in all new contracts. To help facilities prepare for Per formance Monitoring Visits, ACA has conducted in-person training at the last three ACA conferences, held two virtual training sessions for agencies/facilities and two more virtual training sessions for audi tors. Performance Monitoring Visits have been a long time in coming, but this evolution of ACA processes is one that will strengthen the accredi tation process and assist facilities to maintain their accreditation. If you have any questions, please feel free to reach out to your ACA Standards and Accreditation Spe cialist or myself. If you wish to have training for your facility or agency on Performance Monitoring Visits or any other accreditation related training, please contact me. CT

scheduled with limited notice to the facility.”

If the files required by accredi tation have not been updated the auditor will request these docu ments be provided to demonstrate compliance. An example would be the expected practice that requires an annual fire inspection. The audi tor will ask to see the last annual fire inspection and any corrective action that was implemented.

David Haasenritter is the Director of Standards & Accreditation at the American Correctional Association in Alexandria, VA. For more

information, contact David Haasenritter at (703) 224-0070 or davidh@aca.org.

Fall 2024 | Corrections Today

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