Customer Stories
Shaping Outcomes demonstrates commitment to best practice, quality and safeguarding with Centro QMS
Shaping Outcomes, an early childhood intervention service, has been in operation in the Tweed and northern NSW region for over 40 years. There have close to 30 members of staff covering a large area from the Gold Coast in southern Queensland through to Grafton.
Most of their staff are early childhood educators, focusing on the developmental stages for children and helping them reach their milestones as close to their peers as possible and in as many natural settings.
Shaping Outcomes programs and services are consistent with early childhood education, inclusion, and disability philosophies. They provide services to schools, homes, community access points, extracurricular activities such as dancing and sport. They help educate not just the family members, but also the staff and volunteers in those environments to ensure those kids have the best platform for inclusion possible moving forward.
Policy Pain & Administrative Stress
We spoke to Colin Usher, CEO, Shaping Outcomes. He reminisces back to an NDS Executive Leaders Conference about 3.5 years ago before COVID hit, and Centro ASSIST had a stall there.
At that time, “we were just looking at all our policies and procedures and there were 139 policies across our organisation. It was quite overwhelming for our staff to be across that many and even our Board to understand them and review them regularly.” He shares that they were stored across different platforms including hard copy variations, and he was looking at what things could help alleviate this administrative stress.
It was at this Conference, the conversation with Centro began and Shaping Outcomes soon jumped on board.
‘Great bones’ for Policy & Procedures
"“It’s been great for us to be able to watch Centro evolve over the years. We have grown together.”
When asked about the policy content within the system, Colin responds “it is written generically, but it needs to be, as it applies to a whole bunch of different spaces within the NDIS.” He highlights, “there’s a beauty in being able to personalise it and relate it back our business. The bones are there, and they’re great bones! The policies allow us to just add some colour and add a bit of flavour here or there.”
“We’ve been able to add things in and develop our own processes in addition to the ones already provided. We’ve been able to design workflows in the system and make sure it’s understandable.”
Colin shares that they have one location for all their incidents, continuous improvement, and risk management strategies. He says that Centro has built this into their system and “have been really supportive of us, our organisation, and what we need to provide to the NDIS (National Disability Insurance Scheme) to make sure that their levels of quality and safeguarding are well and truly met.”
The Recertification Process
Colin candidly speaks of Shaping Outcomes’ recent recertification process that takes place every three years and understands how it might be a daunting process for some organisations. It was something new for him to experience as he was a Board member in previous years and only exposed to bits and pieces. He acknowledges that it’s a very costly process for an organisation to go through, so he wanted to ensure the external auditors brought in an outside perspective and identified not only what things the company is doing well, but also highlight areas for growth and opportunity.
Auditor’s initial response was… an eye roll!
“We were talking about policies and procedures, and revealed we use, Centro. The Auditor gave a shimmy and a shake, and a bit of a roll of the eye.”
Colin felt this required a follow-up and explanation. The external Auditor revealed “I’m not usually a fan of these automated services. They normally try to tick a box, and a lot of organisations just use them as a generic tool to move them into the next space.”
Shaping Outcomes, “That’s not how we use it”
To which Colin responded, “That’s not how we use it. For us, it’s a tool to ensure that we’re doing things well.” He continued to explain, “We use Centro within our business to ensure we are practicing the best methods; we are using it as a quality and safeguarding control measure as well.”
Incident Reports & Risk Management
Colin found himself demonstrating the Centro System to the external Auditor, starting with Incident Reports and Risk Management. The moment a staff member inputs an incident, he is notified via direct e-mail. He can then respond to that incident within the same day or within 24 hours and ensure procedures are correctly followed and an outcome is achieved.
“It’s been our one-stop-shop for our staff. They don’t have to think about where they must go. They simply log in and complete their incident report. All our risk assessments and risk management strategies are in there too – we’ve updated them, and we have a review process. The team know it’s captured, and they don’t have to stress about it.”
Continuous Improvement
The demonstration moved into Shaping Outcomes’ Continuous Improvement Register showing how each item links together. They even walked through a few examples with the documents linking together and how they keep tight version control.
“When I get an email update from Centro introducing new policies, I take them to the Board, ask them to approve them and ratify them. It’s become a real system of support. It helps that the system has an easy interface and is user friendly too.”
Internal audit
Colin shares, “you guys have brought in the internal audit program and functionality as well. So, we were able to show her that we’ve mapped out our internal audits, and we are using the knowledge testing for our staff to make sure they are across the proper C1 C2 C3’s and all those sort of governance issues. Centro made it seamless to be able to prove what my staff have done that in the last 12 months and what the results were.”
Simple user interface
Colin shared, “I have some older staff that we were concerned might not engage that well with the platform, but they’ve just jumped at it, and they’ve seen the benefits of it. We took them through a bit of training at first. It’s been a straightforward process and whenever they’ve had an incident, they’ve called me. I’ve been able to walk it through them over the phone, and because it’s that easy, I’ve never had to train them again. They know how it’s done, and they find it easy to use.”
Product feedback, features & enhancements
When we asked about product development and enhancements, Colin says, “Centro’s grown with us. They’ve implemented things based on our feedback and they’ve always been thankful for these developments.” The product updates regularly and he appreciates the communication and rollout of these enhancements. There’s a culture of continuous improvement and growing with the customer base and meeting their needs.
Policy writing, “pure gold”
From an organisational perspective, having a team of Centro policy writers is “pure gold,” especially “for people who don’t sit down every day, read the NDIS Act, and understand how it operates. It’s wonderful having a professional team and knowledge base there for us.” Colin recalls their 139 original policies, now being condensed into 66 policies and procedures. It’s with the help of Centro that these “are the only ones necessary for us under our certificate. It’s brought the workload down for our admin staff.
Ongoing support
There’s constant support when “there’s been in an issue or when there’s something we’re not sure about, we contact the information line.” He plays tribute to the Centro Support team, “most of the responses are within the same working day, if not within 24 hours. We’re stoked with that level of service as well.”
The flip! The External Auditor’s shimmy and shake turned into…
“A head nod with wide eyes going, wow! This is great!” she said. “You’ve changed my opinion on what Centro can be used for and how it can support an agency or a service provider.” That’s right, a complete backflip. She continued, “Now I can see what can be done with that program and what you use it for and how you use it. It’s a tool to make sure your business is working better and more efficiently. Centro meets all the standards and you’ve changed my opinion on it. Now when I go to another audit and they mention they use Centro, I can now grill them on all the things that they should be doing with it.”
Colin concludes, “It just shows that we are committed to best practice, quality, and safeguarding, and we couldn’t have done without Centro – we would have found it difficult to do. You guys have made it easy.”
If you’re ready to discover a flexible, cloud-based QMS solution tailored to disability and aged care providers, book a demo today.