Working process

A practice sharing event held in March 2011 (attended by almost 50 professionals from primarily voluntary sector organisations, but also health and social care) identified that specialist practice had been developed by different services around the country, including models of work and resources. However there was no means by which this quality practice could effectively be shared with others. The event also revealed that practice challenges identified were similar if not the same across the country, and again there is limited or no means currently to share responses to these challenges.
Further, when surveyed at the event, the majority of services reported currently not using any sets of quality standards in their organisations.
Commissioners use standards when assessing where to commission services to, as such they are keen on having a one-stop shop for standards which they can refer to.

It will enable other priorities, such as improved health outcomes, to be measured, which will allow services to prove that the services they provide have clear benefits.
In the new commissioning environment there will be increased pressure on services to prove that their work has an impact on improving health and well being.

CHIVA planned to develop a set of quality standards in close consultation with professionals working in the voluntary sector and also health professionals.
The practice sharing event held in March 2011 enabled a wide scale consultation with the sector to take place. Everyone who attended was given the opportunity to complete a questionnaire. From this professionals were asked to volunteer to become members of the first working group.

The first specialist topic covered was disclosure, as this was overwhelmingly identified as a key practice challenge at the event. It was also timely to begin with this topic as a number of services were involved in specialist work in this area, include resource development and practice model development.

An initial scoping meeting took place in June with the members of the working group:

Jill Hellings
Barnardos, Manchester
Nimisha Tanner
Body and Soul ,London
Kate Brown
Body Positive, Manchester
Michelle Overton
(Faith in People) FIPWH Leicester
Diane Melvin
Consultant Clinical Psychologist, St Marys Hospital
Vicky Morris
PPC London (currently managing UK family project)
Sheila Donaghy,
Consultant paediatric specialist nurse, St Georges Hospital,
has since joined the group. This will help to ensure the standard developed are in tune with current health practice and priorities.

The initial working group focused on identifying and describing current practice in this area, with a sharing of practice, resources used and challenges faced.
The initial stage of developing the standard is to work out the key principles and values it needs to contain.
The next stage has been to consider language use and the ambition of the standard in raising quality practice in this area.
Research has also been carried out into different approaches to work with children living with HIV and a study visit to Sweden took place to consider learning from their approach in working with children more openly around their HIV status.
The quality standard which covers the area of disclosure (which will be renamed as a result of this process) will be completed by the end of November.

If you wish to become involved in this work please contact Amanda [dot] Ely [at] chiva [dot] org [dot] uk.