As we all pick ourselves up and dust ourselves down from lockdown, the Accreditation team have taken the opportunity to reflect on the last couple of years but also look forward with excitement and anticipation of what’s to come. We have now independently accredited a total of 25 organisations with a breakdown of 34 individual services across both the Quality Standards for Independent Sexual Violence Adviser (ISVA) Services and the Male Survivor Partnership Quality Standards for Services Supporting Male Victims of Sexual Violence. We continue to work with another 37 services who are progressing through the programme and at the time of writing, we have 12 site visits scheduled.
Following a well-received three month break from the programme whilst the world adjusted to lockdown, we hit the ground running early July and worked hard to adjust the programme to work within the current limitations. We are now completing site visits virtually and these have been a great success so far. The positive side of this means we haven’t found ourselves on train platforms navigating cancelled trains and closed tracks because of fallen trees. It does however mean we aren’t getting to meet services in person and at the final hurdle, putting a face to the voice.
We have two Accreditation Managers, Charlotte Bond and Rebecca Lunn who together have years of experience of working in the sexual violence sector and work together on both sets of Quality Standards.
We always knew that services can vary considerably between providers and commissioners, and across geographical areas. Throughout the process, we have been capturing any learning points identified to keep our published guidance documents up to date and we have also written a Frequently Asked Questions document to address these.
Despite the differences, we have also found some common challenges services experience. Obtaining valuable feedback and wellbeing outcomes are often listed a consistent difficulty, due to the nature of the work and the vulnerabilities of the clients involved. However, a very positive theme we identify in a lot of services is the commitment to prioritise staff & client welfare.
We are working with Male Survivor Partnership to set up a webinar to bring together services that have completed the pilot MQS programme so we can capture their thoughts and experiences. We are keen to hear how working through the standards and achieving the Quality Mark has impacted on their service design and delivery. If this is you, look out for your invitation soon!
And with all that said, we are very excited to announce that we are starting a new cohort of services for both the Quality Standards for Independent Sexual Violence Adviser (ISVA) Services and the Quality Standards for Services Supporting Male Victims of Sexual Violence.
We are now accepting applications for both programmes until midnight Friday 30th October.
The Accreditation workshop will be held virtually using video conferencing on the following dates:
- Thursday 12th November for the Quality Standards for Services Supporting Male Victims of Sexual Violence and,
- Thursday 26th November for the Quality Standards for Independent Sexual Violence Adviser (ISVA) Services.
Further details can be found at www.limeculture.co.uk/accreditation. To discuss your service in more detail and apply to join the programme please contact accreditation@limeculture.co.uk. We are looking forward to hearing from you.
In the meantime, look out for our next blog post which will focus on our plans for Reaccreditation….