Dublin Simon Community receives European recognition

Housing and homeless organisation awarded EQUASS assurance for the quality of its service provision.

Dublin Simon Community have received the European Quality in Social Services (EQUASS) assurance, in recognition of their quality social service provision. The awarding body, EQUASS, utilises a quality certification system that certifies compliance of social services with European quality principles and criteria.

Speaking about the accreditation, Senior Manager for Supported Housing with Dublin Simon Community, Alice Simington said;

“This accreditation recognises the organisation’s dedication to improving the quality of life of our clients and high quality service provision. We are committed to ensuring continuous improvements in our work and will continue to ensure the high quality of our homeless services to the thousands of vulnerable people who rely on us each day.”

Following an external independent assessment at the end of 2018, Dublin Simon Community’s housing and homeless services were evaluated on 10 principles for quality: leadership, staff, rights, ethics, partnership, participation, person centred approach, comprehensiveness, results orientation, and continuous improvement. This is the second time that Dublin Simon Community has received the European accreditation, having been recognised for quality in 2016.

In particular, the strengths that the auditor said ‘deserved to be highlighted’ for the 2018 audit were:

• Person-centred approach: Services are very client focused, responding to personal needs and personal wishes/goals, providing tailor-made solutions and services for each client as an individual one.
• Respect of the rights of their clients: Treating client with a non-judgment approach, empowering them and advocating for them, to exercise their citizenship.
• Client participation approach: Every client has a voice that is taken into account, clients feel they can freely give their opinion and there was clear evidence that there is an openness around the services and between staff members and clients.
• Commitment and dedication to the mission and clients: The staff members are very committed and dedicated to the mission and to their clients.

About EQUASS
The European Quality in Social Services (EQUASS) is an integrated sector-specific quality certification system that certifies compliance of social services with European quality principles and criteria. EQUASS aims to enhance the social sector by engaging service providers in quality and continuous improvement and by guaranteeing service users quality of services throughout Europe.

EQUASS, formerly called the European Quality in Rehabilitation Mark (EQRM) is an initiative of the European Platform for Rehabilitation (EPR) and its secretariat is based in Brussels.