EQIS Stages
Pre-qis: Eligibility check
This section will enable you to see whether you are eligible to complete EQIS. For those organisations already quality-assured, this section will assess and inform as to whether you are required to complete the EQIS stages.
Stage One: Governance and Responsibility
This section asks about your registration, how the board conduct itself, your governing documents and the resources you have.
- Does the committee have the skills and experience it needs
- Your governing documents
- Does the board directly deliver activities/services (like a CiC) and how do they split the role between the two 'hats'
- Does the organisation have the appropriate level of resources to deliver the service effectively?
Stage Two: People Delivering the Service
This section looks at the staff/volunteers that deliver the activities and what knowledge and resources they have
- Staff/volunteers experience, training and qualifications
- Process for giving consistent information and advice
- Screening and DBS
- Safeguarding training and support
- Specialist training and knowledge
Stage Three: Support for People Delivering the Service
A section looking at what networks and systems are in place to protect and support those people delivering activities and services.
- Appropriate support (supporting the supporter), supervision and guidance
- Wellbeing at 'work' support
- Advice or assistance relating to specific situations
- Connecting to wider support to address any issues or provide encouragement and advice
Stage Four: Service User Involvement
We want to ensure that the voice of the user is heard, respected and acted upon. This section looks at how you meet the needs of your users.
- A clear process for the identification and referral of service users
- Processes to refer service users to other professionals or crisis services
- Do the people running the organisation and delivering the service understand who their audience is and the needs of the service user
- Service users taken into account in design and delivery of services
- Consider the choice of meeting venues and visiting to meet the needs of service users as well as to mitigate any risk.
Stage Five: Dealing With Challenges
If anyone has a problem or issue with the organisation or its services, what are the systems in place to deal with it?
- Formal complaints procedures
- Measures to manage unacceptable or challenging behaviour
- Measures to maintain confidentiality
- Measures to deal with both internal and external safeguarding issues should they arise.
Stage Six: Communication and Engagement
This section looks at the publicity, promotion and engagement that happens through (mainly digital) means with your service users.
- A professional but approachable standard to any digital presence
- Users can fully understand the service that is available and who it is aimed at
- processes for moderating content on your social media accounts
- account for the vulnerability of potential service users in your communications and engagement
Section Seven: Best Practice and Relationships
This section is completed as a conversation with staff and volunteers in regular contact with users of the services. It enables users to comment on individual staff and volunteers and how they:
- demonstrate through their behaviour that they care
- demonstrate through their behaviour that they think what the user says is important
- demonstrate through their behaviour that they do not assume that they always know what is best for the users of services
If you have access needs, you can request these sections in writing or one of the EQIS assessors can conduct the application in person on your behalf.