E1: A Quality Quest of Committee Superheroes
Area of Focus: COA Accreditation
What better way to engage an organization with accreditation principles and committee work than through characters, costumes, and adventure?
Let’s face it, some aspects of performance quality improvement (PQI), standard compliance, and data analysis may be a bit dry for some folks. However, by focusing on engagement, principles of adult learning, and fun, Community Services is making PQI memorable!
Building on Kouzes and Posner’s documented values of an effective leader,* Community Services uses characteristics of humility and authenticity to animate the vision of PQI and its role in accreditation. What started as a mock team of staff wearing t-shirts and lip-synching to songs from Rocky, has evolved into cape-wearing mock team superheroes who champion all aspects of accreditation throughout all levels of the organization.
PQI is woven throughout the entire organization of Community Services and one of the most effective strategies that we’ve found is using a committee structure that includes:
- Risk Management
- Occupational Health, and Safety
- Equity Diversity, and Inclusion
- File Review, Wellness
- Training & Development
- The Accreditation Readiness Team
However, these are not your average committees. These committees have customized personas—and character cutouts—that exemplify each of their core purposes, which not only reduces barriers to learning, but maximizes engagement, relatability, commitment of data collection, and authentic actions based on analysis.
Community Services uses the overarching theme of adventure and analogy of a quest—for quality. We can all appreciate that the path of excellence is anything but linear and the quest captures the multitude of starts and stops, entry points, assessments, innovation, and risk management of continuous quality improvement.
The Quality Quest data scores are skyrocketing at Community Services, with staff showing an increased understanding of PQI, increased interest in joining a committee, increased motivation to participate in data collection, and most importantly, having a greater understanding of how their work contributes to organizational excellence.
*The Leadership Challenge, Kouzes, James M., Posner, Barry, Z., 2017.
Learning Objectives
- Enhancing an organizational culture with meaningful learning and fun
- Building PQI champions throughout all levels of the organization
- Practical and affordable ways to animate the vision of PQI throughout the process of accreditation
Presenters
Aimee Fehr
Family Outreach Counsellor
Maple Ridge Pitt Meadows Community Services
Kim Mapson
Manager of Community and Family Services
Maple Ridge Pitt Meadows Community Services