The Program Inventory consists of three parts: (1) an Organizational Profile; (2) the Welcome Walk Through; and (3) the Accreditation Self Study. (Each is described more fully below.) Once you have submitted all three parts:
- Your application will be reviewed for completeness. You will be notified by email and asked to submit any missing items.
- The CAPRSS staff will calculate the cost of the site visit and send an invoice for the site visit fee, which ranges from $1500 for small organizations to $6500 for large ones.
- A Peer Review Team will be assigned. They will begin a review of of your application, in preparation for a Peer Review Site Visit.
The first part of your application is the Organizational Profile.
This online form gathers information to create a “snaphot” of your organization. It starts with information that you will have provided when you registered your organization (which you can edit or update), and adds depth to the data. The profile is divided into seven sections: (1) Basic Information; (2) Profile of Participants; (3) Peer Recovery Support Services; (4) Paid and Volunteer Staff; (5) Facilities and Sites; (6) Governance; and (7) Budget and Finance. The information collected will help the Peer Review Team to get a good sense of the size and scope of your organization.
The second part of your application is the Welcome Walk Through.
The Welcome Walk Through can be an effective tool to gain an understanding of the needs of prospective or new participants. It is designed to simulate a person’s initial contact with your PRSS program, by asking questions about five topics: (1) initial phone contact; (2) ease/convenience in reaching the site; (3) impressions of the site; (4) processes to engage new participants; and (5) overall observations.
Before completing the online questions, someone will need to do a literal walk-through of your site—make the phone call, drive to the facility, visit the site—to experience what it is like to be someone who is trying to find out information and join your program.
After the Welcome Walk Through: Suggestions
- Discuss with peer leaders and staff what went well with the walk through, what didn’t go well or was confusing, and what you would do differently the next time around.
- Make a list of practices that seem to work well from walk-through.
- Make a list of the areas that need improvement along with suggested changes to attempt.
- Discuss how to implement the relevant change ideas— include the perspectives of the peer participant, family member, peer leaders, and staff.
The third part of your application is the Accreditation Self Study.
In order to be accredited, your program will be required to meet standards in four general areas: Principles; People; Practices; and Performance. The online self study tool is organized by domains in those four areas. In it, you will answer questions about criteria for performance under each of the standards, which will help you to examine the strengths and challenges your organization has in each of the domains. At the end, you will receive a brief report on the results.
It will be helpful to involve individuals throughout your PRSS program, including peer participants, in a participatory process to answer the questions in the self study. Depending on the size of your organization, it may be useful to divide into working groups or to use existing committees to complete different areas of the study.
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