Accreditation Mentoring Program

Timothy D. Kupferschmid
Forensic Technical Manager
Myriad Genetic Laboratories, Inc.
Salt Lake City, Utah

The American Society of Crime Laboratory Directors (ASCLD) has developed a mentoring program to help laboratories become accredited through the ASCLD/Laboratory Accreditation Board (ASCLD/LAB). The ASCLD Accreditation Mentoring Program partners nonaccredited crime laboratories (protégés) with ASCLD/LAB inspectors/assessors (mentors). A protégé may be the laboratory director or the director’s representative.

To ensure that both protégés and mentors fully understand their respective responsibilities and expectations, they attend a two-day workshop, which coincides with the ASCLD annual meeting. The workshop concludes with the protégés’ developing, with guidance from their mentors, an implementation plan for the accreditation of their laboratories. Protégés and mentors remain in contact at predetermined intervals to review progress, discuss issues, and determine appropriate resources. The ASCLD Mentoring Committee monitors the progress of the laboratories through quarterly reports submitted by the mentors and protégés.

For more information on the ASCLD Accreditation Mentoring Program Workshop, see the Meetings and Conferences section in this issue of Forensic Science Communications.