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Our Quality

There are many reasons why people use our services. They might just want help with information and advice, or support to make a difficult decision, help to stand up and be heard. Whatever the reason, they expect VoiceAbility to be the one place they can find someone that is on their side. They trust us to be good at what we do, and great at helping them achieve their goals.

And we are good.

We know that every member of the team here at VoiceAbility lives our values – we’re passionate, we’re champions for and led by those we work with, we’re dedicated to making sure that those people are at the centre of decisions about their lives, that they have the choice and control that they are entitled to.

We know that. We tell everyone. But it’s not always enough to just know something – sometimes you need to put your assumptions to the test.

That’s why VoiceAbility applied to be assesed by Action for Advocacy for their Quality Performance Mark (QPM).

And that’s why in May 2011 we were awarded QPM and in April 2012 we were awarded the IMCA specific QPM+

The QPM is the only national quality standard for independent advocacy. It’s a rigorous process, reviewing case work and talking to staff members and volunteers as well as people who use VoiceAbility services. The Assessors review processes and policies and make sure that every quality standard is met across seven key areas:

• Independence
• Clarity of Purpose
• Confidentiality
• Equality, Accessibility and Diversity
• Empowerment and Putting People First
• Accountability and Complaints
• Supporting Advocates

Within the seven principles, VoiceAbility met every assessment criteria and received commendations for our consistent focus on the people who use our services; the way that each individual’s views and wants are kept at the centre of all of our work, our independence, our ability to challenge other agencies and the way that we provide advocacy to different client groups, changing our approach to suit each individual.

Martin Coyle, Deputy Chief Executive, Action for Advocacy said
“VoiceAbility has demonstrated its ability to consistently provide high quality independent advocacy.

VoiceAbility’s advocacy services live up to a commitment to empower people to have more control over decisions and services in their lives. Through its work VoiceAbility enables people to be more able to speak up for themselves. This is an aspect of VoiceAbility's work that is evident throughout the organisation and which service users passionately believe in and value.”

QPM+ specifically measured the quality of the IMCA services we provide. We were judged on the following criteria:

• Publicity and awareness of the IMCA service
• Accessibility of referral pathways
• Speed of response and prioritisation of criteria
• IMCA role clarity
• Casework practice and policies
• Quality of IMCA reports
• Training and supervision of IMCAs
• Engagement with external stakeholders

We are delighted to have recieved both the QPM and the QPM+ and we will be continuing to develop our services to ensure that each person we work with can benefit from first class advocacy services. 

Find out more about our values and principles.

If you want to look at what Action for Advocacy looks at when they make their assessments, you can view their QPM workbook on the A4A website.

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Our Children and Young People's service has also been awarded with a Quality Standard. The Young Suffolk Quality Standard is awarded to organisations that show how their services safeguard children and young people. The awarding body, Young Suffolk, thoroughly inspect how organisational policies are translated into well run and safe services. They commented that:

“The panel was impressed by the quality of your portfolio and recognise the amount of time and effort that has been spent by you and your team to ensure you have a safe, well administered group with whom young people, partners / carers, staff, volunteers and funders can work with confidence.”