Hale Kipa recently received reaccreditation by the Council on Accreditation (COA), a nonprofit accreditor of human services. Accreditation is the formal evaluation of an organization or program against accepted criteria or standards. 

Hale Kipa is reaccredited in 4-year terms by the COA, receiving its last reaccreditation in fall 2015 and in 2011 prior to that. Hale Kipa has been accredited since 1999. 

“This is an important accomplishment and worthy of celebration,” said Punky Pletan-Cross, CEO of Hale Kipa. “It acknowledges our efforts to ensure that our policies, procedures and practices are meeting the standards of the Council on Accreditation, and that we are holding ourselves to the highest standards in our operations and our programs. Those we are privileged to serve deserve nothing less.”

According to the COA, “reaccreditation is a tremendous achievement that demonstrates that your organization is recognized as a provider that continues to successfully implement high performance standards and, as such, is delivering the highest quality services to all of its stakeholders.”

The Council on Accreditation is an international, independent, nonprofit, human service accrediting organization founded in 1977. It partners with human service organizations worldwide to improve service delivery outcomes by developing, applying, and promoting accreditation standards.

Current best practices are determined through a rigorous, multi-stage development and vetting process that includes:

1. Collection, in-depth review, and synthesis of all prominent published research and professional literature
2. The convening of Standards Advisory Panels and Task Forces comprised of subject matter experts, agency leaders, and service providers to provide input on trends in the field
3. A Field Comment Period that provides for the review and feedback of the draft standards 
4. Field-testing with a cross-section of organizations and volunteer reviewers
5. Continuous review of feedback from the field and newly published literature that informs ongoing updates to the standards