Standards and Accreditation
Minimum standards can be a useful tool to guide victim support organisations in developing high quality, effective, efficient and consistent services. Minimum standards can reduce the risk of services harming victims and wasting scarce resources. Moreover, minimum standards give VSE confidence in its Members and help protect VSE’s reputation. This confidence is also likely to be reflected in national institutions and victims’ attitudes towards those services. Finally, such standards can guide organisations and governments around the world who are developing and improving victim support services.
The standards for accreditation are based on the following premises:
- These are minimum standards, to be complied with by all full members which deliver services for victims of crime;
- Standards are adopted with the presumption that all full members will be accredited as soon as possible: until accreditation is achieved, their status as full members will not be affected whatsoever;
- Standards are set to help members develop their systems and services and are not established as an obstacle to membership.
Specific information on each of the nine standards for accreditation can be found on their respective pages:
1 Making services accessible to victims of all types of crime
2 Respecting victims and treating them with courtesy and dignity
3 Working to ensure victims are safe
4 Responding to individual victims’ needs
5 Supporting victims through diversity of services
6 Delivering for victims through referrals and co-ordination
7 Ensuring good governance structures
8 Achieving quality through training
9 Improving our services through monitoring and evaluation
At this moment, VSE would like to offer its members a possibility to perform a self-evaluation with the help of a questionnaire we have developed based on the nine service standards as well as various resources that explore these standards in more detail.
The most exhaustive resource is VSE’s Guidance document. You may access it here:
Please access the self-evaluation questionnaire here
