Quality Assurance

The Quality Assurance (QA) Department is funded as part of the core funding structure of each Agency. The QA staff work directly with both on- and off-reserve Agency staff and are essential to ensure services provided are in accordance with standards and regulations governing child welfare services. The QA reports provide our Chiefs and Councils, Board of Directors, Senior Management, and our compliance bodies with the opportunity to review the services we provide to children and families of the Southeast First Nations.

The two most critical components of QA are:

• To ensure Supervisors and Directors are aware of the compliancy of their staff with respect to the standards set forth by the Province of Manitoba, and
• To provide real-time and accurate data on client information and numbers so management can make informed decisions with regards to workflow or to meet the needs of their respective community.

Realtime information is gathered through the Child and Family Services Information System (CFSIS) which is the database used by the Manitoban child welfare agencies. QA generates reports through the database so that the Agency can use the information for programming and staffing decisions. The database is also used when conducting specific program/community reviews. The information on CFSIS is required by our Agency, ANCR, the SFNNC, and other agencies providing services to our clients when issues arise.

To guarantee information is accurate, QA utilizes and cross-references 3 databases: Case List (created in-house); CFSIS; and the Agency's Family and Children's Tracking System (FACTS).

A unique task QA performs is tracking all deaths of children in care, as well as tracking children whose family's files were open in the Agency within the previous year. Lead by the QA Director, Glory Lister, Internal Agency Reviews (IAR) are performed to indicate causes of any unfortunate circumstance, and to assist in program planning and implementation to ensure the Agency works towards bettering the lives of our clients. Oversight of Critical Incident Reporting are done by our member agencies and consultations with them take place to determine if an IAR is required.