Guiding Principles

We believe that community-based human services organizations are in a state of continuous learning – and harnessing that learning can help you create positive change for the people who use your services, for your community, and for your organization.

FOCUS’ Quality Improvement and Accreditation Program provides organizations like yours with the current standards, tools and forums to assist in providing services that meet or exceed your stakeholder expectations. Everyone benefits when an organization is transparent, accountable and committed to ongoing learning and improvement.

Our Vision

Empower Canadian human service organizations to achieve excellence through accreditation.

Our Mission

Provide leadership to community-based human service organizations by supporting, accrediting, and promoting continuous quality improvement in their operational and service delivery.

Our Mandate

To provide community-based human service organizations with comprehensive standards for their operations and services. By adopting the FOCUS standards, organizations demonstrate their commitment to achieving a high level of organizational excellence in their sector and enhancing their accountability to stakeholders.

Our Values

• Accountability
• Collaborative service delivery
• Continuous improvement
• Knowledge transfer
• Leading systemic change

Our Objectives

• To develop an accreditation system that reflects the expectations and needs of Canadians
• To develop and continuously improve standards which reflect current best-practice and leading thinking
• To provide accreditation for human services organizations of all sizes and budgets
• To develop expertise on quality improvement in the human services sector
• To develop a forum for sharing ideas and information
• To promote a culture of continuous quality improvement