One of the key aspects of our desired agency Work Culture is “Improving What We Do and Taking Action.” We value being proactive, flexible and adapting to change. At CYFS, it is vital that we keep up with trends that impact our work and continually take action to improve the quality of our services. Because CYFS works with children and adults who are facing crisis and coping with trauma, we are committed to professional growth and ongoing learning. We solicit and use feedback from those we serve to improve what we do.
Continuous Quality Improvement – Every Employee, Every Day, for Every Client and Family
The Center for Youth and Family Solutions’ Continuous Quality Improvement Process drives our agency’s services to meet the highest best practice standards. Continuous Quality Improvement, known as CQI, is an ongoing process at CYFS that engages every employee to be a collaborative partner in improving all aspects of our services. We believe that an environment that is completely open to feedback and values opportunities to learn is imperative to achieving the highest results and ensuring quality services. Motivating, developing, encouraging initiative and innovation among our diverse workforce, and valuing their unique perspectives is key to our service improvement process.
The complete cycle of CQI involves identifying and analyzing strengths and opportunities for improvement, putting plans in action to make desired changes, and then evaluating their impact. True CQI is an ongoing process. Our CQI process tracks client outcomes and feedback, and uses both internal and external information sources to identify improvement opportunities. The following sources provide us with valuable information to help us shape our service delivery: *Client and Family Satisfaction Questionnaires, Client Outcome reports, Case Record Reviews, Incident Trend Reports, and reviews conducted by external funding sources such as the State of Illinois or local United Ways. * For more information see Accountability to Our Partners
The key to Continuous Quality Improvement is sharing this information, identifying trends, noting areas we want to improve, and putting plans into action. To come up with the best solutions, we encourage employees at all levels of the organization to participate in CQI teams and activities. We know the quality of our improvement efforts is dependent on the active participation of our staff, those we serve, and community stakeholders.