Saint Vincent's Quality Council Report for Fiscal Year 2010

Saint Vincent's Home has, for over 120 years, provided for the needs of youth and families, particularly when those needs required placement of youth outside of their family home.  Our traditions are rooted in our faith-based Mission and core values.  Throughout its history and most recently, Saint Vincent’s has modified its treatment philosophy and practice in an effort to be most responsive to the ongoing and emergent needs of youth and families referred for services.  Saint Vincent’s has developed a continuum of care, which provides for flexible levels of service intensity, individualized assessment and programming, which are responsive to the specific needs of the youth and families we serve.

Saint Vincent’s has a long-standing history of commitment to Quality Management, Continuous Quality Improvement, and continuous learning.  The agency Quality Council oversees our Continuous Quality Improvement (CQI) teams.  The agency has a strong history of reviewing data as well as looking at trends from other sources.  Each CQI Team meets monthly, is charged with specific quality domains, in addition to designing goals and objectives, which run from fiscal year to fiscal year.  These Quality Council and CQI processes have contributed to numerous policy, practice, training, and other impactful innovations.

Saint Vincent’s is committed to significantly enhancing our program and agency evaluation efforts and is in the process of identifying measurable goals, objectives, and benchmarks based in part on our emerging Strategic Plan.  Our internal data collection and reporting systems are also being reviewed to determine what new systems must be in place to enhanced evaluation efforts.  Simultaneously, we have been immersed in a process of reflecting upon and articulating our core values, mission statement, philosophy of care, staff development program, external intelligence gathering strategy, strategic plan, and development plan.  It has been and continues to be a time of significant reflection, challenging of assumptions, and “digging deeper” within our philosophy and practices.  At the same time, we are also externally focused, seeking connections to the community in a more dynamic fashion in order to promote our reputation and build a stronger foundation of support for our work.

During FY 2010,Program/Department goals will be incorporated into the CQI Team process.  Each program and department is in the process of identifying specific improvement goals for FY 2010 which will be reviewed and evaluated on a regular basis by the Quality Council and department teams.  Each program/department will need to develop methods of tracking and measuring progress, both on individual client and program operational levels. 

The agency’s philosophy has been to examine and resolve issues, when possible, in the moment.  Though this is a very responsive approach, we are looking to further develop processes to quantify these efforts.  The Quality Improvement process has been initiated.  This form is used to collect information entered into a specific database.  Quality Improvement issues and grievances can be tracked and aggregated for more in-depth program enhancement.  Though the goal is to always try to mediate and resolve all concerns and complaints at the source, formally raising issues and concerns provides an opportunity to improve.  Transparency is key. 

Below are the summaries for Saint Vincent’s various CQI Teams Accomplishments in FY 2009.  Each CQI Team, along with the Quality Council, promotes the mission of Saint Vincent’s, Giving Children and Families in Need What They Need Most.