Externships with NAC, a non-profit
orgranization serving People with Blindness or Visual Impairment so we may better serve our member organizations.
NAC is the National Accreditation Council for Blind and Low Vision Services!
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Externship Program
The elements of our externship position are listed below. A brief overview might be useful.
The National Accreditation Council for Blind and Low Vision Services (NAC) is a 'standards setting' organization and provides accreditation to schools and agencies throughout the nation who serve people with vision loss.
In the 1960's major leaders in the field of vision rehabilitation organized and established NAC, developed its standards and set up its operations in New York with financial support from national organizations and the US government as detailed in The Comstac Report (Library of Congress catalogue number: 66-28251).
The value of NAC's mission is particularly pertinent at this time because of the interest in further defining the required expertise needed to serve people with vision loss as well as increased recognition of the importance of outcome measures by payers and supporters.
Our externship program is for our national organization headquartered here in Cleveland since 2001 and is conducted in partnership with CWRU.
CWRU is
Case Western Reserve University (this is an external link opening in a new window or tab), a prestigious university in the heart of
University Circle (this is an external link opening in a new window or tab) on Cleveland's east side. Incidentally, With over 20 major institutions and scores of smaller institutions and with over 100,000 employees and over 2.5 million visitors annually, University Circle is the largest collection of non-profit entities in the World.
NAC's Strategy:
1. Firstly, NAC's strategic objectives can be accomplished with existing internal resources aligned with external circumstances.
2. Secondly, NAC is well informed about conditions in the field and interprets that awareness via the continuous standards updates, particularly as it relates to consumer dynamics.
3. Thirdly, the on-site reviewers possess the level of expertise that is found to be exclusively valuable by customer organizations and their constituencies.
4. Fourthly, NAC is sustaining a level of recognition in the field that will lead to having the majority of service providers publicly embrace NAC's unique mission.
The role of the CWRU/NAC extern might involve the following:
1. Bylaws revisions
2. Policy structure and revisions
3 . Electronic communications, linkages and alliances
4 . Resource development planning
5. Developing CEU's of our training of reviewers
6. Information and technology driven strategy
7. Strategic management
8. Market development
9. Legal issues
In addition, a student might be interested in researching the practical value of any one or all of the national standards that NAC applies in our accreditation of agencies and schools. Our standards include requirements for annual audits, program monitoring, staff credentialing, building specifics and board responsibilities; in addition to service delivery requirements.
Incidentally, it was suggested at the last board meeting that such an externship program might provide a national model that is timely in our field because an unusually high percentage of our agency/school executives are reaching retirement age. Soon there will be many job openings that externs might welcome.
If you would like to be considered for our externship program, please fill out the application on our
intership page. In the "Questions/Comments" fill in box, please fill in that you are interested in "An Externship Position". NOTE: You need not be visually impaired to be considered for this position.
Thanks!
Download(.doc): Externship program outline-doc
