First Advanced Credential for Experienced ADA Coordinators
This is where experienced coordinators go next.
The AADAC credential is for practitioners who have moved beyond foundational compliance — into institutional leadership, applied expertise, and sector-specific mastery. AADAC sessions run as the AADAC Practicum — small-group applied workshops — and throughout the 2026–2027 rollout they are open to every registered attendee as ADACP electives. You bring a real compliance challenge from your own organization; senior practitioners and national experts anchor the analysis; the group works through it together. Experienced and developing coordinators alike leave with the same thing: a sharper method, applied to real problems.
What AADAC sessions look like
Every AADAC session is a working session, not a lecture. What you bring is your real practice — your compliance gaps, your institutional pressures, your enforcement concerns. The room’s own challenges are the content: junior attendees supply real problems, senior attendees and the guest experts supply the analytical method, and everyone leaves with both. Each session also builds a concrete take-home — a checklist, an outline, or a priority framework — drafted by the room itself. Bring one real challenge from your organization. Here is what that looks like in the 2026 program.
AADAC-A — Advanced Legal Analysis
Reading Consent Decrees as Diagnostic Tools. Small groups receive real or composite consent decrees. You analyze what went wrong, what early warning signs existed, and how a well-designed compliance program could have changed the outcome. Every participant leaves with a sharper eye for systemic risk in their own organization.
AADAC-B — Title II Compliance Leadership
Commanding the Room. You practice responding to realistic pushback scenarios from HR, facilities, and organizational leadership — and receive individual coaching from faculty. Every participant gets direct faculty attention. The goal is making your compliance recommendations actually stick.
AADAC-C — Sector Specialization
Unified Sector Practicum. You bring a live compliance challenge from your own sector into a cross-sector practicum. A corrections coordinator hears how a higher education coordinator resolved a parallel problem. A healthcare coordinator brings an access gap to an audience of people who have seen the same pattern from different angles. Faculty provide legal precision throughout.
AADAC-D — Strategic Program Leadership
Building a Data-Driven Compliance Program. You draft a real compliance metric or risk register entry using your own program — not a hypothetical. You exchange peer and faculty feedback. You leave with materials you can present to leadership the following week, not a framework you will have to build later.
These sessions run concurrently with the main conference program, and throughout the 2026–2027 rollout every registered attendee may take them as ADACP electives. For enrolled AADAC candidates, the group of candidates is deliberately small and continues across both years — by Conference 2, the candidates know each other’s compliance programs, and the peer consultation goes deeper for it.
Attending vs. earning the credential
Throughout the 2026 and 2027 rollout years, any registered conference attendee may attend AADAC Practicum sessions — they are cross-listed as ADACP electives and count toward the ADACP 40-credit minimum. The AADAC credential itself remains reserved for NAADAC Professional Associates, ADACP holders, and individually evaluated ADACC holders. Opening the room does not open the credential.
Who is Eligible
Experienced ADA Coordinators
- Current NAADAC Professional Associates — direct entry; Year 1 fee waived ($0)
- ADACP credential holders (once first ADACPs are issued, late 2027)
- ADACC holders (ACTCP program, adacoordinator.org) — individual evaluation required; contact NAADAC to inquire
Program Structure
Two Conferences, Two Years
- Year 1: New Orleans, November 2026 — AADAC Practicum sessions concurrent with the main conference, open to all attendees as electives
- Year 2: November 2027 NAADAC Conference — the AADAC Practicum continues at the same strength: same working format, full faculty and guest experts, open the same way
- Same faculty across both years; enrolled AADAC candidates form a continuing group whose peer consultation deepens from Year 1 to Year 2
The AADAC Curriculum — Four Competency Areas
23 advanced credits minimum across four required competency areas. Most AADAC candidates earn 25–30 or more credits across the two-year program.
AADAC-A — Advanced Legal Analysis & Risk Management
4 credits required
Advanced ADA case law and enforcement trends; strategic risk assessment and litigation avoidance; how systemic compliance failures develop; corrective action strategies; reading consent decrees as diagnostic tools. Participants identify risk patterns from their own organizations.
AADAC-B — Advanced Title II Compliance Leadership
7 credits required
Complex program access analysis; emergency management and disaster accessibility; advanced grievance program design and audit; digital and AI accessibility strategy; oversight of contractors and third-party providers; communication strategies to make compliance recommendations stick with leadership.
AADAC-C — Advanced Sector Specialization (Candidate’s Choice)
6 credits required – candidate chooses sector
Deep-dive into the sector or sectors that match the candidate’s professional role. Options: Employment & Workforce; Higher Education; Healthcare; Law Enforcement; Corrections; Judicial Systems; Physical Access & Built Environment. Candidates may concentrate in one or two areas for genuine depth.
AADAC-D — Strategic ADA Program Leadership
6 credits required
Building and managing an ADA compliance program; data, metrics, and risk registers; board-level reporting and executive communication; training design and organizational change; public accountability. Applied workshops — participants build materials for their own programs, not hypotheticals.
AADAC-E — Capstone / Applied Practicum
4 credits – strongly recommended
Candidates demonstrate advanced analytical and leadership competency through one of: ADA program audit; policy overhaul project; complex grievance or settlement analysis; peer-reviewed case study presentation. The AADAC’s demonstration that the credential reflects real-world applied expertise.
NAADAC Professional Associates — This Was Built for You
Your approximately 66 hours of NAADAC conference training are a foundation, not a starting point. Professional
Associates enter the AADAC directly — and PAs who join us in New Orleans are honored as the founding practitioner group of the AADAC. Year 1 enrollment fee: $0. View the full faculty list →
Ready to Enroll? Join the Inaugural Group.
The inaugural AADAC group launches at the November 2026 New Orleans conference. Enrollment fee: $175 (Professional Associates Year 1: $0 waived). Active NAADAC membership required