The quote below is from Mickey Damelio, chair of ACVREP from its most recent newsletter. It talks about efforts to get ACVREP certification in areas outside of North America. What do you suppose are the advantages of this effort? Any disadvantages? "In addition to what ACVREP is working on in North America, we're doing similar work with other countries around the world to support their local professionals in helping them to create a pathway to ACVREP certification. Many countries have used our standards and benchmarks as their method of preparing their professionals, now they're ready for certification. They too want more recognition as a profession in their communities, and a certification with high standards is one of the hallmarks of any profession, as we know. This has been a large effort with literally hundreds people hours devoted to it. This is the year it will become a reality. By making this available to our professional family beyond North America, your certification strengthens by adding more diversity of experience to our field, gives more credibility with people who are on the outside looking in, increases the volume of our professionals which gives us a stronger voice with people outside of the profession, and creates certifications that will be recognized in many places in the world as one that stands for high quality professionals serving people with visual impairment." [Title: Signature of Kevin McCormack] Kevin McCormack, COMS Certified Orientation and Mobility Specialist PhD Student in Global Inclusion and Social Development University of Massachusetts Boston [Title: COMS logo] [Title: UMass Boston logo]