Quality Assurance schemes
As the Young Suffolk Standard was created for the voluntary and community sector working with children and young people by the VCS working with children and young people you can be confident it reflects the elements to keep your group safe.
Should you wish to undertake and achieve other Quality Assurance schemes the Young Suffolk Quality Standard is an ideal foundation upon which to build. A number of groups have proved this.
There are a number of different quality assurance schemes you may wish to investigate for your organisation. The details below are not exhaustive but are some of the more well known. Each scheme has a particular emphasis and some may be more appropriate to your organisation than others.
Investors in People
Introducing the Standard, extract from IiP website
The Investors in People Standard is a business improvement tool designed to advance an organisation's performance through its people.
Developed in 1990 by a partnership of leading businesses and national organisations, the Standard helps organisations to improve performance and realise objectives through the management and development of their people. Since it was developed, the Standard has been reviewed every three years to ensure that it remains relevant, accessible and attractive to all. The most recent review was completed in November 2004.
A Proven Framework for Business Improvement
Investors in People provides a flexible framework, which any organisation can adapt for its own requirements. It mirrors the business planning cycle (Plan, Do, Review), making it clear for organisations to follow and implement in their own planning cycle.
The Investors in People Standard is based on three key principles:
- Plan – Developing strategies to improve the performance of the organisation
- Do – Taking action to improve the performance of the organisation
- Review – Evaluating the impact on the performance of the organisation.
For more information follow this link www.investorsinpeople.co.uk/Standard/Introducing/Pages/Home.aspx
Investing in Volunteers
This is the UK quality standard for all organisations which involve volunteers in their work. The Standard enables organisations to comprehensively review their volunteer management, and also publicly demonstrates their commitment to volunteering.
The Investing in Volunteers Process
Investing in Volunteers has been designed to be an effective and rigorous process to ensure that your volunteers receive the best possible management support and your organisation receives maximum benefit from your volunteer’s contribution.
The Standard is based on the four areas of volunteer management:
- planning for volunteer involvement;
- recruiting volunteers;
- selecting and matching volunteers;
- and supporting and retaining volunteers.
These four areas have been divided into 10 Indicators and 55 practices, which have been devised by extensive consultation and pilot work with volunteer-involving organisations.
For more information follow the link http://iiv.investinginvolunteers.org.uk/Introduction/
Hear by Right
Hear by Right is a tried and tested standards framework for organisations across the statutory and voluntary sectors to assess and improve practice and policy on the active involvement of children and young people.
Although many do not realise it, children and young people have a right to be involved in decisions that affect them. Their participation is essential if services are to be improved and their needs are to be met. There are now a wide range of tools to encourage effective participation across a range of settings, but fewer to help assess what has been achieved.
Hear by Right enables organisations to map current practice and plan improvements. It relies on self-assessment and is divided into three levels with each level building on the last. This ensures that young people's involvement is built in and not just bolted on
For more information click http://hbr.nya.org.uk/
NYA Quality Mark Self-Assessment Framework
The NYA Quality Mark framework has been designed as a management tool to support an organisations development and improvement of its quality management systems. It tests the processes and structures, which are the building blocks of an organisation. By using the self-assessment framework, organisations will be able to check monitoring and reviewing procedures and how management information is used to improve the quality and outcomes of an organisation.
There are 11 operating standards to the Quality Mark
Performance Management Legal Requirements
Management information Personal and social development
Quality Assurance Involving Young People
Equality and Diversity Workforce Development
Curriculum/Programme of Activities Partnerships
Resources
NYA National Award
The NYA Quality Mark is primarily a self-assessment tool to be used as a means to quality improvement. However, there was a demand from those involved in its development for a National Award for those organisations that reach the required standard. Achieving this would bring prestige to organisations working with young people, help with their relationships with other organisations, support funding bids and commissioning, and celebrate good quality services with peers, staff, partners and young people.
An organisation having reached the standard would need to register and prepare their self-assessment in accordance with the National Award Guidance.
The web site contains more information and details of cost and submission dates: www.nya.org.uk/qualitymark
Sound Systems
The Sound Systems Accreditation scheme is a way in which organizations can critically examine their own policies and practices around safeguarding, measure them against the recommended standards and work towards reaching those standards.
It encourages, promotes and accredits good practice in accordance with the Keeping it Safe standards which fall into the following categories:
organisational policies and procedures
reporting concerns, suspicions and allegations
safe recruitment and selection
managing paid and volunteer staff
providing education training and support
providing safe activities
http://www.ncvys.org.uk/index.php?page=292
PQASSO
PQASSO (Practical Quality Assurance System for Small Organisations) is a straightforward, user-friendly quality assurance system intended to help you run your organisation more effectively and efficiently.
It offers a flexible approach to quality which allows your organisation to work at its own pace. It helps you to take a systematic look at what you do, identify areas where you are doing well and not so well, and decide exactly where improvements are needed. It helps you to plan, budget and allocate the resources for making these improvements over a realistic time period.
PQASSO is built on 12 topics or quality areas.
1. planning
2. governance
3. leadership and management
4. user-centred service
5. managing people
6. learning and development
7. managing money
8. managing resources
9. communications and promotion
10. working with others
11. monitoring and evaluation
12. results
PQASSO offers a staged approach to implementing quality through three levels of achievement. All organisations should cover the requirements of level 1. More established or complex organisations may then decide to move on to level 2 and then level 3. In each quality area, the standard itself is clearly defined and applies to all organisations.
For more information click on the following link; PQASSO
SAFEchild
Established in 1999, SAFEchild is a registered charity dedicated to child protection.
They offer the SAFEchild Award scheme, which helps organisations to thoroughly self-audit their safeguarding arrangements. This will enable you to discharge your legal duties whilst keeping children and young people safe.
For more information on SAFEchild and their services click SAFEchild - child protection training, policies, CRB checks