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Access Arts Policies and Procedures

Access Arts is funded by Disability Services Queensland and must comply with the DSQ Quality Service Standards. We have been working towards compliance since 2005 and will be audited in late 2007. We welcome feedback and suggestions from members in order to improve our quality system. Below you will find links to Access Arts’ Policies and Procedures, which are the basis for our quality system. The forms relating to and referenced in these policies are available in hard-copy and accessible formats upon request from Access Arts Inc. Individual policies, procedures and forms are also available in Braille, audio and large print formats on request. The following information is from the DSQ Quality System website:

Disability Sector Quality System

Partners in Quality

The Quality System

The Disability Sector Quality System provides a framework that supports the assessment of the Queensland Disability Service Standards.

Purpose

The system is intended to:

Achieve a culture of quality and continuous improvement across the disability sector in Queensland establish a consistent level of quality across the disability sector ensure equity across government and non-government services ensure that the delivery of services is responsive to needs of people with a disability, their families and carers strengthen safeguards for people with a disability.

Why it is being introduced to the sector

The Queensland Government is committed to a better life for Queenslanders with a disability. It recognises the importance of providing quality services that are responsive to the needs of people with a disability and ensuring that people with a disability have a say in how services are best provided to them.

Who it applies to

Services recurrently funded or supplied by Disability Services Queensland need to participate in the system.

People with a disability also play an integral role in the system and will have an opportunity to have ongoing involvement in their service provider's planning, delivery and evaluation. They will also have opportunities to play a part in the service user assessment as part of the external certification process.

How the system works

The system works in two ways:

Service providers must implement and maintain effective internal systems and processes that meet the service standard indicators for each standard.

Service providers need to firstly establish their internal quality framework. They will undertake a service user assessment and self-assessment against the service standards. Based on these assessments, they need to continuously improve their service delivery and track these improvements and then complete an external validation. This cycle will need to occur every three years. For most services, the external validation will be conducted by an independent certification body accredited under the Joint Accreditation System of Australia and New Zealand (JAS-ANZ).

Therefore, service providers will need to undertake a cycle that includes the following key stages:

• establish the quality system framework

• service user assessment

• service provider self-assessment

• continuous improvement

• external validation.

The quality system has been designed to ensure that people with a disability, their families and carers are involved in all stages of the cycle.

When the system came into effect

Organisations need to start implementing their quality system from 1 July 2004 and have up to four years to progress through this first cycle to external validation.

The Disability Sector Quality System is being phased in across the sector to allow for variation in the levels of readiness of service providers. This will also allow time for everyone to become familiar with the concepts of the system.

Last updated 18 May 2007

Policies and Procedures