The two stages of EQIS

EQIS consists of two stages. The first stage is uploading copies of your policies (listed below). The second step is completing the seven stages of EQIS, online. The seventh stage is conducted as a verbal discussion. All stages are assessed based on your written and verbal input and then submitted to the Mental Health Partnership Board for review.

Your Policies

Your organisation will be asked to submit current working policies to the assessor.  You may not have the information as stand-alone policies but would at least expect a reference to the following within some other policy documents.  You need to have a:

• Safeguarding Adults
• Safeguarding Children and Young People
• Confidentiality
• Health and Safety
• Whistle Blowing
• Volunteer Management (for orgs managing volunteers)
• GDPR
• Recruitment/support and supervision (for orgs with employees)
• Financial Management

You must complete and submit all relevant policies. Without uploading these we can't assess your application in full. We appreciate you may not need or have all of these policies depending on what type of group you are and what you do. As a form of good practice and to ensure the safety of all involved as a minimum you should have; safeguarding policies, health and safety, GDPR and some volunteer handbook/policy. 

 

Stage TWO - Undertaking the Seven Standards of EQIS

These stages can be completed in any order you choose but you need to do them all. The things we want to know are:

Stage One - Governance and Responsibility

This section asks about your registration, how the board conduct itself, your governing documents and the resources you have.

• Who you are affiliated with
• If you already have a quality assurance process 
• Does the committee have the skills it needs
• Managing conflicts in interest within the board
• Your governing documents
• Does the board directly deliver activities / services 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
• 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, supervision and guidance 
• Wellbeing at 'work' support
• Advice or assistance relating to specific situations
• Mentor programmes 
• Connecting to wider support to address any problems, 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

 

You can find a word document of all the stages below. Please don't try to submit this document, it's meant to merely act as a reference so you can complete the sections in your own time and then go online to fill in the stages.