Policy and Governance
Legal Framework
legislation which explicitly addresses LTC with respect to authorisation, accreditation, quality systems
COUNTRY / LOCATION: Slovak Republic
Keywords: social services, accreditation commission, educational programmes, specialised LTC activities, quality management
Keywords: social services, accreditation commission, educational programmes, specialised LTC activities, quality management
Accreditation of educational programmes and specialised activities for LTC services
Summary
In order to enhance the quality of social services (including long-term care services for care dependent disabled and older people) a new legal framework for accreditation of educational programmes preparing professionals for providing social services as well as accreditation of specialised activities was set up. Up to December 2008, accreditation of all relevant educational programmes focused on social services was conducted by the Ministry of education of the Slovak republic without any real input of the Ministry of labour, social affairs and family despite it having predominant responsibilities in this field. Besides that, providers of some specialised activities (e.g. social rehabilitation), were not conditioned by any accreditation obligations in order to deliver such services. That was one of the reason why confidence in the quality of their performances was relatively low (Repkova, 2001). The present legal framework of the accreditation process is rooted in the new Act No. 448/2008 Coll. on social services which came into legal force in January 2009. The accreditation mechanism is embedded in the comprehensive quality concept implemented for all social services which is composed of 4 parts: (1) qualification requirements and further education of professionals operating in social services areas, (2) mechanism for accreditation of further educational programmes and specialised activities, (3) assessment of conditions for quality in social services, and (4) inspection of the performance of social services. Since January 2009, the onus of legally based responsibilities for accreditation lies with the Ministry of Labour, Social Affairs and Family of the Slovak Republic which set up the Accreditation Commission. The example describes almost two years of experience of the commission in this field, with the main focus being on accreditation of the educational programmes and specialised activities for long-term care services provisions which have represented, up to now, the majority of applications for accreditation (more than 90 per cent of all legal cases).
What is the main benefit for people in need of care and/or carers?
The main benefit for older people is that there is improvement of prerequisites for quality of LTC services.
What is the main message for practice and/or policy in relation to this sub-theme?
The main message for practice and policy is a need to sustain the balance between the main mission of the accreditation process (prerequisites for quality) and related administrative burdens.
Why was this example implemented?
In order to ensure accreditation procedures for educational programmes and specialised activities an Accreditation Commission was established on behalf of the Ministry of Labour, Social Affairs and Family of the Slovak republic with an the aim of promoting prestige and quality of social services and specialised activities for people in need. The primary target group of the example are organisations providing educational programmes for social service providers and organisations providing specialised activities for people having various types of social needs. Both types of organisations are not linked to each other with reference to the accreditation process. But they can be linked to the LTC target groups, as the graduates of some accredited educational programmes (e.g. graduates of the Care training) can be, at the same time, providers of accredited LTC specialised activities (e.g. of social counselling). The connected (secondary) target group is the population of people with social needs (including people in need of LTC care and their families).
Description
The Accreditation Commission (AC) is an advisory board of the Minister of Labour, Social Affairs and Family. It helps candidates to prepare applications for accreditation according to the criteria available for applicants at the Ministry's web site (http://www.employment.gov.sk/index.php?SMC=1&id=15885), assesses their applications and provides the Minister with recommendations on how to decide about applications. Based on the AC´s recommendations the Minister makes the final decisions. The AC consists of 13 members chaired by the General Director of the Social and Family section of the Ministry. The AC´s members have diversified professional and organisational backgrounds, in order to ensure a high quality of the overall process and legal pluralism in the evaluation of the applicants for accreditation (representatives of the state administrations, regional and local self-governments, non-governmental sectors, and university settings). There is no regular representative for the LTC user’s organisations. In cases of specific need, the regular members are added by ad-hoc experts from relevant social affairs fields. Accreditation procedures are relatively demanding, both for applicants and for the AC members. Applicants have to work out and submit 13 original sets of the completed applications (project description with all requested annexes). In some relevant cases, matching of all requested conditions (criteria) can be met by making a visit to the applicant (e.g. fulfilling of material, technical or spatial conditions for providing of social services). Since June 2009 up to the present time 13 visits have been conducted in total. The AC´s meetings are organised monthly and all costs needed for its operation comes directly from the ministerial budget (about €13,000 per year; Brichtova, 2010)
What are/were the effects?
Between 2009 and December 2010 the AC received a total number of 190 applications of natural or legal entities for accreditation of their educational programmes or specialised activities (social counselling or social rehabilitation). During the period mentioned, 98 were approved, of which 47 per cent referred to educational programmes and 53 per cent to specialised activities. From 46 educational programmes in 36 cases (78 per cent) the program was titled ‘Care training’ (Kurz opatrovania) which confirms the policy priority of qualified social work in long-term care fields. http://www.employment.gov.sk/index.php?SMC=1&id=1590 Because of the short time for implementation no comprehensive report or evaluation is available related to outputs and outcomes of accreditation procedures and their impact on social services providers or their clients. Unofficial reactions coming mainly from non-governmental sectors stress the administrative burdens of the overall accreditation procedures, e.g. too much paper work, and long waiting times before making decision about applications. That partially explains why after almost a 2-years period within the implementation of the new accreditation mechanism, the Ministry has initiated some procedural changes which should make the whole process administratively easier (the waiting time takes from 3 months to a year: Brichtová, 2010).
What are the strengths and limitations?
Strengths
- Existence of the common legal framework at national level which guarantees comparability of conditions for quality of social services and specialised activities for all their users
- Plurality and high expertise of the AC's members as a basic condition for appropriateness of the content of the accreditation procedures and the assessment of applicants.
Weaknesses
- Too far ranging competences of the AC (for all types of social services and for children´s legal protection) leading to long waiting times for decisions for a very high number of applications for accreditation, mainly in the initial period
- Insufficient personal capacities to perform all duties being related to AC
- Too much paper work for applicants (for 13 original applications, including all requested annexes) which has increased related costs for them
- Insufficient quality of documentation in some part of the applications which can lead to a prolonged decision-making process
Opportunities
- Divide competences into two independent ACs, one for social services, another for children´s legal protection
- Decrease administrative and financial burdens for applicants (obligation to submit only one original application and others only electronically)
- Simplify procedures for prolonging existing accreditation procedures to prevent backlogs of new ones
- Decrease the number of the AC´s members to make procedures more operative and flexible
Threats
- Increased number of providers of educational programmes and specialised activities which can lead to an increase in the number of applicants for accreditation and subsequently to a prolonging of the AC´s time for decision-making
Credits
Author: Kvetoslava Repková, Lýdia BrichtováReviewer 1: Michel Naiditch
Reviewer 2: Anja Dietrich
Verified by: Nadežda Šebová, chair of the Accreditation commission
Links to other INTERLINKS practice examples
External Links and References
- Akreditácie podľa zákona č. 448/2009 Z.z. o sociálnych službách a o zmene a doplnení zákona č. 445/1991 Zb. o živnostenskom podnikaní v znení neskorších predpisov.
- Brichtová, L. (2010). SWOT analýza akreditačného procesu pre oblasť sociálnych služieb (SWOT analysis of the accreditation process for social services). Bratislava: Ministry of Labour, Social Affairs and family, of the Slovak republic (On request).
- Repková, K. (2001). Jednota posudkového a poradenského prvku v prospech klientov s ťažkým zdravotným postihnutím (Unanimity of assessment and counselling aspects for benefit of clients with severe disabilities). In: Práca a sociálna politika, 2001, č. 5, s. 7-11
