Earlier this year, thanks to funding from the Home Office, the Male Survivors Partnership in conjunction with LimeCulture CIC, announced that 10 new services would be able to participate in the Independent Accreditation Programme for the Quality Standards for Services Supporting Male Victims/Survivors of Sexual Violence in 2019 free of charge!
The services who have successfully applied for a place on the programme starting in March are:
| 1. RASA Merseyside Counselling Service |  |
| 2. RSVP Counselling Service |  |
| 3. The Green House |  |
| 4. Blue Sky Centre SARC |  |
| 5. PARCS Counselling service |  |
| 6. The Birchall Trust |  |
| 7. St Mary’s SARC ISVA Service |  |
| 8. Harbour Centre SARC ISVA Service |  |
| 9. The Sunderland Counselling Service |  |
| 10. Kinergy
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Background information
Since their launch in January 2018, the Quality Standards for Services Supporting Male Victims/Survivors of Sexual Violence have been downloaded hundreds of times, and we already have over thirty services that are working towards accreditation. This means many services are already working to improve consistency, practice and the overall quality of services supporting male victims/survivors.
The Quality Standards and the Implementation Guidance for Commissioners and Service Providers are available online, free of charge: http://www.malesurvivor.co.uk/implementation-guidance-online.pdf
There are 24 Quality Standards across four domains; Leadership & Governance, Access & Engagement, Service Delivery and Outcomes & Evaluation. They set out the expectations of the organisation’s leadership, staff and also the client experience.  The Quality Standards create a framework and benchmark that can be used to develop and improve service provision for male victims/survivors, in particular recognising their gender-based needs.
Sitting alongside the Quality Standards is the Independent Accreditation Programme, delivered by LimeCulture CIC. Â Â The programme will award a Quality Mark to services that demonstrate they meet the Quality Standards through a robust and independent accreditation process of documentary evidence review, interviews and site visits.
The length of time for a service to reach accreditation will vary from service to service and will depend on a number of factors including, for example, how far the service has to go to meet the Quality Standards, and/or how quickly the service can provide evidence to the independent accreditation team to show that they meet the Quality Standards. The independent accreditation team work with services to identify the appropriate timescales, based on initial self-assessment, service capacity and functions and location of the services being accredited.
Ordinarily, the cost of joining the Independent Accreditation Programme is £3,500 + VAT which covers a service, which is based at a single site. However the Home Office funding has enabled us to offer 10 services the opportunity to join the Independent Accreditation Programme free of charge!
For further information or an informal discussion please contact the Independent Accreditation Team on 0203 6330018 or email accreditation@limeculture.co.uk and we will be happy to discuss your requirements