BNSC presents plaques to accredited agencies

At a ceremony held by the Bermuda National Standards Committee (BNSC) on Wednesday, May 8th, the Minister of Community and Cultural Development, the Hon. R. Wayne Scott, JP MP, presented plaques to the 2013 Accredited And Certified Agencies at the Charities House Boardroom on Point Finger Road, Paget at the Inter Agency Committee Annual Meeting.

Minister Scott presented the plaques to accredited member of BNSC, Happy Valley Child Care Centre and the newly certified organizations, Bermuda Underwater Exploration Institute, Friends of Hospice, The Duke of Edinburg’s Award in Bermuda and the re-certified organizations Bermuda Cricket Board and the Centre of Philanthropy in recognition for their great accomplishments.

The BNSC is a public-private partnership who believes that Bermuda must address growing social challenges collaboratively, ensure quality outcomes and make the most of limited resources especially in these economic times. The BNSC offers accreditation and certification to organizations and agencies to create opportunities to strengthen their operations and programs in order to demonstrate that they are operating at an international level of best practice.

Since 2005, the BNSC has provided internationally recognized accreditation status to eight agencies in Bermuda that provide prevention and intervention programming in the field of Human Services. Four of those agencies are sections of the Department of Child and Family Services within the Ministry of Community and Cultural Development. The other four are Bermuda Charities.

For those Charities who do not provide direct prevention or intervention human service but desire a vehicle for demonstrating accountability and validating the high quality of their work, the BNSC offers a certification process for this group. A total of eleven charities are now certified through BNSC. Several groups from both the Government and Charity sectors have already committed to the 2013 process and the Bermuda National Standards Committee is welcoming more applicants for next year.

“The BNSC is proud to be working with the Inter Agency Committee for Child and Families (IAC) for over 7 years. IAC is an association of human services providers in Bermuda that works to provide best practice training to improve services to Bermuda’s children and families who need assistance,” Minister Scott said.

One opportunity for IAC member agencies to demonstrate their quality is through certification and for human services providers through accreditation. At their Annual Meeting, the IAC and the BNSC celebrated the great accomplishments of those agencies and charities that have achieved accreditation and certification through the Bermuda National Standards Committee in 2013.