National Accreditation
Point in Time is proud to say we are accredited with the Canadian Centre for Accreditation (CCA). The CCA is an accreditation body which reviews agencies across Canada. The next accreditation review is scheduled for September 2016.
Introduction to Accreditation with CCA – What is it?
The Canadian Centre for Accreditation (CCA) is a national not-for-profit offering accreditation to community-based health and social service organizations in Canada. Accreditation provides an external review of an organization’s operations in relation to accepted standards of good practice and risk management. Standards address all aspects of the organization, including governance, management, programs and services. It is also a system to promote learning, quality improvement, excellence and innovation. CCA looks at the whole organization. Reviews are conducted by CCA-trained teams made up of senior staff, governing body members and volunteers from the community-based organizations that participate in CCA.
Process
In order to be accredited as a children’s mental health agency, we were required to meet a number of standards, some mandatory and others leading practice.
Mandatory standards are those that we must meet at 100% rate, either because they are required by law, necessary for safety, or are crucial elements of good practice.
Leading practice standards promote quality improvement and excellence in our work. To be accredited, we had to meet all the mandatory standards and 80% of leading practice standards, so, the bar is high.
To assess how our agency meets the standards of practice, the review team from CCA interviewed our staff and clients, audited our files, observed some of our programs, and surveyed a variety of people, including community partners, volunteers and staff. This gave them a chance to see and hear whether we do what we say we do.
Standards
There are standards for how our organization is managed and standards for service delivery.
PinT not only met but exceeded the requirements:
- Organizationally, we met 20 out of 20 Mandatory Standards and 29 out of 30 Leading Practice Standards (five more than is required for accreditation)
- the reviewers described PinT as “An accountable, innovative and cohesive organization, with clear commitment and accountability at all levels”. They reported that the PinT “Is governed by a strong and committed board. This board takes its role to represent its whole community seriously”.
- In terms of service delivery, we met all Mandatory and Leading Practice Standards, and “exemplary” accomplishment!
- The CCA reported that “Every service at Point in Time seems firmly rooted in a strong philosophical belief that services should be resilience promoting and community integrated, and that all services have a role to play in promoting mental health and well-being… A holistic sense of purpose is maintained. There is consistent commitment to the overarching mission of Point in Time.”
What CCA has to say
About our approaches:
- Point in Time excels in providing and documenting sound approaches to child, youth and family mental health treatment.
- The organization uses a solid repertoire of evidence-informed programs.
- The organization has been working to incorporate the principles of a brief narrative format into their work, and have provided staff with training, opportunity for practice and review in relation to this goal.
- The high school program does exactly what it means to do and is certainly evidence informed and clinically flexible.
About Working Together:
- Point in Time has cultivated valuable community partnerships, consistent with the centre’s overarching purpose. This organization is committed to gathering insight and information from the community to inform programming and changes to programs.
- The CCA review team was able to see the richness of partnerships with schools, the organization’s facilitative role at the family drop in, how early interventions services have been structured for families of very young children, and how respite services are defined and delivered in a way that keeps the focus on creating growth opportunities for participant children.
About our Cultural Sensitivity:
- In an interview, one client cited that Point in Time was the only service among many that had respected the family’s cultural orientation in how it proposed, planned and delivered services.
About Innovation:
- There was strong evidence of this agency’s willingness to innovate. One example is the joint initiative “mindfulness martial arts,” which the organization is conducting in the region’s high school jointly with Integra.
About our Paperwork:
- Worthy of particular note are the rational paperwork processes that suit the intensity of the programs they support – brief cases use a different recording process than intensive cases, for example.
Concluding Comments from our accreditors:
“Again, the review team wishes to state that this organization strives to live its mission and vision for services to children, youth and parents, and is highly successful. Point in Time is an exemplary organization, with a committed board, staff, management and executive director. It is clear this organization is valued in its community. Point in Time has built a healthy organization and actualized its standards and mission in a way that is consistent with the distinct nature of the rural community it serves.”