Quality Assurance (QA) is a way for your scheme to make sure that it is always delivering the best possible services it can to the people that use it.

The Homeshare QA framework is a way of checking, through continuous monitoring and evaluation of your performance and through the collection of evidence that your scheme is being delivered to a high standard and continually striving to improve.

The Homeshare QA framework can also be a way of measuring what your organisation does against other schemes doing similar work or against set recognised standards.

The system of checking your schemes quality is an ongoing process. The monitoring of what your scheme does should be part of your everyday practice to ensure that you are achieving your aims and objectives and delivering a high quality services that is safe, effective and relevant.

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As an organisation delivering an unregulated service you need to ensure you are delivering best practice and are giving appropriate considerations to delivery, legal requirements and risk in order to instil confidence in the people that will use your service, potential funders and commissioners.

By showing that you are working within a recognised Good Practice Framework and measuring your scheme against the criteria set out in each Quality Assurance element this Quality Assurance Framework will enable you to assess how well you are delivering your scheme and which areas of delivery may need to be improved.

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The Homeshare Quality Assurance framework is based on the Shared Lives Plus, Homeshare Good Practice Guide and focuses on ten key areas of good practice that relate to governance, practice and sustainability that will underpin the delivery of a safe and effective practice.

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The 10 areas of good practice to ensure that your Homeshare scheme is operating to and high standard are:

• Good Practice Element 1 – Aims and Objectives. Demonstrating that you understand the demand for your Homeshare scheme and have clear aims and objectives.
• Good Practice Element 2 – Staffing. Demonstrating that you have the right team in place to deliver a high quality service.
• Good Practice Element 3 – Practice, Policy and Process.  Demonstrating that you have developed appropriate practice, process and policy to support safe and effective delivery of your Homeshare scheme.
• Good Practice Element 4 – Safety. Demonstrating that your scheme supports participants and staff to take positive risks and stay safe.
• Good Practice Element 5 – Marketing and Promotion. Demonstrating that your scheme is effectively marketed to the right audiences.
• Good Practice Element 6 – Assessment. Demonstrating that you are able to accurately assess the needs and wishes of participants and the suitability of the property.
• Good Practice Element 7 – Matches. Demonstrating that timely, safe and lasting matches and rematches.
• Good Practice Element 8 – Support. Demonstrating that scheme supports matches effectively, helps participants to deal with any problems and resolves any issues quickly.
• Good Practice Element 9 – Monitoring and Evaluation. Demonstrating that your scheme works with participants to monitor outcomes and impact and uses the information to make improvements.
• Good Practice Element 10 – Sustainability. Demonstrating that your scheme has longevity and is underpinned by a robust business model.

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Each Good Practice Element outlines:

• The element of good practice and what it aims to demonstrate.
• Guidance notes. Supporting information that will help you understand the elements and how it links to the Homeshare Good Practice Guide, and
• Suggested evidence. The range of evidence that you could consider using to prove that your project is delivering Homeshare to the required standard. This list is not exhaustive and we recognise that organisations may want to provide information outside the suggested list and in a variety of formats. Information that we ask you to share will be held securely on the website and only information that you choose to upload in the last section will be used as a resource to share with other organisations as an example of good practice that they can replicate.

Each Element of Good Practice is split into three key areas you will be asked to self-assess against. These are:

•  Good practice and sound process – how your scheme operates.
• Good outcomes – the difference your practices and processes have made.
• Good experience – the experiences of the people who are involved in your service.

The online self-assessment framework will require you to work through each of the ten good practice areas identifying what evidence you have in place and what areas need further development.
The self-assessment should be carried out by the project coordinator and should draw on the experiences of other people involved in the scheme as appropriate.

Please note that only schemes registered as Homeshare UK network members will be able to access the Homeshare UK Quality Assurance Framework.

Start the Quality Assurance Framework (self-assessment)