Accreditation of Child & Family Service Organizations

Accreditation is a key ministry strategy for promoting and supporting quality assurance, continuous quality improvement and performance measurement practices in the contracted community social services sector.

Accreditation standards apply to policy, procedures and practice related to governance, administration, human resources, health and safety, client rights, quality assurance and improvement, and a continuum of programs and services.

To help ensure accountability and quality assurance, certain service providers are required to be accredited in order to deliver contracted services on behalf of:

•     The Ministry of Children and Family Development (MCFD)
•     Community Living British Columbia (CLBC)

Find out more about the bodies that are approved to accredit programs and services provided on behalf of MCFD and CLBC:

• COA Accreditation
• The Commission on Accreditation of Rehabilitation Facilities (CARF)

Service providers with accredited status demonstrate that they have an appropriate level of proficiency and are able to continually improve the quality of services being delivered.

• Explore reasons for accreditation
• Learn how to become accredited

Organizations That Require Accreditation

Under accreditation policy, contractors with total annual contracts of $500,000 or more with the MCFD and/or CLBC are required to be accredited by COA or CARF.

MCFD supports contracted service providers that are required to be accredited by paying their accreditation fees and providing mentoring and other services, coordinated by the MCFD accreditation team, that are designed to help them meet the accreditation standards.

Delegated Aboriginal Agencies and First Nation, Métis, and Inuit contracted community social service providers are exempt from the accreditation policy. If they  choose to participate in the accreditation process, they receive the same level of MCFD support as service providers that are required to be accredited regardless of their annual contract funding amount.

• Reasons for accreditation

Accreditation costs: The provincial government will help service provider organizations cover the direct costs of accreditation, such as:

• Application fees
• Accreditation fees
• Site review or survey fees
• Annual fees
• Manual fees

Funding is provided for:

• Agencies that are required to be accredited by government policy
• One accreditation in a three-year (CARF) or four-year (COA) cycle
• Accreditation of programs (CARF) funded by MCFD or CLBC