Johnston County
According to Tracy Hadjipetrou, CC4C Social Work Supervisor, Co-AAC, :
We used a Co-AAC model for our fall 2018 site visit and it worked really well for us. Christy Barfield, DON and I, served as co-AACs. We both agreed early in the process to be 100 percent accountable for the entire accreditation process. In other words, we would both be fully committed to having a positive outcome (hopefully Accreditation with Honors) related to the evidence being submitted on the flash drive and during the site visit.
I purchased some creative supplies to engage the staff. The current “Owl” boards (pictured) are a replication of our “Charlie Brown” boards (pictured). The Charlie Brown boards were inspired by Iredell County’s CATT tool to have something posted on a main hallway in the Health Department to engage all the staff in the Accreditation process. The boards outlined when each activity is due, who is responsible, and cute puppy stickers are used to show that the activity was completed. The boards offered an opportunity for staff to have a visual of the progress made and who may be a little delinquent on submitting evidence.
The six months prior to submitting the flash drive, Christy and I blocked numerous half and whole days to give our undivided attention to fine tuning evidence, cleaning up the virtual folders, double checking the activities to ensure all the needed evidence was present, and hyperlinking the flash drive. Through this process, we were able to learn a great deal about each other, capitalize on one another’s strengths, and it was nice to always have someone to brainstorm ideas with about accreditation.
During the site visit, we established a war room near the Site Visitor’s room to provide quick access to the Site Visit Team and the AAC liaison. As AACs, we each had predetermined responsibilities based on our individual strengths. When the questions were received from the Site Visit Team, I copied all the questions onto bright colored paper so that they were not lost in the piles of paperwork in the war room. The “paint” themed boards (pictured) categorized the activities into the five categories of: Assessment, Policy Development, Assurance, Facilities/Admin., and Governance. This allowed the war room team to quickly access and prioritize which questions needed to be answered first. Pink sticky notes were used to show that a question had been received, a person’s name was written on the sticky note to show who was gathering the new evidence, and a green sticky note was used to show that the evidence had been resubmitted to the Site Visit Team. In the war room there were a handful of other staff members who volunteered to being committed to focusing on answering accreditation questions that day. Most of these staff members were responsible for large portions of the accreditation documentation. As Christy notes, “It was a great work group with everyone working as a team, invested in the agency’s success.” As it turned out, Johnston County Public Health Department was Reaccredited with Honors.
The Co-AAC models of shared responsibility worked so well, we have added a third AAC, so now we are a Tri-AAC Model. As we move to the dashboard, we are keeping many of the same strategies as we used in preparation for the fall 2018 site visit. The Owl boards continue to be a way for all the staff members to be involved in the accreditation process and they serve a visual reminder that accreditation is a four-year process, not just the Site Visit.
For more information contact Tracy Hadjipetrou at tracy.hadjipetrou@johnstonnc.com