The ANCDS Board of Residency Education (BRE) is extremely pleased to announce that the Veterans Health Administration (VHA) Pittsburgh Post-Graduate Speech Pathology Residency Program has been awarded ANCDS Board of Residency Education accreditation, effective December 1, 2025. Congratulations to the staff and leadership of this exemplary clinical training program on achieving this honor. As part of accreditation the program will submit annual reports to the BRE and apply for reaccreditation in 2029.

The ANCDS Board of Residency Education has as its mission to ensure quality and promote excellence through accreditation of residency programs in speech-language pathology that serve individuals with neurologic communication disorders. To achieve the mission, ANCDS BRE established standards for accreditation of a clinical speech-language pathology residency program in neurogenic communication disorders. Accreditation is available to speech-language pathology programs in government agencies, such as VHA Healthcare Systems, and in private community-based hospitals. Programs must have significant emphasis on serving persons with neurogenic communication disorders. Information about the BRE and these standards can be found here.

Part of the accreditation process requires a site visit to the program applying for accreditation. The BRE is developing a pool of prospective site visitors who will conduct future site visits. BRE welcomes ANCDS members who wish to become part of the BRE either as a member or a site visitor. Please note that a BRE member or site visitor must be a full member of ANCDS; BCC is not required. For more information or to become part of the BRE team, please contact BRE Chair, Janet Patterson, Ph.D., CCC-SLP, at [email protected].

Through the support of the ANCDS Executive Board and the work of numerous ANCDS members, the long-time vision of ANCDS to create an advanced clinical accreditation program has become a reality. The BRE looks forward to a bright future of recognizing the excellence of speech-language pathology residency programs through awarding BRE accreditation.

Again, congratulations to the VHA Pittsburgh Post-Graduate Speech Pathology Residency Program for achieving accreditation from the ANCDS Board of Residency Education.