Here you can find details of various awards and quality marks held by Sefton Council for Voluntary Service (CVS).

Quality Assurance and Accreditation 

Sefton CVS is committed to continuous improvement of its services, the professional development of its work force and in best practice relating to the engagement of stakeholders. Sefton CVS holds the following quality assurance marks and training accreditations:

NAVCA Quality Award

Our service performance standards are benchmarked through the National Association of Voluntary & Community Action (NAVCA) Quality Standards award which is a rigorous examination of the delivery and quality of local infrastructure services. Our NAVCA Quality Assurance award was renewed for a further three years to 2014.

The award measures excellence across the following standards:

• supporting the identification of needs in local communities and facilitating provision to meet those needs
• assisting voluntary organisations and community groups to function more effectively and deliver quality services
• facilitating effective communications, networking and collaboration amongst local voluntary organisations and community groups
• enabling the diverse views of the local sector to be represented and supporting structures which promote effective cross-sector partnership working
• ensuring the third sector’s role as an integral part of the local planning and policy making

Volunteer Centre Quality Assurance

The Volunteer Centre Sefton is quality assured by Volunteering England with The Volunteer Centre Quality Accreditation which has been renewed until 2014. The accreditation confirms that the Centre fully delivers the core services of a Volunteer Centre to an excellent standard. This includes:

• Marketing of volunteering
• Good practice development
• Development of volunteering opportunities
• Policy response and campaigning
• Strategic development of volunteering 

Royal Society for Public Health (RSPH) Health Promoting Organisation 

Sefton CVS were instrumental in the Sefton Partnership achieving the Royal Society for Public Health Partnership Award from November 2011 to October 2014.

Sefton Partnership, made up of NHS Sefton, Sefton CVS, Sefton Council, One Vision Housing and the May Logan Healthy Living Centre, were one of only seven UK organisations to be presented with the RSPH’s Health Promotion and Community Wellbeing Organisation and Partnerships Award this year.

The RSPH honoured Sefton because of their achievement in developing and implementing Health Promotion and Community Wellbeing strategies and initiatives.

Investors in People – Gold Standard 

Sefton CVS became a Gold standard organisation in July 2012 and were renewed for a third time for a further 3 years to 2015.

Investors in People is the UK’s leading people management standard. It is a business improvement tool designed to help all kinds of organisations develop performance through their people. We are delighted to announce that Sefton CVS holds the gold award for Investors in People which was renewed in 2012.

Navajo (LGBT friendly) Charter Mark

The development of the LGBT Charter Mark Scheme for Merseyside has been co-ordinated by the Embrace and In-Trust Community Empowerment Networks involving other LGBT networks and groups from across Merseyside.

The Navajo Merseyside Chartermark contributes to raising the standards for LGBT people across Merseyside in terms of employment and accessing services.

The application is designed to assess organisations in terms of LGBT-friendliness. It will identify organisations that are actively involved or are committed to developing appropriate services to address the needs of the LGBT community.

The application form includes five distinct elements to consider

• Practices and Policies
• Training
• Staff Recruitment & Engagement
• Monitoring
• Service Users and LGBT Engagement

Workplace Wellbeing Charter 

Sefton CVS achieved the Workplace Welbeing Charter in October 2012 which is valid until October 2014. The Workplace Wellbeing Charter is a statement about the way in which you run your business and support your workforce, demonstrated by adherence to a set of standards. To achieve the Charter you will be asked to demonstrate your commitment and support by taking action to implement any changes which may be necessary in your organisation.

The standards contained within the Charter are not exhaustive and are intended to set a minimum standard on which your organisation can build. They are a guide to what success can look like and a way of benchmarking that success against others.

Charter aims and objectives:

• introduce clear, easy to use wellbeing standards
• improve wellbeing and reduce absenteeism
• provide tools to measure and evaluate progress
• identify and share good practice and real-life examples
• show that workplace health and wellbeing is a worthwhile investment

The Workplace Wellbeing Charter is a voluntary, self-assessment scheme open to all public, private and voluntary sector organisations based in England. Whatever their size, all organisations and businesses can benefit from working towards Charter standards.

Two Ticks – Positive About Disability

In 2014, Sefton Council for Voluntary Service was awarded Positive About Disability Two Ticks. Employers who use the disability symbol make five commitments regarding recruitment,training, retention, consultation and disability awareness. The five commitments are:

• To interview all disabled applicants who meet the minimum criteria for a job vacancy and toconsider them on their abilities.
• To discuss with disabled employees, at any time but at least once a year, what both parties can do to make sure disabledemployees can develop and use their abilities.
• To make every effort when employees become disabled to make sure they stay in employment.
• To take action to ensure that all employees develop the appropriate level of disability awareness needed to make thesecommitments work.
• To review these commitments each year and assess what has been achieved, plan ways to improve on them and let employeesand Jobcentre Plus know about progress and future plans.