If you are interested in undertaking the Families First Award read through the steps listed below:
STEP 1: Complete an Expression of Interest
Once submitted a Member of the Families First Team will review you application and get back in touch with you within 48 hours.
Click here to complete an expression of interest.
STEP 2: Assignment of Regional Assessor
A Regional Assessor will be assigned to you who will be your primary contact for the duration of your Assessment. The assessor will also act as your advisor to help you prepare your portfolio for assessment.
STEP 3: Your ePortfolio Account
You will be set up with a ePortfolio Account on the Families First Portal. The ePortfolio will allow you to build your portfolio online, and submit evidence for assessment.
Everything can be cross-referenced to the specific elements of the Families First Award.
Your Regional Assessors can review your submissions, and feedback can easily be recorded. Access to your portfolio can also be given to your colleagues, line managers and other key partners. This will allow them to observe your progress and also submit their own evidence which will contribute to your ePortfolio.
You may also wish to share all or parts of your ePortfolio with other FIS to help them as they look for ways to evidence their own Award.
STEP 4: Complete a Self Assessment
Before your assessor arranges their initial visit they will ask you to complete a Self Assessment. This will help them to identify what naturally occuring evidence you already have and where you might need additional support. By completing the self assessment this will enable your Assessor to better support you and make the best use of their visits to your service.
STEP 5: Your Assessment Visits
Your Assessor will visit your service several times. These visits will include:
- an initial visit where your assessor will be looking to meet your team along with any of your colleagues that you feel will play a significant part in the Families First Award. At this meeting your assessor will also be looking to get an idea of how your service operates; what resources you have; what challenges you may be facing and from this estimate how long the assessment process might take. This will be different for every FIS as you are all unique in your delivery, structure, capacity, etc. This is why the assessment and support that you will receive will be tailored to suit your organisation.
- the number of progress support meetings needed will depend on your organisation and will be a combination of onsite and remote support. These visits will involve reviews of your eportfolio as it develops and may include professional observations of service delivery and/or interviews of clients and colleagues.
- throughout the assessment process there will be open dialogue between you and your assessor via telephone and email. Your email correspondence will be carried out from within the Families First Portal. What this means is that this correspondence can actually contribute to your ePortfolio of evidence. For example your assessor may ask you a question about how you might approach a particular situation. Your assessor may wish to interview end users of your service and/or tesimony witnesses during the course of the assessment process and this may be done face-to0-face or via telephone/email. Again, this will all be referenced within your portfolio and contribute to your evidence.
- because of this open communication throghout the assessment process there should be no surprises at your final assessment visit. Any significant areas for development should have been addressed before the point of final assessment so thsi last visit should just be to sign off your ePortfolio and to provide you with a summary assessment. Dependant on how much use has been made of your progress visits your final assessment visit may include some final observations.
STEP 6: Verification and Accreditation
Internal & External Verification will ensure that your assessment meets the elements of the 11 Families First Standards and with this effectively demonstrates competence against the requirements of the Information Duty. All Regional Assessors will come together to present sample evidence at regular Lead Assessors Meetings. Evidence will be agreed upon to ensure that it meets the requirements of the Award.
Following the final assessment visit your Regional Assessor will complete a Summary Findings Report and provide this to the Families First Panel. The Panel is made up of representatives from key agencies (e.g. DCSF, NAFIS, FSA, Fatherhood Institute, KIDS, MENCAP, etc) and will rubber stamp final assessments and provide retrospective feedback on individual reports which will then inform future assessments.
Following this verification process you will receive written confirmation of your accreditation and arrangements will be made for reciept of your award.
STEP 7: Continuing Professional Development / Areas of Excellence
By the end of your Families First Assessment you and your assessor will have a good appreciation of your areas of strength. Once you have achieved your Families First Award that is not where it all ends and your assessor will encourage you to continually develop your service beyond Families First accreditaion.
It is for this reason that you will have the opportunity to work towards Areas of Excellence. You may have a particularly strong area of service delivery that you are particularly pround of and you such as brokerage, inclusive services or outreach. These and other service delivery areas have their own Areas of Excellence Award that you can go on to achieve.
Adopting this culture of continual professional development will help your service to not just develop and grow but it will increase your profile with your partners, clients and your strategic decision makers.
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION:
If you have more questions concerning the Families First Award then please contact the This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .