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Are You Certified?
If the answer is yes, congratulations and thank you.
Becoming certified through SNA adds much needed credibility
to your role as a child nutrition professional and partner
in education. If you’re not yet certified or if you have
staff members that are not yet certified, please read on and
then take action and become certified and or have your staff
become certified.
SNA, like most professional associations, has adopted
certification as a means to recognize personal achievement.
There are three levels of certification that enable the
association to recognize personal achievement at all levels
of education and all levels of the profession whether it be
a school nutrition worker, assistant, manager or director.
The level of certification that an individual is granted
depends on the following requirements:
• Academic and specialized training requirements
• Work experience
• Continued education
Every applicant, no matter what level is applied for must
have completed the following specialized training courses:
• Serve Safe or similar approved sanitation certification
course
• Healthy edge or similar approved course
Once the above requirements are met and verified through
proper documentation, the individual is certified for a
period of three years. To maintain certification, the
individual must earn the required amount of CEU’s
(continuing education units) in approved educational
activities and programs. This is the fun part; you get to
participate in workshops, conferences and meetings where you
learn something new or reinforce something you already knew.
You then get to take that information back to your district
to enhance your job performance which means you have done
something to make the lives of children a little better. How
great is that?
Certification also provides a program for professional
advancement. As you keep up your requirements to stay
certified, you become more knowledgeable in your field and
you are paving the way for personal advancement in your
profession.
Directors, wouldn’t it be great if all our staff were
members and were all certified? Think of the credibility you
would gain with your district’s administration and your
community. You would most definitely be looked at and
respected as the experts when it came to child nutrition
issues.
The level of certification you attain also doesn’t have
anything to do with your level of education. The level you
are granted just depends on the documentation that you
provide. If you become certified at level 1, you can move up
to level 2 and then level 3 as you advance your training,
education and work experience. Becoming certified means that
you care enough to want to bring your level of
professionalism to a higher level of standards.
Congratulations in advance for raising your bar of
professionalism a notch.
To get a certification application and list of requirements,
call SNA of Mass office 617-734-8822 or 800-351-3139.
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