Accreditation is a process involving the setting of standards and then verifying that those standards have been achieved.
The Children's Mental Health Ontario (CMHO) Accreditation Program is voluntary, independent of government agencies and organizations and administered by children's mental health professionals and Board members.
During the last 25 years, CMHO Standards Committees have been working to define standards for high quality treatment programs. These standards have aimed to exceed the minimum standards required for licensing. CMHO has long recognized that implementation of its standards for high quality services would be made more effective by a process of accreditation. Accreditation would formally acknowledge a centre's achievement of the standards. Also, accreditation would provide centres with an incentive to continuously improve their services and treatment methods. As part of its long-range plan, in 1983, the CMHO Board set the goal to develop an Accreditation Program.
In 1984, The Trillium Foundation generously provided the CMHO with a five-year grant for developing an Accreditation Program for children's mental health centres in Ontario. Through a combination of committee work, consultation and extensive pilot-testing, the CMHO Accreditation Program has evolved.
The CMHO model of accreditation involves both self-evaluation by a centre and independent verification by a peer review team. It combines the advantages of internal and external evaluation systems together with an emphasis on education and growth. At the Annual Meeting in April, 1988, delegates from member centres unanimously gave their approval to begin the implementation of the CMHO Accreditation Program. In 1996, the standards were revised and the CMHO Board passed a motion that all member centres undergo the CMHO accreditation process by 2001.
Benefits of the CMHO Accreditation Program:
The CMHO identified several major benefits of accreditation for children's mental health centres. Accreditation provides a template or model for creating high quality services. This model addresses all aspects of children's mental health centre operation in detail, and it stimulates continuous self-development. As a process of review, improvement, and certification that is conducted by professional peers, accreditation can identity both strengths and weaknesses and provide objective information about a centre's functioning.
Accreditation solidifies the identity of children's mental health centres, reinforces their credibility as providers of treatment services, and enhances the accountability of Boards of Directors.
Also, accreditation can assist the consumer in the selection of appropriate services by defining children's mental health services, differentiating them from other children's services, and by certifying the quality of the services provided by centres. Because accreditation signifies that the children's mental health centre meets and often surpasses high standards of quality, accreditation provides assurance to the public that the centre is approved by an authorized body on the basis of province-wide standards.
In short, the accreditation process for children's mental health centres will benefit both consumers and service providers by facilitating the development of high quality mental health services. By participating in the Accreditation Program, CMHO member centres will have an incentive to continue to develop and improve their services. Of major importance, accreditation will assist the consumer by certifying the quality of a centre's services based on province-wide standards. The ultimate goal of the Accreditation Program is the achievement of an accredited status by all children's mental health centres, in the belief that such achievement enhances services to children and families in Ontario.