What’s Involved
The Quality Award is the only award in the UK specifically tailored to befriending services, but what’s involved?
When you apply for the Quality Award, you’ll have up to six months to complete the assessment process. During this time, you’ll provide evidence to successfully demonstrate to an assessor that your service meets all 60 of the required Quality Award indicators.
The Quality Award indicators cover the following practice areas:
- The Service
- Policies and Procedures
- Staff Management
- Monitoring and Evaluation
- Befriendee Journey
- Befriender Journey
- Matching and Ending
Evidence for the first 35 indicators is uploaded to an online Moodle platform and may take the form of documents, policies, interviews and case studies. Find out more about using the online platform here.
The final 25 indicators, making up the Befriendee Journey, Befriender Journey and Matching and Ending sections, are assessed via a site or remote visit and interviews.
To upgrade an Award to Excellence, an organisation must meet a further 23 indicators. Want to find out more? Download the Quality Award Assessment Guide and Indicator List now.
Aim for Excellence
You can apply for Quality in Befriending Excellence as part of your initial application. You will need to submit evidence against all indicators, including the additional 23 Excellence indicators.
Alternatively, you may choose to upgrade your existing Quality Award to Excellence. You have three months to upgrade your Award as part of the same application.
Age UK Partnership
Are you a local Age UK or Age Cymru partner with current CQS certification? You can take advantage of our Quality Award passport opportunity, offering a lighter assessment and a big discount to any qualifying service!
CQS certification demonstrates compliance with a range of Quality Award indicators. Organisations holding current CQS certification therefore benefit from a reduction in the number of required indicators and must provide evidence for only 46 of the total 60 indicators to obtain Quality Award status.
Ready to take on the challenge? Apply now!