Foyer Accreditation
Quality assurance for services for young people in transition.
When we first introduced accreditation in the mid 1990s the sector as a whole was largely unregulated and our accreditation system was used as a means of determining who could and could not become Foyer Federation members.
When Supporting People was introduced, with its own Quality Assurance Framework (QAF), we developed FISH by adapting our existing accreditation system to ensure it was properly aligned to QAF. Central government recognised this work by allowing Foyers who had achieved FISH accreditation to be passported through the QAF process. We are now reviewing FISH again in the light of recent changes to the QAF. 
Since we originally introduced the Foyer Accreditation Scheme supported housing itself has become the subject of significantly more regulation. Over the years, we and our members have increasingly used FISH as a development tool and Foyers find it particularly useful when preparing for external assessment by, for example, Supporting People. We are keen to avoid duplication, where possible, and believe we should concentrate on how we can use our own auality assurance process to encourage providers to raise the bar and push the boundaries of their service offer.
Therefore, we have seperated out the development package and the recognition system aspects of the Foyer Accreditation process. We have developed a Foyer Status Mark, based on FISH, which will enable us to continue to recognise and validate Foyers as a distinctive model of supported housing.
The full FISH process will continue to be available as a development tool, particularly for new Foyer developments. We are looking at how we might use peer validation as part of the process; an approach that has been used successfully in other sectors. We also aim to increase the involvement of service users in assessing the quality of services.
For those providers who are clearly delivering more than the minimum standard, we are developing new quality assurance tools that will stretch them and enable them to meet the challenges that face them in the future.
Our quality portfolio, therefore, focuses on developing services and evaluating their identity and impact. This activity is delivered through our training and consultancy work based on the following products:
Services and organisational development
- The FISH Toolkit - aimed at Foyers and Foyer-like services to help shape their policy and procedure base;
- The Transformational Asset Framework - aimed at RSLs, commissioners and core subscribers, to help shape service development and delivery models.
Evaluation and recognition
- The Foyer Status Mark - for services seeking recognition as a Foyer, delivered through an assessment process using the three Tests of Foyerness to identify the service offer and impact. It includes as Foyer Federation validation visit and award, annual data scrutiny, with a review visit every three years or as required using a moderated peer review system.
- The Transformational Innovation Mark - for any organisation seeking recognition for the transformational impact of a particular approach or service, delivered through an assessment process to measure the strength of inclusion, innovation and impact ahieved. Includes a Foyer Federation validation visit and award.
For more details on the accreditation packages we have available to those delivering services to young people please email us.