In 2018, Suicide Prevention Australia launched The Best Practice Hub (The Hub), an online tool to provide a best practice register listing suicide prevention programs and services that meet a prescribed level of evidence on their effectiveness. The Hub included online resources that promote ‘best practice’ in suicide prevention. The Hub was an initiative that identified a necessary aid to ensure suicide prevention programs and services in Australia are safe, high quality and effective.
Suicide Prevention Australia in consultation with members and stakeholders reviewed The Hub and recommended a refocussing of The Hub as a centre for a quality improvement program for suicide prevention programs and services. In addition, best practice guidelines, resources, tools and materials were provided to support the continual improvement.
Suicide Prevention Australia engaged Quality Innovation Performance (QIP) to achieve the project aims and focussed on a quality improvement framework for the suicide prevention sector, developing resources and guides to complement the Accreditation Program.
The Accreditation Standards v1.0 were developed in consultation with members and stakeholders. Six standards covered a defined area of program implementation.
In 2022, the Standards v1.0 underwent a minor review. The purpose of the review was to improve usability and clarity of the standards, identifying improvements to the operation of the accreditation process.
The review included:
The feedback from these consultations suggested that restructuring the contents of the standards would support organisations in the accreditation process. There was a significant overlap between many of the Standards (and the subsections in them). This was viewed as a strength and a challenge, as it created a holistic framework however, it created repetition.
Amendments and recommendations were implemented with the development of Accreditation Standard v2.0.
An evaluation of Accreditation Standard v2.0 is currently being tendered for with results being delivered in March 2024.
The poster will visualise the evolution of the Accreditation standards within a short period of time including high level plans for how the standards will improve over the coming years utilising recommendations from the evaluation. Programs that have already undertaken the program will also be showcased as part of the poster presentation.