Accreditation
The standard you can depend on.
Everyone’s talking about the ‘new’ retirement with a focus on active and independent lifestyles, and many retirement villages across Australia have embraced this shift in their approach to services and facilities.
Today’s retirees are looking for a lifestyle that offers comfort, convenience, security and quality facilities for recreation and social living. Villages have responded by developing new services, designing new facilities and adapting their environments to meet the growing popularity of this kind of this lifestyle.
For those looking to make the move to a village, knowing where to start can be daunting. How do you select a village that will meet your particular needs? And more importantly, how can you be sure that it will live up to its promises and how can you assess it against others in the market?
For an overview -
Accreditation Flyer
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157 kb
Here’s how
The Australian Retirement Village Accreditation {ARVA} Scheme is a national accreditation system setting the benchmark standards for retirement villages to meet as a minimum.
A collaborative approach between the Retirement Village Association Ltd {RVA} and Aged Care Queensland Inc. {ACQ} serves to ensure that the national Scheme is relevant and available to retirement villages in Australia, regardless of their membership status.
The scheme sets out 29 standards, each with a number of distinct criteria to be met. These standards and criteria are reviewed annually to ensure they remain effective, relevant and current.
Importantly, the accreditation standards aim to ensure a reliable and external testing mechanism is in place to assess whether villages continue to meet the criteria and requirements set.
Accreditation Schedule of Fees
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The Aim
To provide residents, prospective residents and the wider community with greater confidence that your village is well managed, promotes resident involvement, provides quality services and a safe environment, and
To provide all parties or stakeholders with a set of “best practice” standards and a continuous improvement tool to ensure that your village provides high quality services and meets resident’s expectations.
What is Accreditation?
Accreditation is a detailed comparison of an organisation’s services and operations against a set of national standards that focuses on:
- Resident outcomes.
- Current industry best practice.
- The organisations commitment to continuous improvement.
- Conformance with legislation.
- Professional business practices.
How is a village accredited?
The accreditation application is a two part process. The first part involves a self-assessment where the applicant village measures its own performance against the ARVA Standards. The second part is an on site assessment carried out by an independent accreditation survey team.
The survey team assesses the village against the standards and produces a detailed report on their findings.
The Standards
The standards are designed to monitor, review and improve:
- Resident services and lifestyle.
- Organisational management.
- Human resource management.
- Physical resource environment
Each standard has a statement of “requirements” and a list of “criteria”.
The standards are realistic, fair and transparent and they form a base line (minimum acceptable) for the operation of villages.
Villages achieving Accreditation are those where:
- Residents are actively represented in village affairs.
- Residents are kept informed about village operations, including finances.
- Residents’ dignity, privacy and confidentiality are respected.
- Residents are informed of the availability, range and cost of services offered.
- The village encourages residents to access a range of activities and become involved in the wider community
- Residents are treated equitably and with respect.
- There is a dispute resolution mechanism in place.
- Management provides support to the Residents Committee.
- Management, residents and staff regularly consult on activities and operations of the village.
- All financial and contractual arrangements are clearly documented.
- A system is in place to ensure conformance with relevant legislation and regulations.
- The village demonstrates commitment to quality management and continuous improvement.
- The village environment is safe and ensures the comfort of residents, staff and visitors.
Why Accredit?
Accreditation is not about status, wealth, location or size, nor is it based on a rating system.
It’s about positive outcomes and how the village…
- Delivers high quality retirement living that focuses on resident satisfaction and quality of lifestyle.
- Improves information flow, communication, consultation and participation between residents and the village management.
- Ensures access to a safe and well maintained village environment.
- Ensures ongoing review and monitoring of village management, practices and services to residents.
- Provides an effective management framework.
- Provides a positive and goal orientation team environment for staff and contractors.
- Receives valuable feedback from the survey team and uses that feedback for continuous improvement.
It is about self regulation and industry responsibility in showing…
- Demonstrated commitment to high standards through ongoing review.
- Confirmation to consumers and government that the industry strongly supports self-regulation through its commitment to ARVA Standards.
- That by committing to the standards, it strengthens
the retirement village concept as a most desirable
lifestyle choice for residents for example:
- Contributing to quality of life for residents through respecting individuality, privacy and independence.
- Delivering appropriate, accessible and affordable services and support.
- Residents are enabled to conveniently enjoy the facilities of their village.
- Residents sense of physical and emotional security and comfort is increased.
- Providing dependable and timely information to residents informing them of village affairs.
Whenever you see the ARVA logo of accreditation, you will know that the village participates in “best practice” principles by complying with the ARVA Scheme. You will know that the village is built on a responsible and ethical foundation with a commitment to quality and a focus on improved resident lifestyles and services.