Capstone

Message from The President
Building a Community Bridge

by James F. Gardner, President and CEO, The Council on Quality and Leadership

Our 35th Anniversary year began in July 2004. This offers the opportunity to look back, but also, and more importantly, to look ahead – to construct the bridge to connect our traditions and accomplishments to a progressive and relevant agenda for the future.

Most of the conditions in the 1960s that caused The Council to come into being are no longer challenges. Deplorable conditions in large public institutions are being eliminated, and both the number of public institutions and people residing within them are steadily decreasing. The federal government, through the Home and Community Based Waiver, is supporting people with disabilities in community settings. Litigation, legislation, and advocacy have produced significant reforms in the education, employment, health, and residential service systems for people with disabilities.

However, new circumstances and conditions provide challenges and obstacles for people with disabilities. Poverty for people with disabilities is rampant. People with disabilities are still not afforded their full respect, dignity, and legal and human rights regardless of setting.

Most importantly, despite our successes, we have not adequately defined our expectations for and definitions of quality of life for people living “in the community.” Our vision of institutions, non-productive day activity centers, and community isolation is justifiably bleak, but we are still struggling to define a corresponding positive vision of quality of community life for people with disabilities.

The Council continues to work in two distinct arenas: We address today’s realities and problems with our quality definitions, methods, and tools; and we define the challenge to do even more with our visions, values, and conceptual frameworks.

This dual approach to quality provides the rationale for our work on the Quality Measures 2005. This has been our top priority for the past 18 months and it forms the basis for our work in the years ahead. We want to build on the solid foundation of our work from the 1970s, 80s, and 90s. We want to extend our vision of quality from the individual focus of The Personal Outcome Measures to community quality of life. We feel both honored and privileged to provide a leadership bridge from our traditions and values to our progressive vision of an inclusive community for all people.

As we prepare to introduce our new Quality Measures 2005, I want to emphasize five points:

1. Our new Quality Measures 2005 will be a comprehensive set of quality measures that includes sections on Shared Values, Basic Assurances, Responsive Organizations, Personal Outcomes, and Community Life. We want to share these Quality Measures 2005 with self-advocates, families, organizations, and public and private agencies throughout the world. We hope that many different audiences will use this resource material to help created a world of dignity, opportunity, and community inclusion for all people.

2. The Quality Measures 2005 build upon the dialogues that we have had with participants at our Quality Connection and National Leadership Conferences during these past three years. The overwhelming positive international response to our themes of quality of life, social capital, and community is reflected in these themes in our new work.

3. We are currently piloting various applications of these Quality Measures 2005. These applications include a Values Alignment, a Certification in Basic Assurances, an Excellence Award for Responsive Organizations, an Accreditation Program, and an Assessment of Community Life. These quality improvement options for customers will provide great flexibility and can be tailored to individual capabilities and priorities.

4. The Council remains committed to the traditions, values, and methodologies associated with The Personal Outcome Measures. The Quality Measures 2005 will contain an updated and modified set of Personal Outcome Measures that contain 21 items. This new set of Personal Outcome Measures will continue to anchor the accreditation program.

5. The Council will conduct Accreditation field tests of our new quality measures and their application in the Fall of 2004. The field tests will involve the simultaneous use of the current measures and methodology as well as the new measures and methodologies. This dual application will allow The Council to compare organizational performance under the current accreditation system with the results under the new accreditation system. We will then establish accreditation criteria that ensure comparability between the current and new accreditation systems.