Empower your future - through professional mission statements and certification

From time to time, we all enter periods of self-evaluation, when we go beyond the usual formal types of performance checks and question why we do what we do. Self-evaluation can be healthy and beneficial, even therapeutic. It can also help us professionally.

Making the Most of Self Evaluations

Almost any book on leadership will have as one of its requisites a vision of what the leader expects both personally and professionally. Stephen Covey, in his book The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, says that a personal mission statement "focuses on what you want to be and to do, and on the values or principles upon which being and doing are based." He further states that when you begin the process of self-awareness, you must start with a clear understanding of your destination so that the steps you take are always in the right direction. He applies this personal mission statement to your personal life, your professional life, your family life, and your community life.

My purpose here is to focus on your professional life. Perhaps you have never taken time to formalize your professional mission statement. You may be doing what you are doing simply because it is the light thing to do or perhaps because it fits your beliefs and values. Are you leading camp and/or conference center programs because that's your job, or because that's part of your professional mission?

By developing a professional mission statement, you will have a compelling decision-making criterion that guides and empowers you toward professional achievement, self satisfaction, and service excellence. Your professional mission statement helps you stay on track from day to day when your fire and energies are consumed by daily tasks and challenges.

Communicating Your Professional Mission to the Public

Unfortunately, as important as it is to be guided by a professional mission statement and periodic self evaluations, the results of such efforts usually remain unknown to our boards, staff, and the people we serve. Fortunately, there's a way to make your professional mission statement clear to others: with professional certification.

The ACA Professional Certification Program is designed by, for and with your peers to assist you in identifying the foundations of excellence on which you operate as a professional. The program can guide you along a path that documents your professional practices, and can assist you in developing a clear understanding of what you expect to achieve both personally and professionally.

ACA's Certification Program is founded upon those characteristics that make you a professional -- your work experiences, knowledge, education, ethics, professional practices, and philosophy. Being professionally certified tangibly establishes and affirms you as a professional. It formally documents to self and others the mark of distinction as a professional. It empowers your behavior!

Gaining the Benefits of Certification

As a professional, certification builds your self-confidence in your skills and knowledge. It provides credibility for your philosophy and practices and demonstrates involvement in the organized camp and conference/retreat center field. As a certified professional, you also join a national network of peers who have common backgrounds, experience, and commitment to excellence.

To employers, professional certification demonstrates that you have voluntarily met the minimum standards of the industry in terms of knowledge and work experience and are committed to the field. It instills confidence in the minds of employers, campers, clients and parents that you have gone the extra mile in your profession. It says you are someone they can depend on to do a good job. In short, it says you are a professional.

Finding a Certification to Fit Your Career Track

There is a certification classification to meet your career track. ACA offers five different certification classifications: Certified Camp Director -- Day Camp; Certified Camp Director -- Resident Camp; Certified Camp/Conference Director; Certified Program Supervisor; and Certified Site Manager. Each classification includes minimum requirements in: age, education, endorsements, professional involvement, professional practice (work experience and knowledge), ethics, and involvement in ACA accreditation (either through the accreditation process or through courses of instruction). Once certified, you must recertify every five years. Recertification is tied to continuing education, professional involvement, and endorsements.

By pursuing certification, you can move beyond self-evaluation and document what you do and why you do it. You'll firmly identify and establish your professional mission and your status as a professional.

Society is fast becoming concerned with the credentials of those who operate programs, and certification is becoming the norm rather than the exception. Are you ready to make the voluntary choice? To accept the challenge? If so, now is the time to contact the ACA Certification Department for more information about how you can become a certified camp professional. Call or write us at the ACA National Office, 5000 State Road 67 North, Martinsville, IN 46151; 317/342-8456, ext. 328.

COPYRIGHT 1993 American Camping Association
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