Revising the National Standards for Accreditation

The National Standards for Accreditation for CACs and for State Chapters are updated every five years through an extensive revision process, with the latest evidence available and using the expert opinion of 130 experienced child abuse intervention professionals.

Questions? Contact us at accreditation@nca-online.org.

Standards for Children’s Advocacy Centers

The current iteration of the CAC Standards is the 2023 National Standards of Accreditation, which went into effect January 1, 2023. Putting the Standards Into Practice is also a helpful resource with practical approaches to meeting the Essential Component requirements. All centers being accredited will need to demonstrate meeting the updated Standards.

With the 2023 revision, three Optional Standards were also introduced to include a broad width of services that CACs provide due to changing dynamics in the field of child abuse. CACs that complete the additional three Optional Standards are recognized for being innovators in the field addressing some of the challenges brought on by new technology and the expanded scope of how incidents occur.

For a deep dive into the 2023 Standards, information on how to meet them from NCA’s Accreditation team, and expert interviews from the field, please see the updated Accreditation Bootcamp 2.0 and Getting to Know the 2023 Standards on NCA Engage.

Chapter accreditation and reaccreditation follows the same process as CAC accreditation, but Chapters are accredited under a different set of National Standards. Once accredited, Chapters apply for reaccreditation every five years, and the Chapter Standards are revised roughly every five years as well. The current iteration of the Chapter Standards was updated in 2020.

Get copies of the Standards

The 2023 CAC Standards, Putting the Standards Into Practice, the Optional Standards, and the 2020 Chapter Standards can all be found on the NCA Standards webpage. PDF copies are free to download.