Accreditation is sold as a marker of quality social service, but amazingly little is known about the effects of accreditation on quality in any field, including the social services. A new paper by Madeline Lee of Tulane University sheds some light on … Continue reading
A recent post noted how little training in quality improvement appears to have made it to the quality improvement workforce in child welfare. Why is that? … Continue reading
Return on investment (ROI) is the holy grail of quality work, not just in the social services. It was heartening to read this week of a research study (also look here) showing ROI on providing quality mental health services in the … Continue reading
Rarely does the public get a glimpse into the working of quality improvement systems in place in a public social service. In 2012, the National (Child Welfare) Resource Center on Organizational Improvement (NRCOI), conducted semi-structured phone interviews with 31 state … Continue reading
Good ideas need champions and the New York Times is the champion of positive deviance. They followed up articles from 2008 and 2009 this week with a reminder on the power of the positive deviance approach. While some think of positive … Continue reading
Tools? We’ve got your tools right here. Step right up. Quality improvement tools used by professionals the world over. You don’t need no damned six sigma. We’ve got you covered at qualitysocialservice.com. Here are five tools for the emerging QI … Continue reading
The Brits have been hard at work reviewing and reforming their child welfare system. The Munro Report, an independent report requested by the government, calls for a move from a culture focused on CYA and paperwork to a learning culture … Continue reading
Major League Baseball emailed me this week to let me know that my renewal subscription to mlb.com is ready, so I can watch up to 200 spring training games and 2340 regular season games. It is typical that they told … Continue reading
