good practice guidelines
The Community Services Good practice guidelines is a structured program of activities geared to improving two aspects of the performance of NGO service providers:
- the services provided for clients
- the internal management and administration processes of the organization.
The guidelines are closely modelled on the NSW Human Services Quality Framework (2004), a cross-agency resource developed to inform the service improvement activities of NSW Government human services agencies.
The guidelines are intended to work in tandem with Community Services Performance monitoring framework for funded services.
They do this by:
- providing objective standards against which NGOs can measure their own management and administration practices
- promoting effective service planning, evaluation and all-round improvement in organizational health
- providing suggestions and examples for undertaking self assessment.
Community Services encourages service providers to engage with the Good practice guidelines or some other recognized framework for promoting service standards.
The guidelines will be used by Community Services funding staff in situations where an objective standard is required for discussions with funded service providers about performance.
The guidelines comprise a package of resources that includes:
- Good practice guidelines for funded services manual
- self assessment workbook template
- priority grid template
- workplan template
These tools were developed and piloted with a cross-section of Community Services-funded NGO service providers.