Yesterday LimeCulture delivered an accreditation workshop to 8 new ISVA services joining their Independent Accreditation Programme. These ISVA services will begin working towards achieving the Quality Standards for ISVA Services with the aim of being independently accredited and awarded the Quality Mark.
“The purpose of the accreditation workshop is to go through in detail with the new services exactly what the Independent Accreditation Programme is, what can be expected as part of the process and how it works” explains Charlotte Bond, one of LimeCulture’s Accreditation Managers. Charlotte is responsible for working with the services and assessing the evidence submitted by the ISVA services that demonstrates they are achieving the Quality Standards for ISVA Services. “The Accreditation Workshops provides a great opportunity for us to go through each of the quality standards in turn and explain our process for monitoring whether the ISVA service is achieving it’ says Charlotte.
The Accreditation Workshop is structured in a way that allows the ISVA services to consider how they are are going to demonstrate compliance with each of the 20 individual standards that make up the Quality Standards for ISVA Services. “Essentially the workshop allows the ISVA services to focus on each standard, understand the requirements and then create an initial action plan of how they are going to demonstrate that they meet it” explains Charlotte. “It’s also a great forum for ISVA services to discuss how close their services currently are to achieving the Quality Standards or what more they have to do in order to achieve them’.
For some ISVA services, the Quality Standards are already being met and the workshop allows them to focus on what they need to demonstrate compliance. For other ISVA services who need to make changes to the way they deliver the ISVA service in order to meet the Quality Standard, it provides a good opportunity to discuss how they might bring about the required changes operationally. “The benefit of bringing ISVA services together in this way is that they can hear first hand from other ISVA services about how they operate, which is always useful for services who can really benefit from sharing ideas and sense checking solutions with their peers’ .
Attendance at the Accreditation Workshop is the 2nd stage of the 7-stage process that has been developed by LimeCulture’s Independent Accreditation Programme. The next stages require the ISVA service to demonstrate they are meeting the Quality Standards by providing evidence to support each standard and the indicators contained within them. Charlotte explains “Before we will accredit the ISVA service, and award the Quality Mark, ISVA services are required to submit a combination of documentary evidence and observational evidence via a site visit for each of the 20 standards. So it’s a really rigorous process that is kicked off at the accreditation workshop’.
LimeCulture is looking forward to working closely with the 8 ISVA services who have joined the programme. “We’re already working closely with 8 ISVA services – who joined the programme on our first intake in March – and are already working towards accreditation. Its fantastic to see the enthusiasm there is from ISVA services to meet the Quality Standards for ISVA Services and its been a pleasure to meet the next 8 ISVA services today”.
LimeCulture launched the Quality Standards for ISVA Services at the National ISVA Conference in October 2018 after requests from a range of ISVA service providers and commissioners to develop standards that improve the consistency of ISVA service provision by setting a bench mark to drive standards. LimeCulture’s Independent Accreditation Programme was launched via an application process for ISVA services seeking to achieve the Quality Mark over December 2018 and January 2019. “We could not believe how many ISVA services applied to join the Independent Accrediation Programme, so have developed a model that allows ISVA services to join in scheduled intakes. The first 3 intakes were immediately filled, which demonstrates the importance that is being placed on the Quality Standards for ISVA Services and the independent Quality Mark” explains Charlotte.
Some of the ISVA Services who have joined the Independent Accreditation Programme are there because they want to demonstrate the quality of their ISVA service provision through the independent accreditation process that LimeCulture provides. For other ISVA services, their commissioners have required them to go through the process, while others are getting ahead of the curve in recognition that more commissioners are expecting their providers to achieve accreditation against these Quality Standards for ISVA Services. “At today’s Accreditation Workshop one of the ISVA services attended with their commissioner, which is absolutely fantastic’ says Charlotte “as it demonstrates the commitment of both commissioner and provider to the accreditation process”.
The next intake for ISVA services is now full. However, LimeCulture are now accepting applications from ISVA service who would like to join the Independent Accreditation Programme for the Quality Standards for ISVA services in September 2019 or at other scheduled intakes throughout 2020. Please contact accreditation@limeculture.co.uk for further information.