Redwood Community Services has achieved national re-accreditation through the Council on Accreditation.
Ukiah, CA - Redwood Community Services (RCS) is humbled and proud to have achieved national re-accreditation through the New York-based Council on Accreditation (COA). Organizations pursue accreditation to demonstrate the implementation of best practice standards in the field of human services. COA evaluated all aspects of our programs, services, management, and administration.
COA accreditation is an objective, independent, and reliable validation of our agency’s performance. The COA accreditation process involves a detailed review and analysis of an organization’s administration, management, and service delivery functions against international standards of best practice. COA has a total of 47 program service standards of which RCS is subject to 22, made up of 1,160 individual standards. Based on their findings, COA’s Accreditation Commission voted that RCS either met or surpassed all 1,160 standards and met criteria for re-accreditation within two-weeks of their site visit. COA accreditation demonstrates accountability in the management of resources, sets standardized best practice thresholds for service and administration, and increases organizational capacity and accountability by creating a framework for ongoing quality improvement.
RCS’ Chief Executive Officer, Victoria Kelly, shares “RCS welcomed four peer reviewers from COA to review our agency against their stringent set of standards for high-quality, client-driven services as well as ethical and transparent business practices. They spent three days visiting all of our sites, interviewing our staff, and speaking with clients to gain a better understanding of who we are and the work we do. We received overwhelmingly positive feedback from them, all around! RCS is so proud of our incredible staff and clients and we are honored to have had the opportunity to share our work, our culture, and our community with the COA team.”
During the exit interview with RCS Leadership, the COA review team shared the following:
“RCS is truly a community within a community” and it was shared that throughout all the organization, it was clear there was not a different RCS experience at each site, but “one Redwood”.
Ethics were clearly defined and incorporated into the culture, as measured by the conduct and practices of staff.
RCS staff are “authentically able to truly own their role” and it was noted a culture of strong connectivity between programs. During interviews, many staff commented that it’s “a privilege to work at RCS, feeling deeply cared for, with space to grow and be flexible”.
RCS has quality improvement, and COA standards, “embedded into its culture as an organization-wide process”.
Achieving COA accreditation means our organization is among the best in the field. We are proud to be a part of this community of excellence since 2015.
To learn more about COA, please visit www.coanet.org. To learn more about RCS, including accessing referrals for services, please visit: www.redwoodcommunityservices.org.
Press Contact: PR@redwoodcommunityservices.org