Shaking the Dust Off is a Good Thing

During my teen years, I wrote a lot about my Saturday mornings. I remember my dad handing out the assignments and reminding us that we needed to remain until our individual chore was completed. I can still remember how excited I was whenever I got a chore that I liked. The best chores were easily finished, then I could go on walk abouts with my friends. I most wanted to wash things. I hated dusting. To this day, dusting is one of my dad’s favorite assignments. It was only a few years ago that he showed up at my house with a feather duster (a molting feather duster) and ran around in search of dust. He really did not have to look far. To this day, I still hate dusting.

But although we may not like it, it’s a chore we have to do. Even in our jobs, every now and then, we have to shake off the dust.

You can easily get accustomed to the way it is and not know what it is underneath. In fact, the dust may have hidden some good stuff! Maybe we have reduced the visibility of what we intended to do.

In the last two years, we have been shaking the dust off our assumptions about quality by making the commitment to pursue accreditation. We made the decision to do more, to look below the accumulation of requirements to the most important underlying beliefs and our highest aspirations for the future. We have been living in a heavily regulated world without an agreement on outcomes or how to measure person centeredness.

In this blog series, I will explore the wonderful possibilities accreditation brings to us. For the first time in my life, I am very happy to have this chance to dust!