What is Foyer accreditation?
The Foyer Accreditation Framework integrates eight Quality Standard Areas drawn from two decades of Foyer learning from the UK that have been tested and shaped to fit the Australian context. Since Foyer is an approach, not a ‘set model’, the Accreditation process is designed to be flexible, exploring how a Foyer is expressed in the context of a service and its community. The eight Quality Standard Areas are underpinned by a focus on how the Foyer approach reflects the experiences of young people, including those from Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander backgrounds, along with meeting expectations for recommended policies and procedures, and supporting evidence indicating strategies to evaluate and improve on impact. The Australian Foyer Foundation Accreditation framework is the only quality assurance approach that combines a Foyer ethos and Advantaged Thinking lens to help services develop and benchmark performance.
Why should your service participate?
Foyers are synonymous with a holistic, empowered, positive multi-sectoral approach to addressing youth homelessness through accommodation, support and education, transitioning to independent living. The accreditation framework outlines the quality standards that are achieved by service providers known as Foyers. The Foyer name in Australia is trusted to deliver high-quality outcomes for young people and is a robust and successful approach in which government and other funders have confidence investing.
The Foyer Foundation Accreditation Framework enables investment in young people’s assets, talents and potential. This framework is both a developmental tool for services to evaluate and strengthen Advantaged Thinking practice and a quality assurance system that can be a powerful resource for demonstrating impact and value to stakeholders.
What’s involved?
Completed over a 12 month period, Accreditation is comprised of the following key activities:
- Workshop 1 – Explore Quality Standards, assessment methodology and evidence requirements
- Workshop 2 – Reflect on progress and obtain further guidance on self-assessment, data collection and evidence requirements
- Workshop 3 – Focus on producing a Quality Development Plan and preparing for the validation visit
- Submission of the Foyer’s Self-Assessment and evidence file to the Foyer Foundation
- Validation Visit on site over two days
- Development of Panel Report by the Validation Assessor
- Panel Scrutiny Meeting and Award Decision.
Services completing Accreditation are then supported through the Foyer Foundation’s Community of Practice and complete a lighter-touch Re-accreditation process every 4 years.
Become an accredited Foyer
Click here for the Australian Foyer Foundation Accreditation Framework 2022.
For more information to undertake Australian Foyer Foundation Accreditation, please contact 0498 092 112 or [email protected].