A Person-Directed Initiative for Human Service Organizations
For over 40 years CQL has provided international leadership in designing progressive practices in services for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities and people with mental illness. We have provided a comprehensive approach to quality assurance and quality improvement that has at times included the full spectrum of issues: look-behind surveys for state and federal government; certification for basic assurances; personal quality of life; social capital and community inclusion.
In the early 1990’s CQL developed new measures of quality. We let go of a 25-year tradition of measuring compliance with regulations and standardized processes and developed new person-centered quality of life measures. For the last 15 years we’ve been collecting data with the Personal Outcomes Measures® on personal outcomes and the variables that promote peoples’ priority outcomes.
In 2000, CQL introduced the dialogue on social capital and disability. We’ve redefined quality within the context of community inclusion arguing that people find meaningful life opportunities and alternatives outside of programs and organizational services. The role of organizations is to connect people with resources and social networks in their communities.
Unfortunately, our data and experience indicate that organizations have having difficulty making this connection to the importance of community.
We’ll borrow the words of the artist Georgia O’Keeffe … “Only by selection, by elimination, by emphasis do we get at the real meaning of things.”
CQL’s new initiative can provide help to organizations by stripping away unnecessary distractions and focusing on the real meaning of things – personal choice and person-directed services.
We need to focus on what really matters to people. We need to build on the Personal Outcome Measures® and be about excellence in facilitating personal control and person-directed services.
Our What Really Matters initiative will identify person-directed services with the greatest impact on peoples’ quality of life. We will measure the effectiveness of person-directed services through the right blend of measures, indicators and questions such as the Personal Outcome Measures®. CQL will guide organizations and communities in the development of person-directed services.
This new prioritization will allow us the opportunity to collaborate with colleagues and organizations, communities and systems across the fields of physical disability, aging, mental health, and intellectual and developmental disabilities.
Most importantly, this new focus will enable CQL to work directly with people, their families and supporters in the development of resources and strategies that they can use to define and demand excellence in their lives.
Back to Top