Member
Profile
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member profiles)
Gwendolyn
Bailey, Assistant Director, Youth Service, Inc.
- Size of your organization (total staff, total revenue)
- Primary services provided
- Accredited? By Whom?
- How long has your organization had dedicated QI/QA staff?
- How is your QI/QA function organized? Reporting Structure, Staff, Teams, Responsibilities, etc.
- Describe your process or plans to measure outcomes, compare to benchmarks, etc.
- Describe your data collection system in relation to QI/QA
- What memberships and/or resources have you found to be valuable in your work (books, organizations, people, tools, etc.)
- What do you enjoy most about working in the QI/QA field?
- How has the Quality Leader's Network been of value to you?
Size of your organization (total staff, total revenue)
Staffing: 100 full time; 50
part time Revenue: 6M
Primary
services provided
Foster Care; YES - teen shelter;
Group Homes, two - one for teen mothers and one step down program; SCOH; Family
Preservation; Crisis Nurseries, two - one in West Philadelphia and one in
Germantown; TPEEP - Teen Parent Education and Employment Program; Prevention
Programs - Sunnycrest Family Support Program, Mantua Family Center, Truancy
Prevention, Healthy Families, Southwest Community Center
Accredited?
By Whom?
Accredited by the Council on
Accreditation (COA)
How
long has your organization had dedicated QI/QA staff?
QA began at YSI in 1996. The
administrators, led by the executive director, operated the Quality Assurance
program. Quality Improvement began in 1998. Gwen Bailey-Rahman assumed the QI
coach position in the agency using the Zirps model of organization
participation.
How
is your QI/QA function organized? Reporting Structure, Staff, Teams,
Responsibilities, etc.
Each of the 8 agency
program areas participates in Quality Improvement using the Zirps model for team
structure. Data is collected quarterly from each of the programs and is compiled
by our Central Referral Unit, which is the agency's central repository for
client data. Each program team meets quarterly using the data collected for that
quarter to drive their team meeting. Results of the program team meetings are
reviewed and discussed at the quarterly agency-wide quality improvement meeting
led by the QI coach and attended by the executive director, chief financial
officer and both assistant directors.
Data collected by each program on a quarterly basis includes: outcomes, client satisfaction surveys, peer record review results, incidents, accidents and grievances and self-sufficiency measures.
Describe
your process or plans to measure outcomes, compare to benchmarks, etc.
Outcomes measurement:
The 8 Quality Improvement Program Teams have specific outcome measures for their programs. The focus for outcomes for each team is safety, well-being and permanency. The truancy programs also include an outcome goal related to improved school attendance for the identified child in the program. The crisis nurseries are also participating in an independent program evaluation that has identified goals they will measure.
Describe
your data collection system in relation to QI/QA
Data is collected quarterly prior to the program team meetings. All data is submitted to our Central Referral Unit. Reports are prepared from the submitted data for each program team. Program teams receive the data prior to their team meetings. This data is summarized for discussion at the program team level by the facilitator and is maintained in the program QI binder at each program site by the scribe.
What
memberships and/or resources (books, organizations, people, tools, etc.)
have you found to be valuable in your work
Fotena Zirps'
publication, Doing It Right The First Time: A Model of Quality Improvement
for Human Service Agencies, has been our major source for QI structure.
The Child Welfare League of America's consultation service was helpful in reformatting the satisfaction questionnaire that we were using. They assisted us in making the questionnaire more client friendly. Gena Palm was the consultant.
What
do you enjoy most about working in the QI/QA field?
The human services field has traditionally been unmeasured. There was only hypothesis about its effectiveness. QI can aid agencies in formulating specific data about the effectiveness of programs and I enjoy being able to assist in the concrete service of evaluation.
How
has the Quality Leader's Network been of value to you?
The QLN has afforded our agency a
partnership with other similar agencies focused on improvement and evaluation.
Learning the accomplishments and obstacles of others' programs is priceless as
we work towards improving the quality of programs in our agency.
